Introduction to the Bible (Full Series)

Hi, this is Matt Baker. Last year, I did a seven-part series on who wrote the Bible. Well, today I'm releasing the entire series again, but this time as a single video. I've titled it "Introduction to the Bible from an Academic Point of View" because not only do I cover who wrote each book and when, but I also cover how the whole thing is structured and how the Bible's development is connected to the history of the ancient Near East. So, let's get started.

Let's start with some basic terminology. A lot of people think of the Bible as being exclusively a Christian book. They think that Christians have the Bible, Muslims have the Quran, and Jews have the Torah. But this is not quite correct. You see, Jews also have a Bible. We call it the Tanakh, but it is also simply known as the Jewish Bible. As you probably know, Christians divide their Bible into the Old Testament and New Testament. Well, what Christians call the Old Testament is actually the exact same book as what we Jews simply know as the Jewish Bible, or the Tanakh.

What about the Torah then? Well, Christians call the first five books of the Old Testament the Pentateuch, meaning the five scrolls. These are Genesis through Deuteronomy. For Jews, these same five books are called the Torah. So, the Torah is simply the name for the first five books of the Tanakh, which happened to be the exact same five books as the first five books of the Christian Old Testament. So, it doesn't matter if you pick up a Jewish Bible or a Christian Bible; other than some minor translation differences, the first five books are going to be exactly the same.

Now, there's a third Jewish book you might have heard of that also starts with a T. That's the Talmud. But the Talmud is not actually considered part of the Jewish Bible. It's an entirely different book, comprised of oral traditions and commentary on those traditions written by rabbis. What we're going to be concerned with in this episode is just the Torah, or Pentateuch, AKA Genesis through Deuteronomy. So, let's dive in.

From a traditional point of view, the answer to the question, "Who wrote this part of the Bible?" is easy. It was Moses. And for some Orthodox Jews and Evangelical Christians, there is simply no questioning that. But for the majority of Jews today, like myself, as well as most Christians, the answer is not so simple. As I mentioned in my video on "Did Moses Exist?", from a historian's point of view, Moses is more of a legendary character, and the stories about him quite clearly include many literary elements. It's also very obvious to language experts who studied the Torah that it is definitely not the work of a single author. Rather, it clearly consists of many layers that were pieced together over time.

Now, this actually makes a lot of sense considering that the Torah deals with events that were initially passed down orally. Whenever this happens, you usually wind up with multiple versions of the same story, and this is exactly what you find in the Torah. For example, there are two separate creation accounts, two separate stories of Abraham lying about his wife Sarah, two accounts of God changing Jacob's name to Israel, and so on. According to some tallies, there are about 30 examples of these kinds of doublets in the Torah.

So, what almost every scholar agrees on within the field of Pentateuch studies is that there were definitely several distinct authors involved. But what they do not agree on is exactly who those authors were and in which order they contributed their material. Because of this, I cannot present you with one definitive answer to who wrote the Torah and when. Therefore, I'm going to present you with three different theories and let you make the final decision.

The first theory is the one that you're most likely to have heard of if you're at all familiar with any of this. It's called the Documentary Hypothesis, and it's been around since the 1800s. Nowadays, there are many variations of it, but the basic idea is that the Torah was pieced together from four different original sources. These have been labeled the Yahwist, Eloist, Deuteronomist, and Priestly sources, or more commonly, J, E, D, and P. Note that I'll be using these four letters extensively throughout the rest of the video.

So, according to the Documentary Hypothesis, Genesis, Exodus, and Numbers are all a mix of J, E, and P. Leviticus is entirely P, and as you might have guessed, Deuteronomy is entirely D. Note that the black areas of the chart represent other texts that do not fall into the main four. The original theory was that J was written during the reign of Solomon, when the Israelites were supposedly united and at the height of their power. E was written by someone in the breakaway Northern Kingdom of Israel. D was written during the reign of Josiah, after the fall of the northern kingdom, and P was written after the Jews returned from Babylon.

Now, like I said, there are many different variations of this theory. For example, nowadays J and E are often combined into a single source. P is sometimes placed before the Exile, and D is usually divided into two or more stages. But the basic theory remains the same: multiple sources combined together to create the Torah sometime during the Second Temple period. However, the main problem with this theory is the overall timing. The latest research from archaeology indicates that the Bible greatly exaggerates its description of Solomon's reign. In fact, many scholars today believe that there likely never was a unified kingdom, and that the Israelites were probably not strict monotheists until the reign of King Josiah.

Which brings me to the second theory: the Supplementary Hypothesis. The Supplementary Hypothesis is kind of an updated or modified version of the Documentary Hypothesis. It's probably the most popular view nowadays, although keep in mind that there are also several different versions of it. According to this theory, Deuteronomy, or D, was the original version of the Torah, and it was indeed written around the time of King Josiah. Some scholars believe that this is when monotheism really started to be promoted in a big way for the first time. The reason being that it was a way to unify the newcomers from the north with the original inhabitants from the south.

But in a major change from the original theory, J and E are no longer seen as separate sources, but rather as supplementary material that was added alongside D during the Babylonian exile. And P is seen as an additional set of supplementary material added by priests during the Second Temple period. Finally, scholars now talk about a final author called R, for Redactor, who added just a few more things here and there before the Torah was finally complete. So, rather than four separate sources, instead we get a single source with additional material being added to it over time.

So, that's basically where 21st-century biblical scholarship currently stands on the matter. However, there is a new theory being explored nowadays, mostly in Continental Europe. It came to my attention through a book called "Genesis and the Moses Story," originally written in German by Conrad Schmidt. I'm going to label this theory the Dual Origins Theory. The main idea is that the ancient Israelites originally had two separate origin myths: one involving the three patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the other involving Moses and the Exodus story.

According to this new theory, these two literary traditions developed independently from each other and remained separate until they were combined for the first time by the Priestly writer. So, D, which is obviously based on the Moses tradition, was written down first during the time of King Josiah. But at the same time as D, as well as both before and after D, there were other fragments of text floating around, some of which were based on the Moses tradition, but others of which were based on the Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob tradition. Then, sometime during the Second Temple period, a group of priests living in Jerusalem decided, for the first time ever, to combine the two literary traditions into a single, coherent narrative. They took bits from both the patriarchs' story and bits from the Moses story—these are the sections that were previously labeled J and E—and then they interwove them with their own text, the parts labeled P. Finally, someone at an even later stage, the Redactor, or R, added a few final things. Tack Deuteronomy onto the end, and voilà, the final version of the Torah was born.

This third theory makes a lot of sense to me. It explains why the transition between Genesis and Exodus seems so abrupt, and why there are several chronological problems when it comes to dating how long the Israelites were in Egypt. In my view, everything prior to the Divided Monarchy falls into the category of myth and legend anyway, and therefore I see no problem with the idea of two separate sets of legends developing instead of just one. In fact, considering that the ancient Israelites were originally two separate kingdoms, it actually makes more sense that there would be two separate origin stories, not just one.

So, what biblical scholars are slowly starting to realize is that when it comes to the history of ancient Israel, we've basically had it backwards. Up until recently, the idea was that Israel was a united nation first, and then a divided nation second, because that's what a literal reading of the Bible tells us. But as we continue to learn more from archaeology and literary analysis, we're discovering that the exact opposite was actually true. The Israelites were originally two separate nations, and then only later, after Assyria destroyed the north, did they become a truly unified people. Remember, after the north fell, many refugees from the Kingdom of Israel headed south and joined the Kingdom of Judah. So, the unification happened not during the days of David and Solomon, but during the days of Hezekiah and Josiah, and then again after the Babylonian exile.

Now, here's the part that I haven't heard anyone say yet, so keep in mind that this is pure conjecture at this point. In my opinion, I think it's more likely that the Moses tradition was the origin story developed in the northern kingdom, and the Abraham, Isaac, Jacob tradition was the origin story developed in the southern kingdom. For a long time now, scholars have associated D with Levite priests from the northern city of Shiloh, even though it was eventually compiled in the south, in Jerusalem. As I mentioned in my video about Moses, the tribe of Levi has several interesting connections to Egypt and may have been the only tribe involved in some sort of historical Exodus. Overall, it would appear that Moses was more of a northern hero, and Aaron was adopted as more of a southern hero. The southern priests were actually a bit negative toward Levites in general and were known for believing that only their particular lineage, which they traced to Aaron, was truly legitimate. Joseph, the other main character associated with Egypt, was also more of a northern hero. He was supposedly the progenitor of the two largest northern tribes, Ephraim and Manasseh. In contrast, in the South, Judah was portrayed as being the most important son of Jacob. In fact, it's possible that Joseph was originally not thought of as a son of Jacob at all. Note that Jacob has two names: Jacob and Israel. Maybe these were originally two separate people. Maybe Jacob was the father of Judah, and Israel was the father of Joseph. Maybe it was only later that Jacob and Israel were merged into a single character.

So, interestingly, the north has more associations with Egypt, and the South has more associations with Mesopotamia. Remember, Mesopotamia is where Abraham was said to originate from, and it is the Book of Genesis that incorporates mythology that is very reminiscent of Mesopotamian mythology, the flood story being a good example. Perhaps this material was picked up during the Babylonian exile. So, as is often the case, history is strongly influenced by geography. Because the Israelites were for so many centuries nestled between two major powers, Egypt on one side and Assyria-Babylon on the other, it's not surprising that they developed a culture that fused elements from both these powers and their various interactions with them. Anyway, like I said, this third theory is yet to be fully fleshed out. The second theory is the one that's currently the more mainstream explanation, but I think the Dual Origins Theory is very promising, and therefore I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I think it is likely to be the dominant theory in the future.

So, in episode 1, we learned that what Christians call the Old Testament is actually pretty much the same thing as what we Jews simply call the Bible, or the Tanakh. And in both cases, the first five books are Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Jews call these first five books the Torah, whereas Christians call them the Pentateuch. But basically, they are exactly the same.

Now, like I say, the rest of the Tanakh and the rest of the Old Testament is pretty much the same too. I say "pretty much" because there are two main differences. First, the order of the books is slightly different, and second, if you're reading a Catholic or Eastern Orthodox Old Testament, there are going to be a few extra books. This is something I forgot to mention in episode 1. But regardless of whether you are reading a Protestant Bible or a Catholic Bible, Christians usually divide the Old Testament into four sections. After the Pentateuch, you get history, poetry, and prophecy. The History Section has 12 books, although Catholics include an additional four. I've shown these books slightly shaded. Poetry has five books, seven if you're Catholic, and prophecy has either 17 or 18. So, in total, there are 39 books in the Protestant version and 46 books in the Catholic version.

Let me now explain to you how the Jewish Bible is slightly different from the two Christian versions. First off, the seven Catholic books, which are usually referred to as the Apocrypha, are not included. However, keep in mind that those seven books were in fact written by Jews and are considered by Jews to be important books of Jewish literature, but they are not official parts of the Jewish Bible. We'll be looking at them in episode 4 of this series. However, everything else you see listed on the Old Testament side is included in the Jewish Bible. It's just that the order and categorization is slightly different.

