Did God Author the Bible?

[Sean]

Computer says no...

And on the seventh day, the Lord kicked back and got someone else to write the Bible

SOFTWARE developed by an Israeli team is giving intriguing new hints about what researchers believe to be the multiple hands that wrote the Bible.

The new software analyses style and word choices to distinguish parts of a single text written by different authors, and when applied to the Bible, its algorithm teased out distinct writerly voices in the holy book.

The program, part of a sub-field of artificial intelligence studies known as authorship attribution, has a range of potential applications, from helping law enforcement to developing new computer programs for writers.

But the Bible provided a tempting test case for the algorithm's creators.

For millions of Jews and Christians, it's a tenet of their faith that God is the author of the core text of the Hebrew Bible — the Torah, also known as the Pentateuch or the Five Books of Moses.

But since the advent of modern biblical scholarship, academic researchers have believed the text was written by a number of different authors whose work could be identified by seemingly different ideological agendas and linguistic styles and the different names they used for God.

Today, scholars generally split the text into two main strands.

One is believed to have been written by a figure or group known as the "priestly" author, because of apparent connections to the temple priests in Jerusalem. The rest is "non-priestly".

Scholars have meticulously gone over the text to ascertain which parts belong to which strand.

When the new software was run on the Pentateuch, it found the same division, separating the "priestly" and "non-priestly".

It matched up with the traditional academic division at a rate of 90 per cent - effectively recreating years of work by multiple scholars in minutes, said Moshe Koppel, the computer science professor who headed the research team at Bar Ilan University near Tel Aviv.

What the algorithm won't answer, say the researchers who created it, is the question of whether the Bible is human or divine. Three of the four scholars, including Prof Koppel, are religious Jews who subscribe in some form to the belief that the Torah was dictated to Moses in its entirety by a single author: God.

For academic scholars, the existence of different stylistic threads in the Bible indicates human authorship.

But the research team says in their paper they aren't addressing "how or why such distinct threads exist".

"Those for whom it is a matter of faith that the Pentateuch is not a composition of multiple writers can view the distinction investigated here as that of multiple styles," they said.

In other words, there's no reason why God could not write a book in different voices.

"No amount of research is going to resolve that issue," Prof Koppel said.

The team includes computer science doctoral student Navot Akiva and father-son duo Nachum Dershowitz, a Tel Aviv University computer scientist and his son Idan Dershowitz, a Bible scholar at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

The places in which the program disagreed with accepted scholarship might prove interesting leads for scholars.

The first chapter of Genesis, for example, is usually thought to have been written by the "priestly" author, but the software indicated it was not.

Similarly, the book of Isaiah is largely thought to have been written by two distinct authors, with the second author taking over after Chapter 39.

The software's results agreed that the book might have two authors, but suggested the second author's section actually began six chapters earlier, in Chapter 33.

The program recognises repeated word selections, like uses of the Hebrew equivalents of "if", ''and" and "but", and notices synonyms.

In some places, for example, the Bible gives the word for "staff" as "makel", while in others it uses "mateh" for the same object.

The program then separates the text into strands it believes to be the work of different people.

Research of this kind has potential applications for law enforcement, allowing authorities to catch imposters or to match anonymous texts with possible authors by identifying linguistic tics.

Because the analysis can also help identify gender and age, it might also allow advertisers to better target customers.

The new software might be used to investigate Shakespeare's plays and settle lingering questions of authorship or co-authorship, mused Graeme Hirst, a professor of computational linguistics at the University of Toronto.

Or it could be applied to modern texts: "It would be interesting to see if in more cases we can tease apart who wrote what," Prof Hirst said.

Story

[Lord Jim]

For millions of Jews and Christians, it's a tenet of their faith that God is the author of the core text of the Hebrew Bible

Really? That's news to me...

I was always taught that the authors of the books of the Bible were "inspired" by God; not that they were taking verbatim dictation...

I wonder if this article was written by the same theological scholar who was trying to claim that having members of another religion regarding Jesus as a prophet was a violation of Christian beliefs....

[loCAtek]

'Cha, neither Jesus nor Moses wrote anything down themselves ...well, except for those stone tablets, which kinda got broke, and that was the end of that literary career.

...at least, they're figuring out Mark didn't write the Book of Mark by now.

[Joe Guy]

I wonder what kind of dedication God wrote in the original bible?

To Mom, who always had faith in me...

To my twin brother, Dog, who taught me how to write backward...

To Moses, who took over when I got writer's cramp...

[Gob]

I wonder what kind of dedication God wrote in the original bible?

"Parts of this work are not to be taken literally. Some items included for novelty value. Please consult with the author before using any part of this work to justify starting wars, genocide, burning of witches, hatred of any minority group or political figure. The author takes no responsibility for actions justified using this book. Any contradictions found are the responsibility of the publishers. Items have been omitted due to their incongruity with reality."

[thestoat]

Love it, Gob

[loCAtek]

By Jove, I think he's got it!

[Sean]

[dales]

2 Timothy 3:16

New International Version (©1984)
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.

[thestoat]

How typical of church leaders to condemn that page. Well done on the find Sean - proof at last. I can rest my case

[Guinevere]

For millions of Jews and Christians, it's a tenet of their faith that God is the author of the core text of the Hebrew Bible

Really? That's news to me...

I was always taught that the authors of the books of the Bible were "inspired" by God; not that they were taking verbatim dictation...

I wonder if this article was written by the same theological scholar who was trying to claim that having members of another religion regarding Jesus as a prophet was a violation of Christian beliefs....

I think you took that quote somewhat out of context, and the author's use of the word "Bible" means something less than the full Christian version many of us are familair with.The full quote states:

For millions of Jews and Christians, it's a tenet of their faith that God is the author of the core text of the Hebrew Bible — the Torah, also known as the Pentateuch or the Five Books of Moses.

It is a far different thing to have written the Hebrew Bible (Sue, feel free to jump in and provide a much better explanation), versus the entire Christian Bible (where I agree, the teachings say that, particularly with respect to the New Testament, the writings are divinely inspired).

[Liberty1]

The Christian view is God is the architect of the Bible, but was not the builder.

When you say something along the lines of "Alexander Gustave Eiffel built the Eiffel Tower" he didn't drive a single rivet or forge a single beam, but he defined where each rivet went and how each beam was forged.

[Crackpot]

What they seem to be saying in an unnecessarily inflamatory and hamfisted manner is that some of the books thought to be of single authorship seem to be a combination of multiple texts/authors

[dgs49]

It is incredible that that project got past the stage where a half-intoxicated ignoramous brought it up in a bar someplace.

I know of no one, religious or otherwise, who believes that God wrote (dictated) the text of the many books that we variously compile and call The Bible.

[Gob]

So then, is the bible "the word of god," as per it's promotion, or is it "the word of man