In the Jewish Bible, there are only three sections, not four. In Hebrew, these are called the Torah, Nevi'im, and Ketuvim, which is why the Jews call their Bible the Tanakh (TNK being an acronym for the three sections). Note that Nevi'im simply means Prophets, and Ketuvim means Writings. So, in the Jewish Bible, like in the Old Testament, you get the Torah first, followed immediately by Joshua and Judges. However, Ruth is placed in the Ketuvim. First and Second Samuel are combined into a single book, as are First and Second Kings. And then everything else in the History and Poetry section of the Old Testament, as well as Lamentations and Daniel, are placed in the Jewish Ketuvim. That leaves 15 remaining books, all from the Prophecy section. In the Jewish Bible, the book of Kings is followed by the Big Three Prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. And then, finally, the remaining 12 books, all of which are quite small in comparison, are combined together into a single book called The Twelve.

So, in this episode, it is these eight books in the Jewish Nevi'im that we're going to focus on. But keep in mind that all of this material is in fact included in the Christian Old Testament as well. So, who wrote these books and when? Well, according to tradition, you can find the answer simply by considering the name of each book. So, for example, Joshua was traditionally said to have been written by Joshua, and Isaiah by Isaiah. Judges and Kings, of course, are not personal names, so they're a bit more tricky. But basically, tradition states that Judges was written by Samuel, and Kings was written by Jeremiah. But as you might have guessed, from a historical point of view, things are a bit more complicated.

To explain, let's quickly review what we learned about the Torah in episode 1. Although there are several different theories and the details are still being worked out, most scholars today believe that the Torah was pieced together from the work of four different authors or schools of authors. These are labeled J, E, P, and D. Genesis is primarily a mix of J and P. Exodus is mostly E and P. Leviticus is entirely P. Numbers is also P with a little E near the end, and Deuteronomy is entirely D.

Let's now place the first four books of the Nevi'im next to the Torah. These four books are sometimes called the Former Prophets. According to most scholars, these four books were written by D, or to put it more accurately, by someone from the Deuteronomist school who attempted to explain the history of Israel and Judah according to the lens given in the book of Deuteronomy. You may remember that the core part of Deuteronomy is thought to have been written during the reign of King Josiah, during a time when many refugees from the Northern Kingdom of Israel were now settled in and an integral part of the Southern Kingdom of Judah. So, it's likely that the bulk of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings were all written during this period as well, which is why the story they tell seems to build towards and culminate in the reign of King Josiah, a boy king who was supposedly reintroduced to a lost law code.

However, please note that the five books shown here in blue, all written by the Deuteronomist school, were not fully completed during the reign of Josiah. In fact, scholars think that there are at least two layers within D: the first being written during Josiah's time, and the second being written later, after the fall to Babylon. And I should also point out that we can further divide the D material by some of the original sources that it initially relied upon. For example, within Deuteronomy is a section that stands out as being a complete document unto itself. This is known as the Deuteronomic Code and can be found in chapters 12 through 26. This law code may have existed as a unit prior to the time of Josiah and may have been the document that was supposedly found by priests and presented to the king. It is distinct from two other law codes that can also be found in the Torah. I didn't mention it in episode 1, but the Priestly Source actually contains a distinct unit called the Holiness Code, that may be older than the Priestly Source itself. It can be found in Leviticus 17-26 and is sometimes considered as a separate source, labeled H. Finally, there's the Covenant Code, considered part of E, found in Exodus chapters 20 to 23.

But back to the Former Prophets. The Book of Samuel appears to be centered around two story arcs, both of which may have originally existed as separate documents. These are often called the Accession History of King David and the Court History of King David. In a similar manner, the Book of Kings appears to rely heavily on two previous documents, now lost, known as The Chronicles of the Kings of Israel and The Chronicles of the Kings of Judah. Note that these are not the same as First and Second Chronicles, which we'll be talking about in the next episode.

Joshua and Judges are likely based on many sources. One of these is a hymn known as the Song of Deborah, found in Judges chapter 5, verses 2 to 31. Based on its grammar, some scholars believe it to be one of the oldest texts in the entire Hebrew Bible. Interestingly, it names nine Israelite tribes instead of the usual twelve. I should also point out a source that is mentioned in the Book of Joshua and several other places. This is the Book of Jasher. Although there are several books available today that claim to be the original Book of Jasher, these have all been demonstrated by scholars to either be deliberate forgeries or works written during the Middle Ages. The original Book of Jasher is unfortunately lost.

So, as you can see, the Bible has many layers. Parts were combined with other parts, and then those combined parts were put together with other combined parts to make even longer parts, and so on. The final result in this part of the Hebrew Bible was nine books that tell the complete history of the Israelite people from the creation of the world to the fall of Jerusalem. Now, whether or not these first nine books were ever thought of as a single unit is something that is up for debate, but it certainly seems like a good possibility because, although it is comprised of many sources, the way it was put together does seem to have a certain thoughtfulness to it.

Okay, let's now look at the rest of the Prophets section, sometimes called the Latter Prophets. In order to do that, I'm going to use a timeline. Several people commented on episode 1 that I should have included dates, so I'm going to make sure that I include dates this time. As you can see, this timeline is divided into four main periods. The first period goes from 850 to 722 BCE, and I've labeled it the Dual Monarchies Period. During this period, there were two Israelite kingdoms: Israel in the north and Judah in the south. I use 850 as the starting point because this is approximately when the two kingdoms first appear in the archaeological record, and I use 722 as the end point because this is when the northern kingdom fell to the Assyrians. So, from 722 to 586 BCE, there was only one Israelite kingdom, the Kingdom of Judah. But in 586, Jerusalem and the First Temple were destroyed by the Babylonians, and some of the Judahites were forced into exile. The third period begins in 539 BCE, after Babylon was conquered by Cyrus the Great. Judah was now under the control of Persia, and the Jews were allowed to return and rebuild their Temple. That new Temple is usually referred to as the Second Temple. Finally, in 331 BCE, Alexander the Great burst onto the scene, and Judea came under Greek rule. This lasted until 167 BCE, when the Jews rebelled and finally achieved independence again under the Maccabees.

So, let's start by adding the Torah to the timeline. But remember, there are several different theories about when the various parts of the Torah were written, so keep in mind that what I'm showing here is just one of the possibilities. Here, we're going to assume that J and E were perhaps written during the Dual Monarchies period, and that P was written after the Exile. What almost every biblical scholar does agree on is that D can be firmly placed in the Single Monarchy period, during the reign of King Josiah. And as we just learned, this is when the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings were likely written as well, although remember that this was a process that was likely not finished until after the fall of Jerusalem.

Okay, let's now talk about the remaining books in the Nevi'im. The first is the Book of Isaiah, supposedly written by the prophet Isaiah. What almost every scholar agrees upon, though, is that the Book of Isaiah can be divided into at least two parts. The first part, chapters 1 through 39, was likely written by the original Isaiah, often called First Isaiah, who lived near the end of the Dual Monarchies period. However, the second part, chapters 40 to 66, was likely written by a follower of his school of thought who lived during the Babylonian exile and shortly thereafter. This author, or more likely group of authors, is usually called Second Isaiah, although sometimes Second Isaiah is divided into a Second and Third Isaiah. So, in other words, the Book of Isaiah is more the work of a school of authors rather than of a single prophet. This is why it deals with both the fall of the northern kingdom and then the fall of the southern kingdom.

Now, before I move on, I want to mention something else about the Book of Isaiah because it's likely to come up in the comments. As many of you know, I'm Jewish, and one of the questions that Christians love to ask Jews is, "How do you explain the verses in Isaiah which obviously refer to Jesus?" Here are just two examples of what they're talking about. Feel free to pause and have a quick read. So, yeah, at first glance, to anyone familiar with the Jesus story, these verses do seem to be referring to the birth and death of Jesus, events that would happen hundreds of years after the Book of Isaiah was written. So, to Christians, these are obvious prophecies about Jesus.

Now, I'm not going to argue that Christians are wrong. If you're a Christian and you believe that these verses refer to Jesus, that's fine. I understand that that's a key part of your religious faith. However, what I will take issue with is the idea that there is no other way to explain these verses and that Jews purposely avoid talking about them. That's simply not true. From a historical point of view, Isaiah 7:14 was likely written by First Isaiah and was addressed to King Ahaz of Judah. The word "virgin" is better translated as "young woman," and the "son" is probably a reference to Ahaz's son, Hezekiah, who became the next king and who ended up defending Judah against the Assyrians. Isaiah chapter 53 was likely written many decades later by Second Isaiah. It is part of a series of poems known as the Servant Songs. According to Jews, the suffering servant described in these poems is not Jesus, but rather the people of Israel. Israel as a whole. There are several verses throughout the Book of Isaiah like this one that back this up. So, yeah, it's up to you how you want to interpret those scriptures, but please know that there are several options available.

Let's now return to the timeline and discuss the next prophet, Jeremiah. Unlike Isaiah, who was a member of Judah's royal family, Jeremiah came from a priestly family. In fact, his father was likely Hilkiah, the high priest under King Josiah. This places Jeremiah around the time of Jerusalem's fall and squarely within the Deuteronomist school. In fact, from a literary point of view, there are many stylistic similarities between Jeremiah, the D source, and Joshua through Kings.

Next up is Ezekiel, a slightly younger contemporary of Jeremiah. He too lived through the fall of Jerusalem and, in fact, was one of the people who ended up in exile in Babylon. But unlike Isaiah and Jeremiah, it is thought that he probably didn't write any of the book that bears his name. Instead, the Book of Ezekiel was likely written by some of his followers during the Persian period. In the same way that Jeremiah has strong literary associations with D, Ezekiel has strong literary associations with P. So, it seems that whoever wrote the Book of Ezekiel was probably part of the same school of priests who wrote the Priestly Source.

Okay, so that covers the Big Three Prophets. Note that Christians call these three the Major Prophets and include Daniel alongside them. However, note that for Jews, Daniel is not considered a prophet, and the book that bears his name is included in the Writings, which I'll be covering in episode 3. For this episode, that leaves us with the Minor Prophets. Like I mentioned earlier, the 12 Minor Prophets are included in the Jewish Bible as a single book called The Twelve. But in the Christian Old Testament, they are considered 12 separate books. For our purposes here, I'm going to quickly consider each one separately and place them on the timeline in chronological order.

First up is Hosea and Amos. In terms of complete books, these two are likely the two oldest books in the entire Bible, which may come as a surprise to you, as they are placed nowhere near the beginning. They were written a little earlier than First Isaiah, probably by two individuals who were in fact named Hosea and Amos. It is from the Book of Amos that Martin Luther King Jr. quotes in his "I Have a Dream" speech when he says, "Until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream."

Chronologically next up come Micah and Zephaniah, two books that are often associated with Isaiah and therefore perhaps best fit as part of the Isaiah school. Note that the Minor Prophets are called minor not because they are less important, but because they tend to be quite short. This means that most of them are likely the work of a single author, a historical person who matches the name of the book. But keep in mind that even in the case of the Minor Prophets, there are sometimes sections of each book that were likely added later by someone else. Micah is a good example of this. Although most of it was written by an actual Micah in the Dual Monarchies period, some parts were written much later, during or after the Babylonian exile.

Okay, next up come Nahum and Habakkuk. Both of which were likely written late in the Single Monarchy period, during the transition between Assyrian dominance and Babylonian dominance. In fact, neither book is about the Israelites. Nahum is primarily about Assyria, and Habakkuk is primarily about Babylon. We then get Obadiah, who was likely a member of the Deuteronomist school. His book is the shortest in the entire Old Testament and relates to the kingdom of Edom. Next we get Zechariah, whose work shares some similarity to Ezekiel's, and Haggai, both of whom wrote during the Persian period.

We then get two books that are rather difficult to place. There's Jonah, which is more of a story than a prophetic book. Although the Book of Jonah centers around a character named Jonah who supposedly lived sometime during the Single Monarchy period when Assyria was still the dominant power, most scholars today consider it to be a work of fiction written late in the Persian period. And then there's Joel, whose prophecy is very general and which includes very little context. It too was likely written late in the Persian period, mirroring the style of earlier prophets.

Last but not least, we have Malachi. Whereas Muslims call Muhammad the Seal of the Prophets, for Jews, it is Malachi who is considered to be the final Prophet. The name Malachi simply means messenger, so it's unclear whether or not Malachi was actually a real name or simply a way to keep the book anonymous.

So, let's start with the Book of Psalms, which is unique in that it's the only book in the Bible that consists entirely of words that were meant to be sung. Some of the Psalms are what we would today call hymns, whereas others are closer to prayers or poems, but in each case, they would have originally had music to go along with them, music that unfortunately has been lost to time. But one thing that has not been lost, in most cases, is the name of the author of each Psalm, or at least the person to whom the Psalm is associated with. According to the text itself, 73 are attributed to King David, 12 to someone named Asaph, 11 to the sons of Korah, 2 to Solomon, one to Moses, one to Ethan the Ezrahite, and one to Heman the Ezrahite. 49 are anonymous, for a total of 150.

Another thing that the text makes clear is that the Book of Psalms can actually be divided into five smaller books. This offers us further clues into who wrote each Psalm and when. For example, the majority of the Psalms attributed to King David are found in Book One. This book may therefore represent the oldest part of the collection. However, keep in mind that just because a Psalm starts with the phrase "of David," it might not mean that David himself wrote it. The phrase might also mean "for David," which is the reading that most modern scholars prefer. Either way, if you're looking for one of the classic Davidic Psalms, such as the famous "The Lord is my shepherd," the best place to look is in Book One.

Book Two also contains several Psalms attributed to David, but in this section, there is a very notable difference. If you watched part 1 of this series, you'll remember that two of the sources of the Torah are known as J and E. I didn't mention it at the time, but the reason for this is that each source uses a different name for God. The J source uses the personal four-letter name that we Jews never pronounce, whereas the E source uses the more general term Elohim. The reason why I didn't mention it in episode 1 is because these days, scholars actually place far less importance on this distinction than they did in the past. However, I bring it up now as a way to point out the major shift that occurs at the start of Book Two in the Psalms. Whereas Book One mostly uses the four-letter personal name for God, Book Two mostly uses the word Elohim. This probably indicates that each collection came from a different place and/or time. Book Two is also where we find most of the Psalms that are attributed to the sons of Korah. Korah, who is known as Karun in the Quran, was the cousin of Moses who rebelled against him. However, his descendants went on to serve in the Temple as Levites, and one of their duties was singing songs.

Book Three is where we find the 12 Psalms attributed to Asaph, which probably means that they were written by a group of Levites known as the Asaphites, who, like the Korahites and Ezrahites, were responsible for singing in the Temple. Near the end of Book Three, after the last Asaph Psalm, the name used for God switches back to the four-letter name, which is then used for the remainder of Book Three, as well as Books Four and Five. Books Four and Five are where we find the majority of the anonymous Psalms.

In episode 2, I introduced this timeline, which I used to tentatively date the four sources of the Torah, as well as the various prophets. I'm now going to take away the Minor Prophets to make some room for the books in this episode. So, because the Book of Psalms is a collection of 150 different compositions, it's impossible to place it at a single location. Most scholars believe that some were definitely written before the Exile, and some were definitely written after. I'm therefore going to indicate it as a range, like so.

Before I move on, I should point out that the Book of Psalms is thought to be related to a now-lost book that Muslims call the Zabur. According to the Quran, Allah revealed several books to various prophets over the centuries prior to the one received by Muhammad. One of these was called the Zabur, and is said to have been revealed to David. For this reason, the Zabur is usually associated with the Psalms. But according to Muslims, the Book of Psalms that exists today is a corrupted version of the original Book of Zabur. Muslims believe something similar about the Torah. They believe that God gave the Torah, or Taurat, to Moses, but that the version we have today is not the original.

I received several comments on episode 1 stating that the four-source theory is evidence that the original Torah was corrupted. Well, I suppose that is one way to look at things, but please keep in mind that there is currently no evidence from either archaeology or linguistic analysis to indicate the existence of much older versions of the Torah and Psalms which then became corrupted or lost. The idea is entirely theoretical and must be accepted based solely on faith, not on historical evidence. Don't misunderstand; I'm not saying that it's always wrong to believe something based on faith. I'm just saying that it's important to know the difference between which of your beliefs are based solely on faith and which are based on verifiable history.

Okay, next up is the Book of Proverbs. It too is not really a single book, but rather a collection of texts written by different people during different time periods. Basically, it can be divided into six sections. Although the book begins with the phrase, "The Proverbs of Solomon, son of David," most scholars believe that the first nine chapters are actually a prologue, probably added during the Persian period. This initial section consists of 15 separate poems dealing with specific topics. The word "proverb" refers to a short, wise saying, and therefore the Proverbs section of the book doesn't actually start until chapter 10. That's where we start getting the one-liner bits of wisdom. This section goes until chapter 22, verse 17, and likely represents the original core of the book, perhaps written by Solomon himself, or perhaps attributed to Solomon as a means of establishing authority.

Either way, sections 3 and 4 are not associated with Solomon. Section 3 begins with the phrase, "Listen to the words of the sages," and goes on to tell 30 wise sayings. And section 4 begins with, "These are also by the sages," and includes five more. The interesting thing about section 3 is that a good portion of it seems to correspond directly with a work of ancient Egyptian literature known as the Instruction of Amenemope, which dates to around 1000 BCE. So, it seems that the ancient Israelites recognized this Egyptian work as being important and decided to incorporate it alongside the words of their own people.

Moving on, section 5 starts with, "These are more Proverbs of Solomon, compiled by the men of Hezekiah, king of Judah." So, these are perhaps later editions attributed to Solomon, but written during the reign of King Hezekiah. Finally, in section 6, we get three final poems: one by Agur, son of Jakeh, from Massa; one written by Lemuel, the king of Massa; and the final one being anonymous. As to whether the kingdom of Massa was a real place or a fictional creation, no one is really sure.

So, like Psalms, because Proverbs is a collection of several different sayings and poems by several different authors, it's impossible to place it at just one location on the timeline. I'm therefore going to indicate it as a range as well.

Alright, let's now look at the Book of Job, which addresses the age-old question: If a good God exists, why then do horrible things so often happen to good people? Unlike most characters in the Hebrew Bible, Job does not fit anywhere on the biblical family tree. His story is set outside of the land of Israel, sometime during the age of the Patriarchs. As to when the story was written and by whom, that is also unclear. What we do know is that the book is written in a very strange form of Hebrew and uses certain vocabulary words that don't show up in any part of the Tanakh. Nowadays, the leading theory is that it was likely written during the Persian period by someone who spoke Aramaic as a first language and only knew a very old, formal version of Hebrew, kind of like a German person today writing something in the style of Shakespearean English.

The next five books are grouped together, at least in Jewish tradition. In Christian tradition, their placement is quite a bit different. The reason why Jews place these five together is because A) they are all relatively quite short, B) they are all late additions to the Hebrew Bible and are thus all highly literary in nature, as opposed to being more historical or theological, and C) each of these five books is associated with a particular Jewish holiday: Song of Solomon with Passover, Ruth with Shavuot, Lamentations with Tisha B'Av, Ecclesiastes with Sukkot, and Esther with Purim.

Let's start with the Song of Solomon, the only book in the Bible that could be described as being erotic poetry. As the name suggests, it is associated with King Solomon, but very few scholars today would say that Solomon was the actual author. As is often the case, the date of composition can be narrowed down by studying the vocabulary and grammar used in the text. In this case, like in Job, it seems to be heavily influenced by Aramaic. Aramaic was the lingua franca of the Persian Empire, and throughout the Persian period, it slowly replaced Hebrew as the main language in Judea. However, the Song of Solomon also shares certain similarities to love poetry written by the Greeks, and is thus the first book I've mentioned so far that can probably be placed during the Greek period. As to what the name of the author was, sadly, we cannot say. It was common at the time to put a famous person's name at the beginning, in this case, Solomon's, rather than one's own.

Next up is Ruth. In the Christian Bible, Ruth is placed after the Book of Judges because chronologically, this is where the story fits. But as with most of the books in the Ketuvim, the Book of Ruth was written many hundreds of years after the time period in which it was set. A good analogy would be the historical fiction that is written today. Imagine that someone 2,000 years from now found a novel written in the 21st century but set during the medieval period. They might initially assume that the author was living during medieval times, but the more they studied the text and other texts, they'd realize that the author actually lived much later and was simply writing about an earlier time.

In the case of Ruth, we once again can't name an exact author, but from the context, we can take a guess that it was probably written during the Persian period. This is because the topic matter concerns the marriage of an Israelite man to a non-Israelite woman, something that was an important matter of debate during the Persian period.

Next is Lamentations, which comes from the word "lament," meaning an expression of grief. In this case, the grief is over the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians. This allows us to date the book to sometime around this event. Traditionally, the author is said to have been the Prophet Jeremiah, which is why Lamentations is placed directly after Jeremiah in Christian Bibles. However, it's possible that the book was actually written by five different authors. This is because the book is comprised of five separate poems, each taking up one chapter, and each being written in a very different style. They do all have one common feature, though: they are structured on the Hebrew alphabet. The first four are all acrostics, meaning that each line starts with a different letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The fifth poem is not an acrostic, but it does have 22 lines, corresponding to the exact number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet.

We now come to Ecclesiastes, known in Hebrew as Koheleth, meaning something like a chairperson who presides over an assembly or meeting. Traditionally, the author is said to have been King Solomon, but again, the language used points to a much later date. Like Ruth, it was probably written by an anonymous author during the Persian period. Ecclesiastes is a strangely pessimistic, brooding sort of book, but one that has inspired authors and poets for centuries, including the likes of Shakespeare, Tolstoy, and Hemingway. It's a good example of how the Bible has had such a strong influence on Western culture that even those who know nothing about the Bible are familiar with phrases that come directly from it. For example, the phrases "eat, drink, and be merry," or "there is nothing new under the sun," or "this song..." All of these lines come directly from the Book of Ecclesiastes.

Okay, the final book in this set of five is Esther, the only book in the entire Bible that does not mention God, not even once. It's also the only book in the Hebrew Bible that was not found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, which indicates that it was probably one of the last books to be included in the Jewish canon. For Jews, the story is quite clearly meant to be a comedy. From its over-the-top characters to the almost slapstick situations they find themselves in, it's quite clear that the whole thing was designed to be more of a fictional play than a historical account. The overall mood can be sensed in the way that Jews celebrate the Festival of Purim today. Unlike most Jewish holidays, which tend to be more serious, Purim is a party day associated with dressing up in costumes and, well, drinking large amounts of alcohol.

The story of Esther is set during the Persian period, so obviously it couldn't have been written before that. The assumption is that it was probably written during the early Greek period, in which the good old Persian days provided a good setting for a funny story. Finally, remember the Mesopotamian gods' family tree that we covered on this channel two weeks ago? On that tree, there are two characters named Ishtar and Marduk, names that are eerily similar to Esther and Mordecai, the two main characters in the Book of Esther. It is likely that the Esther and Mordecai story was loosely based on much earlier Ishtar and Marduk stories, which would have been very common in Babylonian culture.

Which brings me to an important point. As we've seen, much of the content in the Hebrew Bible is based off material taken from other nearby cultures. For example, the creation and flood accounts are quite clearly based on Sumerian myths, and as we've seen, some of the Book of Proverbs is taken directly from older Egyptian texts. But does this mean that the ancient Israelites were just copycats and that we should ignore their writings and go straight to the older material instead? No, of course not. Often, whenever one artist or writer is inspired by the work of another artist or writer, they'll create something that is similar to the work that inspired them, but they will also put their own unique spin on it. This is certainly true of the ancient Israelites. Sure, they often reused the mythological stories and literary tropes that were common during their day, but they also always changed things in small but important ways in order to make points that supported their own unique worldview. You see, it's always important to keep...

In mind that the original purpose of the Bible was not to simply record literal history or to make scientific statements in the way that we would today. Rather, it was to share ideas about God and about the purpose of life, things that can't always be expressed in straightforward ways.

I've received a lot of comments so far that go something like this: "If you don't believe that characters like Abraham and Moses were historical, why then did you convert to Judaism?" Well, my response is this: It doesn't matter to me who wrote the books of the Bible or when. Likewise, it doesn't matter to me whether the stories are strictly historical or mostly fictional. The point is, somebody at some point wrote them, and from a literary point of view and my own personal point of view, those books contain some very interesting ideas about God and about the purpose of life.

Okay, we've got a few more books to cover. I'm not going to say much about Daniel in this episode because I've decided to do an entire episode on Daniel together with Revelation at the end of this series. For now, I'll just put it on the timeline as being written very late in the Greek period. I'll be explaining why I put it there in that future episode.

That leaves Ezra, Nehemiah, First Chronicles, and Second Chronicles, which in the original version of the Jewish Tanakh were just two books: a combined Ezra-Nehemiah and a combined book of Chronicles. The interesting thing about these four books is that they were likely written by a single author, or at least by a single school of authors who edited them in a way so that the end result was a unified story that covered everything from Adam to the rebuilding of the temple. This is why much of the material in Chronicles is the same as the material in Samuel and Kings; it's basically a second account of the same narrative from a different author. Traditionally, that author is said to have been Ezra, and it's also thought that Ezra was the person who put together the final version of the Torah. Unlike in most of the cases we've looked at, there is less reason in this case to doubt the traditional view. This is because the character of Ezra fits firmly within a historical setting rather than a literary one.

Okay, so that concludes our look at the Jewish Tanakh, aka the Old Testament. In the next episode, I'll be tackling the books that Protestants call the Apocrypha and that Catholics call the deuterocanonicals, as well as a few other books that didn't make it into most Bibles.

It's important to realize that there was never a single point in time when all of the various religious authorities in the ancient world got together and decided which books should be included in the Bible and which ones should not. Instead, the contents of the Bible grew slowly over time, with various books being put in and others being taken out, and with different religious authorities making different decisions in this regard.

So, although I've been emphasizing throughout this series that Jews and Christians share most of the Old Testament in common, there are actually a few exceptions that I would now like to focus on. So far, we've looked at the three main sections of the Jewish Tanakh, equaling 24 books in total. As I've mentioned previously, the Protestant Old Testament consists of these exact same 24 books, simply reordered and divided into 39 books. However, we're now going to consider the versions of the Old Testament used by the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Ethiopian Church.

All three of these Bibles contain the 39 core books of the Old Testament, but they also each contain some extra books. Catholics have seven extra books for a total of 46. The extra books are Tobit, Judith, Baruch, Sirach, First and Second Maccabees, and the Wisdom of Solomon. According to Catholics, these books are called the deuterocanonicals, meaning "second canon," whereas according to Protestants, they are called the Apocrypha, meaning "obscure or uncertain." In addition to these seven books, the Catholic Old Testament also includes additions to both Esther and Daniel.

The Eastern Orthodox Old Testament also includes these same seven extra books. However, it also includes three more for a total of 49. These are First Esdras, Second Esdras, and Third Maccabees. It too includes the additions to Esther and Daniel, as well as one extra Psalm and an addition to Chronicles known as the Prayer of Manasseh. Finally, the Eastern Orthodox Old Testament also includes a 50th book, Fourth Maccabees, but it is listed as an appendix and not one of the core 49.

Then there is the Ethiopian Old Testament, which is the largest of them all. First of all, it divides Proverbs into two books, and hence the core part has 40 books, not 39. It also includes everything we've mentioned so far, except for the three Maccabees, so that brings us to 47. But it also includes seven unique books found only in the Ethiopian Bible, bringing its grand total to 54. Those books are First, Second, and Third Maccabean, which are different from First, Second, and Third Maccabees, Jubilees, Enoch, Fourth Baruch, and Josephan.

Okay, so now let's look at each of these extra books one by one. To do so, I'm going to bring up my timeline, which I used in the previous two episodes. You'll notice that generally speaking, the Torah and the Prophets represent the older books, whereas the Writings tend to be the books that were written later. This is why I prefer the Jewish ordering. It's not just because I'm Jewish; it's because the Jewish ordering makes the evolution of the Bible more clear. The Torah was clearly thought to be the most important part, followed by the Prophets. Most of the Writings, though, were written much later and they are far more literary, hence it makes more sense to include them at the end rather than to sprinkle them throughout.

What we're about to discover is that the apocryphal or deuterocanonical books represent a second set of writings that were written even later. So, in order to make room for their placement, we need to expand our timeline to include the next three periods in Jewish history: the Hasmonian period, the Herodian period, and the post-temple period.

The Hasmonian period began in 167 BCE when a family of Jewish priests known as the Maccabees, or more formally the Hasmonians, managed to win independence for Judea. Their rule continued until 37 BCE when the throne passed to Herod the Great. By that point, Judea was a client state of Rome, but it did still retain a certain degree of autonomy. However, in 70 CE, the Romans destroyed Jerusalem, as well as the Second Temple, and ushered in the final period on this timeline, which I have named the post-temple period.

Okay, so now that our timeline is set up, let's start with the Book of Tobit. Tobit is a collection of several stories set shortly after the Assyrians conquered the Northern Kingdom of Israel. They center around a couple named Tobit and Anna, and their son Tobias, who ends up marrying a woman named Sarah. However, it also prominently features an angel named Raphael and a demon named Asmodeus. This already makes the Book of Tobit quite a bit different from the books that made it into the Hebrew Bible. It might surprise you to learn that angels are rarely mentioned by name in the Hebrew Bible, and demons do not appear at all. In fact, the only book in the entire Hebrew Bible to mention an angel by name is the Book of Daniel. As I mentioned in the last episode, Daniel was written late in the Greek period. Well, Tobit was written by an anonymous author around the same time. This is why they have several features in common, such as the inclusion of spiritual beings with names. By this point, Judaism had been strongly influenced by Zoroastrianism, the main religion in Persia. This is why from this point forward, we find a much more detailed spiritual world within Jewish literature, for example, more angels and demons.

The next book is Judith. Judith, like Esther, is best thought of as being a work of historical fiction. In this case, it is set during the time when the Babylonians were conquering Judah. The story revolves around a woman named Judith, who uses her wit to sneak into the enemy's camp and behead a general named Holofernes. However, it is likely that the story is actually an allegory about the beheading of a much later enemy, a Seleucid general named Nicanor, who was killed by the Maccabees. The evidence for this interpretation is based on the fact that the military terminology, political institutions, and geographical boundaries mentioned in the book all match those of the Hasmonian period, indicating that this was when the book was written.

Next up is the Wisdom of Sirach, a book that is kind of like Proverbs and is sometimes called Ecclesiasticus. Unlike Tobit, Judith, and so many other books, we actually know the name of the person who wrote this one. His name was Joshua ben Sira, or Jesus ben Sira, hence the title Sirach. We also know exactly when he wrote it because he mentions the name of the high priest at the time, Simon II. This puts it right at the end of the Greek period, just before the Hasmonian takeover. We also know that a prologue was added to the book several decades later by his grandson, and this prologue is particularly helpful in understanding how and when the Jewish canon was formed because it contains the earliest mention of the tripartite division of the Tanakh. Sirach chapter 1 verse 1 reads: "Many great teachings have been given to us through the Law and the Prophets and the others that followed them."

Moving on, let's now consider the Book of Baruch. According to the Book of Jeremiah, Baruch was the prophet Jeremiah's scribe. That would mean that he lived around the time of the Babylonian exile. However, due to the language used in the book, it is unlikely that Baruch actually wrote Baruch. As is often the case, it is more likely that a later anonymous writer simply wrote the book as if it was written by Baruch. And although the book deals with the loss of the temple due to the Babylonians, it is likely that what it is really talking about is the loss of the temple that occurred just prior to the Maccabean Revolt. This would place its composition around the same time as Judith.

Next is the Book of Wisdom, also known as the Wisdom of Solomon. Another Proverbs-like book that was supposedly written by King Solomon, but almost certainly was written much later, probably around the same time as Baruch, based on an analysis of the grammar and vocabulary used. Baruch and Wisdom are thought to be the two earliest books on this chart to have been originally written in Greek. This is in contrast to Tobit, Sirach, and perhaps Judith, which were originally written in Hebrew and only later translated to Greek. We know this partly because Hebrew fragments of both Tobit and Sirach were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The final two books in the Apocrypha are First and Second Maccabees. However, please note that these two books are not part one and part two; instead, they are two different versions of the same events written by two different authors. First Maccabees was originally written in Hebrew by someone living in Judea, whereas Second Maccabees was written in Greek by someone living in Alexandria, Egypt. Both were written around 100 BCE. We do not know the name of either author. However, Second Maccabees is supposedly a condensed version of a now-lost five-book series about the Maccabees written by a man named Jason of Cyrene. The Maccabees are, of course, associated with the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah. However, please note that the miracle of the oil story is actually not mentioned in either First or Second Maccabees. The earliest mention of that part of the Hanukkah story is actually in the Talmud. Anyway, if you want to learn more about the Maccabees and the Hasmonian period from a historical point of view, I'd recommend watching the video on this channel where we go through their family tree. I'll link to that in the description.

Okay, as I mentioned earlier, the Apocrypha also includes several additions to Esther and Daniel. In other words, the Greek versions of those two books are longer than the original Hebrew versions because at some point, someone added some bonus material, probably written in Greek from the start and added around 100 BCE. In the case of Esther, the additions are sprinkled throughout and end up changing the tone of the entire work from that of a comedy to that of a more serious tale. In contrast, the additions to Daniel consist of three large chunks: the Prayer of Azariah, which is part of the fiery furnace story; Susanna and the Elders, a story about two creepy old men sexually harassing a woman; and Bel and the Dragon, which is actually two stories, one about corrupt priests and one about Daniel slaying a dragon.

So that takes care of all the Catholic deuterocanonical books called the Apocrypha by Protestants. However, as I mentioned, the Eastern Orthodox and Ethiopian Bibles include several more books. Let's start with First and Second Esdras. Again, these are not part one and part two, but rather two totally different books by two totally different authors. The first thing you need to know is that Esdras is simply the Greek version of the name Ezra, and we already have a Book of Ezra, as well as a Book of Nehemiah, which in the original Jewish Bible was considered to be a part of the Book of Ezra. First Esdras is basically a Greek version of the original Book of Ezra with some changes, written in the late Hasmonian or early Herodian period. Second Esdras, however, is something totally different. It was written in Latin after the rise of Christianity and falls into the category of apocalyptic literature.

Next is Third and Fourth Maccabees. Third Maccabees actually has nothing to do with the Maccabees; it's a story about Ptolemy IV's persecution of the Jews about 40 years prior to the rise of the Maccabees. It was written in Greek around the same time as First Esdras. Fourth Maccabees is kind of a commentary on Second Maccabees. It too was written in Greek, but much later, around the same time as Second Esdras.

That takes care of everything included in the Eastern Orthodox Bible, which leaves us with the books that are found only in the Ethiopian Bible. Let's start with the books of First, Second, and Third Maccabean. Although the name derives from the word Maccabee, these Ethiopian books are totally different from First, Second, and Third Maccabees. For one thing, they are written in Ge'ez, which is the ancient language of Ethiopia. The first two do appear to be loosely based on the Maccabees, but with the names and locations in the story changed significantly. For example, the evil king in the Ethiopian version is a man named Sirud Satan. Interestingly, coins of Antiochus IV, the villain in the original story, often included the city names Tyre and Sidon, which could be where the name Sirud Satan comes from. Third Maccabean, however, has nothing to do with the Maccabees and instead focuses on Bible characters such as Adam and David. All three of the Ethiopian Maccabees were likely written very late in the post-temple period, almost as late as the fall of the Western Roman Empire.

We then have Fourth Baruch, which is designated as such because there is also a Second Baruch and a Third Baruch, even though neither of them ended up being included in any Bible. Anyhow, Fourth Baruch was likely written in Greek sometime in the post-temple period. However, Josephan was written much later than anything we've seen so far. In fact, it was probably written in Italy well into the Middle Ages. Even though it was written in Hebrew, and its name comes from the fact that it was said to have been written by Josephus, it's kind of a recap of Jewish history. But because it was written so late, I'm going to place it completely off the chart.

In contrast, the Book of Jubilees, which was also originally written in Hebrew, was composed much earlier, likely around the same time as First and Second Maccabees, which is why fragments of it have been found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. It's kind of an alternative Book of Genesis, and in fact, is sometimes called Leptogenesis, meaning "the Lesser Genesis." It centers around the idea of the Jubilee cycle, a concept from the Torah in which the land is given rest every seven years, and then after seven cycles of seven, there is a special Jubilee year. According to the Book of Jubilees, the Exodus from Egypt occurred in the 2451st year after the creation of the world. 50 multiplied by 49 equals 2450, which means that the Exodus occurred at the start of the 50th set of 50 years, making it a Jubilee of Jubilees. I'll be returning to this calculation in September when I plan to do a video on the Jewish calendar.

Okay, last but not least is the Book of Enoch, which in my opinion is the most interesting of all the apocryphal books. It takes its name from a minor Bible character named Enoch, who shows up on the genealogy between Adam and Noah. In Islam, this character is known as Idris. However, the Book of Enoch was obviously not written by Enoch. It was written during the Greek period, and one of the things that makes it so interesting is the fact that parts of it are likely older than Daniel, Daniel being the last book that made it into the Tanakh. So, basically, every other apocryphal book except Enoch was written after Daniel, which makes Enoch special. On top of this, it is also the only apocryphal book that is referenced in the New Testament. In fact, it's referenced seven times in these verses.

Finally, I should also point out that several Hebrew and Aramaic fragments of the Book of Enoch have been found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. However, the most important thing you need to know about the Book of Enoch is that it's actually five books, and that each book was likely written by a different author at a different time. There's the Book of Watchers, the Book of Parables, the Book of Astronomy, the Book of Dreams, and the Epistle of Enoch. The oldest section is the Book of Watchers. This is the part that was likely written in the Greek period, before the Book of Daniel, whereas the latest section is the Book of Parables, written during the post-temple period. I'm going to focus on the Book of Watchers because that's the part that tends to come up the most when people talk about the Book of Enoch.

The whole thing is basically based on a few short verses in Genesis that go like this: "When people began to multiply on the face of the ground, the sons of God saw they were fair and they took wives for themselves. The Nephilim were on earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went into the daughters of humans, who bore children to them. These were the heroes that were of old, Warriors of renown. The Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of human hearts was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and he grieved to his heart. So the Lord said, 'I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have created—from human to animals to creeping things to birds of the air—for I am sorry that I have made them.'" (Genesis 6:1-7, NRSV)

What follows is the flood story. So, it seems that these few somewhat puzzling verses that read more like pagan mythology than the rest of the Bible are given as the explanation for the flood. Well, according to the Book of Enoch, the phrase "sons of God" refers to a special group of angels called the Watchers, whose job was to watch over the newly created humans. The Book of Enoch basically fleshes out the Genesis account and describes how fallen angels end up having sex with human women, resulting in a race of giants known as the Nephilim. As I mentioned earlier, the Tanakh doesn't really give much information about angels or fallen angels, but the Book of Enoch does. It lists the names of many angelic beings, such as Samyaza, the leader of the Watchers; Azazel, the fallen angel who teaches humans to use metal and to make weapons; and Uriel, one of the good archangels who acts as Enoch's guide.

So, if the Book of Enoch includes so much extra information, why then did it not make it into the Jewish Bible? To explain, I need to tell you a bit more about what was happening during the Greek period of Jewish history. In episode 1, I put forward the idea that the ancient Israelites were originally two separate kingdoms with two separate origin stories: one that involved Moses and one that involved the three Patriarchs, and that it wasn't until after the fall of the Northern Kingdom that the idea of monotheism really took off, when most of the Northerners fled south and joined the Kingdom of Judah to create a unified state and a unified religion. This religion, which can be called First Temple Judaism, was short-lived because not too long after it got going, the First Temple was destroyed, and the elite were exiled to Babylon. But as you're hopefully aware of by this point, the Jews were eventually allowed by the Persians to return and rebuild their Temple. It is probably sometime during this period that the two origin stories were combined for the first time and that the final version of the Torah was compiled, creating a new religion that could be called Second Temple Judaism.

However, over the next several hundred years, particularly by the time that the Persians were replaced by the Greeks, several different groups emerged within Second Temple Judaism, each with their own slightly different understanding of the religion. The three main groups were the Pharisees, who were mainly scribes and teachers; the Sadducees, who were the priests; and the Essenes, who were the most mystical of the three. When the Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE, the Sadducees basically disappeared because there was no longer a temple for them to use. At this point, the very bookish Pharisees ended up redefining Judaism, and it eventually evolved into Rabbinical Judaism, which is the type of Judaism that exists to this day. The Essenes are the group that we know the least about. They may or may not have been the ones responsible for making the Dead Sea Scrolls; these days, there's some debate about that. However, one idea is that they were the ones who were the most interested in stuff like angels and demons and a future Messiah. Because of this, some scholars have put forward the idea that the Essenes might have had a strong influence on the development of Christianity.

So, by the time that the biblical canon was finalized, which was sometime after 70 CE, Second Temple Judaism no longer existed, and instead, there were two main descendants left behind. On one hand, there was Rabbinical Judaism, and on the other hand, early Christianity. The rabbis, as the direct descendants of the Pharisees, were more concerned with the Torah and less concerned with later writings such as the Book of Enoch. In fact, the early rabbis interpreted Genesis 6 very differently than the way that the Book of Enoch does. They taught that the phrase "sons of God," which can also be translated as "sons of the powerful ones," did not refer to spiritual beings at all, but rather referred to some kind of noble line of humans that became corrupt. So, the rabbis did not include Enoch in the Jewish Tanakh.

The early Christians, on the other hand, seemed to hold on to the Book of Enoch a little longer. For example, 3rd-century Church fathers such as Tertullian and Origen both considered it to be divinely inspired. However, in 382 CE, at the Council of Rome, it did not make the final cut when the contents of the Catholic Bible were finally set in stone. Of course, it did remain in the Ethiopian Bible, which is why it did make it into this video.

So, the New Testament doesn't tell the story of Jesus only once; it tells it four times. Basically, that's what the Gospels are. They are four slightly different versions of the same story: a story about a guy named Jesus who, among other things, was a teacher, a healer, and, according to Christians, God in the flesh. So, the four Gospels are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They are placed in this order because originally that was the order in which they were thought to have been written. However, as we'll soon see, we now know that this probably was not the order in which they were written.

One thing that is clear about the Gospels is that one of them is very different from the others. That's the Gospel of John. The other three, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, are known as the synoptic Gospels, synoptic meaning "seen together." Although they have some differences, they also share a lot in common. If you think of each Gospel as being like four essays written by four different students, any teacher would immediately come to the conclusion that three out of the four students cheated. Either somebody copied from somebody, or they all worked together, or they all downloaded the same essay off the internet and made a few changes, hoping the teacher wouldn't notice. The puzzle over who copied whom has intrigued scholars ever since the Gospels were written. In academic circles, it is known as the synoptic problem, and there have been a lot of different theories put forward about how to solve the mystery. I'm going to look at three of them.

However, before I do that, let me quickly talk about the authors themselves. Contrary to popular belief, there are actually no author names attached to any of the four Gospels. The attributions to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are simply based on tradition. Two of the names, Matthew and John, are names belonging to the list of Jesus's 12 disciples. Mark is thought to have been an assistant to Peter, the leader of the 12 disciples, and Luke is thought to have been an assistant to Paul, arguably the most important figure in the development of early Christianity. So, in other words, all four Gospels have strong associations with very important early Christian figures. But did Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John actually write the Gospels that are attributed to them? Well, according to most conservative Christian scholars, the answer is yes. However, according to most critical scholars, the answer is probably not. Either way, I think it's useful to think of each author as representing more of a community or tradition rather than a single author. We saw something similar when we looked at the Old Testament; for example, the Book of Ezekiel was probably not actually written by Ezekiel. However, it was probably written by a member of a school of thought that originated with a man named Ezekiel. In a similar manner, even if the Gospel of Matthew wasn't actually written by Matthew, the disciple of Jesus, it was likely written by an author who belonged to some sort of community that had a connection to Matthew.

So, with that said, let's now look at three possible solutions to the synoptic problem. I'll start with the one that is by far the most accepted solution these days. It is called the two-source hypothesis. This hypothesis is based on the idea that Mark was written first, and that both Matthew and Luke used Mark as a source. However, it also introduces the idea of a second source, which was available to both Matthew and Luke, but not to Mark. This second source is called Q, but unfortunately, it no longer exists. The idea is that Q was simply a collection of short sayings attributed to Jesus. Some of the reasons why most scholars believe that Mark was written first include the fact that it is the shortest of the three synoptics, with very little material that is not found in the other two, as well as the fact that it uses grammar that is less refined and a theology that is more primitive. So, the basic idea is that both Matthew and Luke took what they found in Mark and attempted to improve on it, both by adding more content and by tidying up the language.

The second most popular solution is generally known as the Griesbach hypothesis, named after a German scholar who wrote about it almost 250 years ago. However, although this hypothesis is an older one, it's actually seeing kind of a rebirth these days. It argues that Matthew was written first, and that Luke was written second, using Matthew as a source, meaning that Mark was actually written last. The idea is that Matthew wrote his Gospel at a time when the Christian church was primarily still comprised of Jews; that Luke wrote his Gospel after Paul started to spread Christianity to the Gentiles, meaning non-Jews; and that Mark wrote his Gospel as a way to summarize the previous two and to put Peter's stamp of approval on both of them. Now, it is in fact true that Matthew is the most Jewish Gospel of the three, and that Luke is the most Gentile-focused. In fact, if we go by tradition, Luke is the only author in the entire Bible, both Old and New, that was not Jewish. Tradition holds that he was Greek and that he was a medical doctor by profession. However, according to critical scholarship, Luke may have simply been a Hellenized Jew. But the main problem with the Griesbach hypothesis concerns Mark. If Mark wrote last and had Matthew and Luke as references, why did he leave out key events such as the birth story and the post-resurrection appearances? Note that the oldest manuscripts of Mark end with chapter 16 verse 8, in which three women discover the empty tomb and simply run away afraid. Almost all scholars agree that verses 9 to 19 were added much later.

The last solution we're going to look at is a bit of a wild card. It's the most cutting-edge solution and therefore does not currently have widespread acceptance. It's called the Q+Papias hypothesis and was put forward by a professor named Dennis MacDonald. He is also known for putting forward the idea that the Gospel of Mark was modeled on the works of Homer. Like the two-source solution, this hypothesis holds that Q and Mark were written first. However, it differs in that it posits that Q was written before Mark and that Mark had access to it. This is why we get the term Q+. MacDonald adds more material to the hypothetical Q document, material which otherwise is usually assigned to Mark. Next comes Matthew, who had access to both Q+ and Mark, and then he adds a document called Papias. Papias was an early bishop who lived from around 60 to 130 CE. We know from later authors that he wrote a text called the Exposition of the Sayings of the Lord. This source is now lost; however, we have quotations from it found in the works of later authors. From these quotations, we know that Papias had access to three earlier sources. MacDonald suggests that these were Q+, Mark, and Matthew. Finally, the last synoptic author to write was Luke. Luke presumably would have had access to all four previous works.

Okay, so that covers the three synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. I'll place them on a timeline in a bit, but first, let's talk about John. And Acts. John, of course, is the fourth Gospel, but like I said earlier, it has very little in common with the other three. It's almost as if John is telling a completely different story. He adds lots of events that aren't mentioned in the other three and leaves out lots of events that are. And whereas the synoptic Gospels have Jesus giving a lot of short sayings, John more often has him giving longer, more complex speeches. One thing that most scholars agree on is that John's Gospel is more theological, whereas the other three are more straightforward narratives.

What do I mean when I say "theological"? I should probably elaborate because I've used the word several times in my various Bible videos but have never really explained myself. For example, I keep repeating that we have to remember that the Bible was written in order to make theological points, not to simply record history. You see, nowadays, we tend to divide all writing into two categories: it's either fiction or non-fiction. But ancient people didn't do this. Instead, they mixed the two, especially when talking about topics that are difficult to explain, like, you know, anything to do with God or theology. The word theology simply means the study of God. For example, the authors of the Jewish Bible held certain beliefs about God that they wanted to express, such as the idea that there is only one God and that God exists outside of the natural world. When they wrote, they weren't simply saying, "This happened, and then this happened, and then this, and so forth." Instead, they took people that they thought had existed in the past and made them into literary characters. They embellished the stories that they had heard about them, and sometimes even placed words into their mouths, words that expressed the ideas that they wanted to communicate in the present. In the Jewish Bible, even God is a literary character. This is why God often seems quite different depending on which particular book you're reading. Does this mean that God doesn't really exist? Well, not necessarily. Personally, I believe in God. Maybe you do too. Maybe you don't. But either way, I think it's important to understand that the God of the Bible isn't necessarily the God of reality. Rather, the God of the Bible is simply various authors' portrayal of God. Whether you believe that portrayal is accurate, inaccurate, or somewhere in between, that's up to you. And I think the same goes for the character of Jesus. Especially in the case of John's Gospel, obviously many Christians believe that Jesus said every single word that the Gospels say he said. But it's also possible that the Gospel writers took some artistic liberties, that they crafted their stories in a way so that they could make a point about who they thought Jesus was, rather than simply record, "He did this, and then he did that, and so forth." For example, Mark has Jesus hanging on the cross in pain, shouting as he dies, whereas John has him calmly making deep statements and then dying in a very serene way.

Okay, one more thing about the Gospel of John. According to some scholars, John has at least two layers. Instead of using the Q source, which was simply a list of Jesus's short sayings, it seems that John instead may have used a now-lost source known as the Signs Gospel, a text that listed the various miracles that Jesus was said to have performed. It's possible that John, or more likely a follower of John, used the Signs Gospel as a starting point and then worked the rest of the material around it.

Next up is the Book of Acts, also known as The Acts of the Apostles. Whereas the Gospels tell the story of Jesus up until his death and resurrection, Acts tells us the story of what his disciples, aka the Apostles, did after he was gone. In other words, it tells the story of how the Christian Church came to exist. And we happen to know who wrote it, well, kind of. The person who wrote the Book of Acts is the same person who wrote the Gospel of Luke. So, traditionally, that would be Luke the physician. In other words, Luke-Acts is actually a two-part work that has been unfortunately split up. A better way to arrange the first five books of the New Testament might be to order them like this: first Mark, then Matthew, then Luke-Acts, then John.

Let's now bring up a timeline. Every line on this chart represents a block of 10 years. Let's first add the lifetime of Jesus. There are various theories out there about when exactly Jesus was born, when exactly he died, and even whether or not he existed in the first place. The mainstream position is that he did in fact exist, and the most commonly used dates for his lifespan are 4 BCE to 30 CE. This means that in the year 100 CE, there were still people alive who would have known Jesus.

Now, other than Jesus himself, the most important person when it comes to the development of early Christianity is Paul. Paul was not one of Jesus's disciples when Jesus was still alive. Instead, he became a follower a few years after Jesus died, somewhere between 34 and 37 CE. Although Paul himself was a Jew, he was the person primarily responsible for taking Christianity from being a minor sect of Judaism and making it into a brand new religion that consisted mostly of non-Jews. Traditionally, Paul is said to have lived up until the reign of Emperor Nero and was killed sometime between 64 and 68 CE. We'll be talking about Paul more in the next episode when we delve into the Epistles, but for now, I thought it would be useful to put him on the chart for reference.

Now, the most important date for our understanding the development of both Judaism and Christianity is the year 70 CE. I mentioned that date in last week's video as the date for when the Second Temple was destroyed. Prior to this pivotal event, Judaism was a diverse religion with many different branches, one of which was early Christianity. But the destruction of the Temple forced Judaism to evolve. Personally, I like to think of 70 CE as the date for which both Christianity and Rabbinical Judaism were truly born. Both religions developed as a way to deal with the loss of the Temple. On one hand, the rabbis shifted the focus onto studying the Torah and meeting in synagogues for prayer, whereas on the other hand, the Christians shifted the focus onto the person of Jesus and on seeing his death as the replacement for the earlier Temple sacrifices.

All three of the synoptic Gospels reference the destruction of the Temple, unless one interprets these as being real prophecies, which many Christians do. This means that the earliest date for any of the synoptic Gospels is 70 CE. Most scholars do place Mark somewhere just shortly after 70 CE, and then Matthew and Luke-Acts somewhere around 10 years later. Q, if it did exist, would be placed before 70 CE, perhaps as early as the year 40. John, on the other hand, is usually placed last, around the year 100 CE. So, even though the Gospels may not have been written by the individuals they are now named after, they were all likely written during a time when people who had known Jesus were still alive, which means even if you're like me and don't believe that Jesus was the Son of God, the Gospels are still fairly good sources for gathering some basic information about his life.

Now, before I go, I want to address one more topic. Since I won't be doing a separate episode on the New Testament Apocrypha, I thought I'd bring up the most famous gospel that didn't make the final cut: the Gospel of Thomas. The Gospel of Thomas is one of many other non-canonical Gospels that still exist. That's right, we have dozens of other Gospels beyond just the four that made it into the New Testament. Most of these are thought to have been written much later. However, the Gospel of Thomas is the exception to this rule. According to some scholars, it may have been written around the same time as the main four. The other interesting thing about the Gospel of Thomas is that it was lost to time until a manuscript of it was found in 1945. You can imagine how excited biblical scholars were when this happened. At first, many thought it might be the Q source that had supposedly gone missing. This is because Thomas is primarily a collection of short sayings attributed to Jesus. However, when it was compared to the synoptics, it became clear that Thomas was not Q. It's similar, but it's obvious from the text that Matthew, Mark, and Luke did not use the Gospel of Thomas when writing their own Gospels.

So, who wrote this "quote unquote" Fifth Gospel, and how does it relate to the other four? Well, like I mentioned earlier, it is best to think of the Gospels as being the products of certain camps or communities rather than the works of single authors. So, for example, some scholars posit the existence of a Thomasean community and a Johannine community within early Christianity. The followers of Thomas saw the resurrection as being more of an act of spiritual enlightenment, whereas the followers of John saw it as being more of a factual, bodily resurrection. This would explain why John's Gospel paints the Thomas character as being the infamous Doubting Thomas, which just goes to show there was much disagreement among early Christians on how to understand Jesus. In fact, even the most conservative Christian scholars will admit that it took hundreds of years before all the various so-called heresies were stamped out and the more standard form of Christianity that we know today took hold. The fact that early on there was not a single Christianity, but rather many Christianities, is an important point that we will return to when we take a look at the Quran.

So, we're going to start with the nine letters written by Paul to specific churches. All nine of these letters start with the exact same word: Paul. Nowadays, when a person writes a letter, they usually start with "Dear So-and-so," in other words, they start with the recipient's name. However, when it comes to the New Testament Epistles, we get the opposite. The letters always start with the sender's name first, then the recipient, and then usually some kind of personal greeting.

Let's first take a look at a map to see the locations where each of these letters were sent. Romans, of course, was sent to Rome, which is the most familiar location on the list. First and Second Corinthians were sent to Corinth, Corinth being one of the major cities in Greece. Galatians was sent to Galatia; Galatia is the only place name on this list that is not a city. It refers to an entire region located right in the middle of Anatolia, what is today Turkey. We then get Ephesians, which was sent to the city of Ephesus on the coast of Anatolia. Next, Philippians, sent to Philippi, a city in ancient Macedonia named after Alexander the Great's father, Philip. Colossians was sent to the city of Colossae, yet another city in Anatolia. Finally, First and Second Thessalonians were sent to Thessaloniki, which is in the same region as Philippi.

Now, this series is called "Who Wrote the Bible?" So, the main question we need to answer is: Did Paul actually write these letters? As we've seen throughout this series, the person who is claimed in the text or by tradition to be the author is actually usually not the author. For example, according to most modern scholars, Moses did not actually write the five books of Moses, Solomon did not write the Song of Solomon, and Matthew probably didn't even write the Gospel of Matthew. It may therefore surprise you when I say that, according to most scholars, even the most secular, critical ones, Paul did in fact write most of these letters. There is some disagreement over Ephesians, Colossians, and 2nd Thessalonians, but the rest—Romans, First and Second Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, and First Thessalonians—are pretty much universally recognized as being the genuine works of Paul.

How do scholars make distinctions like this? Well, it mostly boils down to style. The six Epistles thought to be genuine all share a very similar writing style, similar vocabulary, similar grammar, and similar ideas. The other three stand out as being different. Now, this could indicate that Paul simply used an assistant to write these letters, or that he wrote them at a later date, or when he was in a very different mood. Like I say, scholars are divided on this, but for those who have doubts, these three are considered pseudopigrapha, meaning that they were probably written several decades after Paul's death by someone pretending to be Paul. As we've seen in previous episodes, it was not uncommon in ancient times for writers to do something like this.

In the last episode, I used this timeline. As I mentioned then, Paul was not actually a follower of Jesus during Jesus's lifetime. He became a Christian after Jesus's death, sometime in the 30s CE, and he lived up until the 60s, when he was killed during the reign of Emperor Nero. The genuine Pauline Epistles can therefore all be placed within the range of his ministry. Generally, Galatians and First Thessalonians are thought to have been the earliest letters, both dating to around the year 50, with Romans and the two Corinthians being written sometime during the late 50s, and Philippians coming last, usually being placed in the early 60s. The other letters, if they are indeed pseudopigrapha, can probably be placed around the end of the first century or early in the second century. Which means that Galatians and First Thessalonians are the two earliest books in the entire New Testament, and that all of the genuine Pauline Epistles were written prior to the four Gospels, which is an important point when it comes to the study of the historical Jesus.

Skeptics have pointed out the fact that the Pauline Epistles contain zero references to biographical details of about the life of Jesus other than his death and supposed resurrection. For example, Paul never mentions Mary or any of Jesus's other family members, not even in passing. He also never mentions Bethlehem or Nazareth, nor does he ever refer to even a single one of Jesus's parables, sermons, exorcisms, healings, or other miracles. This is a bit strange, and skeptics use it to argue that Jesus was primarily a legendary figure, if not an entirely fictional one. However, believers counter these arguments with the fact that Paul's letters were, well, letters, and the purpose of the letters was to explain theology, not to list facts about Jesus, facts that the recipients of the letters would already have known.

Let's now move on to the four letters that Paul is said to have written to individual people. These are called the Pastoral Epistles, and when it comes to the Pastoral Epistles, only one is universally recognized as being genuine. That one is

Philemon. Again, this mostly boils down to style. Philemon very much matches the style of the six letters we've already labeled as genuine. So that brings us to a total of seven genuine Pauline Epistles. At least fifty percent of biblical scholars feel that the other three Pastoral Epistles, Titus and the two Timothies, are pseudopigrapha, which again would place them much later on the timeline.

Which brings us to Hebrews. Virtually no biblical scholar today attributes this one to Paul, even in the most conservative circles. In fact, this letter doesn't even begin with the usual "Paul" at the top. No sender is mentioned, nor any recipient. Although at the end it says, "Those from Italy send their greetings." But the book is called Hebrews because it is thought that it was sent to Jewish Christians in Jerusalem. So this is yet another book for the anonymous category.

However, there have been numerous hypotheses put forward over the years as to who the author might be. One hypothesis that I find quite interesting is that it was written by a woman named Priscilla. If true, this would be very notable. You probably noticed that so far, it seems that the Bible was written entirely by men, which is not too surprising considering that, as a whole, female authors were pretty rare in the ancient world. However, before we talk about Priscilla, I should point out that there is also the possibility that some female authors contributed toward the Tanakh, or Old Testament. As we saw in previous episodes, many of the books in that part of the Bible are actually anonymous and consist of several different texts combined together. It is therefore possible, if not probable, that at least one Psalm or other piece of text was written by an anonymous woman. In fact, I've even seen one scholar claim that the J source for the Torah might have had a female author.

But back to Priscilla. Priscilla and her husband Aquila are mentioned six times in the New Testament as being early Christian leaders and good friends of Paul. In fact, it seems that Priscilla in particular might have held some kind of prominent rank in the early church. It seems that early on, men and women were treated equally in Christian circles, and only later did the church become more patriarchal. If Hebrews was written by a woman, it might explain why it eventually ended up being recorded as being anonymous. Anyway, like I said, this is just a hypothesis and is by no means the mainstream position. All that we really know is that Hebrews is written in very polished Greek, and that it is the most carefully composed and eloquent book in the entire New Testament. This all makes it very hard to date, so I'm simply going to go with the standard estimate, which is somewhere between 70 and 100.

Okay, that brings us to the seven General Epistles. The first one is attributed to someone named James, usually thought to be James the brother of Jesus and the initial leader of the church in Jerusalem. For a discussion of the various individuals in the New Testament named James, of which there were several, check out the video that we did on the family tree of Jesus. The Epistle of James is actually one of the books that almost didn't make it into the New Testament. For this and other reasons, most scholars feel that this is probably yet another example of pseudopigrapha. In other words, it was either written by someone pretending to be James the brother of Jesus, or by some less important guy who happened to be named James.

Likewise, first and second Peter were probably not written by Peter, the leader of the Twelve Apostles. In fact, based on these styles used, the two Epistles attributed to Peter were probably written by two different people. And in the case of second Peter, it looks like the author may have copied a bit from Jude, who we'll get to in a second. One of the arguments against authorship by Peter is the fairly safe assumption that Peter was an illiterate fisherman. Now, the counter argument is that Peter could have learned to write later on, or that he could have used a secretary. However, Peter's writing skills are not the only problem. The letters simply do not come across as being written by someone who knew Jesus personally, which Peter did. They come across as being written by people who were highly learned, with expert-level knowledge of the Septuagint and other ancient writings.

Next up is the three letters attributed to John, traditionally thought to be the same person who wrote the Gospel of John. But unlike all the other Epistles, except for Hebrews, these three letters don't actually start with the name of the sender. Although letters 2 and 3 do start with the words "the Elder." As I mentioned in the episode on the Gospels, the Apostle John probably didn't write the Gospel of John. However, it is likely that whoever did write the Gospel of John also wrote the three Epistles of John. The styles are similar enough to assume a single author for all four works, so probably someone that was a member of the hypothetical Johannine Community.

The last epistle is the Epistle of Jude, said in the text itself to be the brother of James. Traditionally, this would mean that Jude was also the brother of Jesus. Like the Epistle of James, the Epistle of Jude was one of those books that almost didn't make the cut. Therefore, the assumption is that it is probably pseudopigrapha. Which means that, according to most scholars, none of the General Epistles are genuine letters from the people who were said to have written them. This is in contrast to the Pauline Epistles, seven of which, as we have seen, are in fact genuine. So all of the General can probably be placed on the timeline somewhere late in the first century or early second.

Now, before I go, I want to mention one more epistle that almost made it into the New Testament but was eventually cut out: the Epistle of Barnabas. Barnabas was a traveling companion of Paul, but as you can probably guess, the Epistle of Barnabas was, in all likelihood, not written by the real Barnabas. It's yet another example of pseudopigrapha. Now, why other pseudopigrapha made it into the New Testament but this one did not is uncertain. For the first few centuries of the Common Era, it was, in fact, included alongside other books like James and Jude, but like I say, eventually it was dropped.

Two other books that were dropped are The Shepherd of Hermas and the Didache. Neither are Epistles, but I thought they were worth mentioning since I won't be doing a separate episode on the New Testament Apocrypha. The Shepherd of Hermes is comprised of various visions, commandments, and proverbs, whereas the Didache is kind of like an early catechism, a catechism being a summary of Christian doctrine used for teaching.

One of the themes we've seen throughout this series is the fact that sometimes a book in the Bible is set during one period but is really making a statement about another period. For example, The Book of Ruth is set during the period of the judges and appears to be about two of King David's ancestors. However, in reality, what it's really talking about is the issue of whether or not Jews should marry non-Jews, something that was a hot topic during the much later Persian period, which is when the book was actually written. This is something we frequently see happen in modern media as well. Take, for example, the 1970s TV show M*A*S*H. That show was set during the Korean War, but was obviously an allegory about the later Vietnam War.

Well, Daniel is another one of these cases. Although the book is primarily set during the Babylonian period, what it's really talking about is the late Hellenistic period, which was when the Seleucid King Antiochus IV was persecuting the Jews. This is something I'd like you to keep in mind as we explore some of its content. But before we do that, I need to explain two terms: prophecy and apocalypse. Both are words that relate to the books of Daniel and Revelation.

When people hear the word prophecy, what they usually think of is a prediction about the future. But in ancient Judaism, that's not what prophecy meant. A prophecy was simply a warning. For example, prophets would say, "Look, if you don't change your wicked ways, such and such a bad thing is going to happen. But if you obey God, such and such a good thing is going to happen." In other words, the future was not set in stone. So the main point of prophecy, like other types of religious writings, was simply to convince people to change their behavior in the present.

Likewise, when people hear the word apocalypse, they also tend to think about the future, usually an awful future event in which the entire world comes to an end. However, the Greek word *apocalypsis* simply meant an uncovering of something hidden. So again, apocalyptic literature was more about the present whenever it was written than it was about the future.

You see, here's what happened. Initially, the Jewish prophets were like, "See all this bad stuff happening? Well, that's because you sinned. If you shape up, though, things will get better." But unfortunately, things never did get better. The Jews continued to be ruled by foreign powers: first the Babylonians, then the Persians, then the Ptolemies, then the Seleucids. So the prophets decided to take a different attack. What they now said was, "See all this bad stuff happening? That's because, on another level, there's a hidden war between good and evil that's happening. But don't worry, hold on tight, because good will eventually win."

So apocalyptic literature was an attempt to uncover and reveal a hidden world. It was an attempt to encourage people and to let them know that God was somehow still in control, even when it seemed that he was not. What apocalyptic literature was not trying to do was to provide an exact blueprint for the future. So now that we know why these books were written, let's see if some of the famous passages from them make more sense.

In Daniel chapter 2, King Nebuchadnezzar has a dream in which he sees a statue with a head of gold, arms of silver, thighs of bronze, legs of iron, and feet of part iron, part clay. Growing up, I was taught that this statue was a blueprint for the future, given to Daniel during the Babylonian period. I was told that the head represented Babylon, the arms represented Persia, the thighs represented Greece, and the legs represented Rome, with the ten toes representing various medieval and modern powers from Europe, the last one being the Antichrist, who was about to appear.

However, if we accept the viewpoint that Daniel was actually written by an anonymous author during the Greek period, a different interpretation makes more sense. Instead of describing the future, the author was actually describing the past up until the time of writing. Understood this way, the head represents Babylon, the arms represent the Medes, the thighs represent Persia, and the two legs represent the two Greek kingdoms, the Ptolemies and the Seleucids, with the ten toes representing the ten Hellenistic rulers that had ruled Judea up until that point. At the end of the dream, a large rock from heaven destroys the statue, and God establishes his own kingdom. What the author of Daniel was hoping for was not some future kingdom hundreds or thousands of years in the future, but for an independent Judean kingdom to be established in the present, something that did, in fact, happen around that time thanks to the Maccabees.

We get a similar prophecy in Daniel chapter 7. This time, Daniel is the one who has the dream. In his dream, he sees a series of four creatures rising out of the sea: a lion, a bear, a four-headed leopard, and an unknown beast with ten horns. These paintings are actually the ones that were produced by my cult, and therefore I saw them quite a bit as a child. Again, I was taught that they represented four kingdoms, and that those four kingdoms were Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome. Interestingly, it was all this talk about ancient civilizations during my childhood that got me interested in history.

Anyway, in the dream, Daniel goes on to see a little horn appear on the fourth beast that has eyes like a man and a mouth that speaks arrogantly. You can see this strange little horn quite clearly in this medieval depiction of the fourth beast. According to my cult, it represented the future Antichrist, who again was about to appear any day now. But as you might have guessed, there is another way to understand the dream, one that is based on history as opposed to future predictions. Like with the statue, it's more likely that the four beasts were originally meant to represent the Babylonians, the Medes, the Persians, and the Greeks. The Romans weren't depicted because the Roman Empire simply didn't exist yet. As for the little horn, it was almost certainly a reference to Antiochus IV, the Seleucid king who was ruling when the Book of Daniel was being written.

Finally, I want to address Daniel chapter 9, which is one of the most argued-about chapters in the entire Bible. Here we find what's called the 70 weeks prophecy. It's actually a great example of how prophetic ideas were often changed or updated over time. The chapter begins with Daniel reading the words of an earlier prophet, the Prophet Jeremiah, and according to Jeremiah, Judah was going to be under the control of Babylon for 70 years. Now, from the perspective of whoever wrote Daniel, those 70 years never really came to an end, because although the Jews were able to return to their land, they remained under the control of foreign powers: first it was Babylon, then Persia, then the Ptolemies, then the Seleucids. So what the author of Daniel decided to do was to put a new spin on Jeremiah's words. Instead of 70 years, it was going to be 70 weeks of years, meaning 70 times 7, or 490.

But according to the next few verses, those 490 years would be divided into three parts. First, there is a period of seven weeks (7 times 7 equals 49). Then there's a period of 62 weeks (62 times 7 equals 434). Finally, there's one remaining week, which equals seven years. And according to the Book of Daniel, something major was going to happen halfway through that last week, in other words, after three and a half years.

Now, according to most Christians, the 70 weeks prophecy is about Jesus. The most commonly used argument is that the 49 years represents the time between 457 BCE and 408 BCE, which, according to some timelines, is when Ezra was given the go-ahead to rebuild the Temple. The 434 years then represents the time between 408 BCE and 26 CE, 26 CE being the approximate date for when Jesus began his ministry. Finally, in the spring of 30 CE, which would have been three and a half years after Jesus started his ministry, Jesus was killed. Thus, according to Christians, the big event prophesied in Daniel chapter 9 was the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Now, I'm not going to flat out say that this interpretation is wrong. If you're a Christian, I understand that seeing certain things in the Jewish Bible as pointing toward Jesus is an important part of your faith. However, I am not a Christian. So for those who might be wondering how Jews view this passage, or how this passage can be understood from a strictly historical point of view, I'm going to give you an alternative interpretation. And again, it all hinges on the realization that the Book of Daniel was written in the late Hellenistic period, just prior to the Maccabean revolt, and that the author was building upon an earlier prophecy, the one made by Jeremiah.

So let's start there. In Jeremiah 25, verse 1, it says, "The word which came to Jeremiah concerning all the people of Judah in the fourth year of King Jehoiakim son of Josiah of Judah, which was the first year of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon." He then goes on to give a bunch of details, the most important of which is given in verse 11: "This whole land shall be a desolate ruin, and those nations shall serve the king of Babylon 70 years." So this is great, because Jeremiah's prophecy begins with some very clear reference points. He says he's speaking in the fourth year of Jehoiakim's reign, which was the first year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign, which we know was 605 BCE. So 605 BCE is the starting date for Jeremiah's 70 years, and hence also the starting date for Daniel's 490 years.

Let's talk about the seven weeks. First, 49 years after 605 BCE would be 556 BCE. Interestingly, something important did happen around this time. You see, Nebuchadnezzar died in 562 and was succeeded by his son Amul-Marduk. At some point during Amul-Marduk's reign, he released Jehoiachin from prison. Jehoiachin, called the Anointed One in Daniel, was the last independent king of Judah. Jehoiachin's descendants would go on to serve as exilarchs of the Jewish people.

Let's now talk about the 62 weeks, or 434 years. Most people assume that the 434 years should come after the 49 years. However, there is nothing in the original Hebrew that requires it to be understood this way. In other words, it could also mean 434 years from the year 605 BCE. This would bring us to the year 171 BCE, which was a very important year indeed. This was the year that the high priest Onias III was executed by Antiochus IV. Onias III was seen as being the last legitimate priest from the original line of high priests. A few years before his execution, Onias had been replaced by his brother Jason, and then by a man named Menelaus, both of whom bribed Antiochus in order to get the position. So this fits with Daniel's description of the anointed one disappearing around this time.

What about the three and a half years then? Well, approximately three and a half years after the death of Onias, another major event occurred. In the year 167 BCE, Antiochus IV put a stop to the Jewish sacrifices at the Temple and instead sacrificed a pig to Zeus. For Jews at the time, nothing could be more horrible than that. Here's how Daniel described it: "At the corner of the altar will be an appalling Abomination." I think it's far more likely that the Abomination referred to in Daniel chapter 9 is the thing that Antiochus IV did right around the time that the Book of Daniel was written, than it is a reference to the death of Jesus.

Okay, let's now move on to the Book of Revelation. In the first chapter, the author names himself as John and states that he is writing from the island of Patmos, where he has been imprisoned for being a Christian. This allows us to date the book to either the 60s CE or the 90s CE, as these are the first two periods in which Christians were persecuted: first under Emperor Nero, and then second under Emperor Domitian. Most scholars lean toward a date of around 95 CE, making Revelation one of the last books of the New Testament to be written. In addition to this, most scholars feel that the John that wrote Revelation is not the same John that wrote the Gospel of John and the three Epistles of John.

But either way, Revelation was written at least 230 years after the Book of Daniel, and a lot had happened in those 230 years. The most notable thing being the rise of the Roman Empire, which went on to conquer the Hellenistic kingdoms, as well as the kingdom of Judea. But another way to look at it is that not much had changed at all. The Jews were still being ruled by a foreign power; it's just that the foreign power was now Rome.

This is made clear in Revelation chapter 13, where John describes a beast rising from the sea. He describes this beast as being part lion, part bear, and part leopard, having seven heads and ten horns. This is obviously referring back to the four beasts from The Book of Daniel, but here he combines the four beasts into a single creature, basically saying that Rome is the successor to the previous four kingdoms and is as bad as all the previous four combined. Again, this image is the exact one that was used by my cult, the Worldwide Church of God, in order to scare people into obedience. According to my cult, the ten horns represented 10 reincarnations of the Roman Empire, with the final one about to appear any day now, ushering in the end of the world.

However, like I said earlier, apocalyptic literature wasn't actually about providing a blueprint for the far future. It was about what was happening in the present. And when John was writing Revelation, the present reality consisted of Rome persecuting Jews and Christians. John was trying to peel back the layers of what was happening to reveal a hidden cosmic battle that he claimed God would eventually win.

We can see further evidence for this in verse 18, where he mentions one of the most famous numbers in the entire Bible: 666. Over the centuries, there have been a lot of theories about the meaning of this number, most of which are just plain crazy. But one theory that does make sense is that the number was a code word for Nero, the first Roman Emperor to persecute Christians. If you switch the Greek consonants with Hebrew consonants and add up the numbers associated with each letter, you get 666. Or alternatively, if you switch the Latin consonants with Hebrew consonants, you get 616, which some scholars argue is the more accurate translation of the number.

There are two other famous passages from Revelation that I want to address. The first is in chapter 4, where John describes God sitting on his throne. In verse 7, he describes four living creatures that sit around the throne. These are different from the four creatures we discussed earlier. This time, they look like a lion, an ox, a man, and an eagle. And instead of being based on something from The Book of Daniel, these creatures are based on a passage from Ezekiel, where they are portrayed as being angels. So this is yet another example of one prophetic book putting a new spin on an older prophetic book. In Christian tradition, the four living creatures are usually thought of as representing the four gospel writers, something that can be seen in lots of Christian artwork throughout the centuries. Remember these stained glass images I used in the Gospels episode? Well, check out the full version of those images here. You can see that Mark was associated with the lion, Luke with the ox, Matthew with the human, and John with the eagle.

Okay, the last thing I want to talk about are the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. These famous characters show up in Revelation chapter 6. So again, we get a series of four creatures, but this time all four are horses: but differently colored horses: white, red, black, and pale. And as you might have guessed, differently colored horses do show up in previous prophetic books. They show up in both Ezekiel and Zechariah, and are quite clearly meant to represent punishments sent by God. There have been all kinds of theories about what exactly The Four Horsemen in Revelation represent, with war, famine, and disease being common suggestions. Once again, the imagery has inspired lots of art over the centuries, but as with everything else we've discussed, in my view, the imagery is not about future predictions, but rather about present realities at the time of writing. After all, war, famine, and disease were all things that were present during Roman times.

Okay, so that concludes this introduction to the Bible. As a summary of what we've gone through, I've prepared this timeline of the Bible, which isn't a timeline of the events described in the Bible, but rather a timeline of the Bible itself. It shows approximately when each book was written and how the various books were combined together to produce the Bible as we know it today. If you want to get a copy of the chart as a poster, it's available on our website, usefulcharts.com. Thanks for watching.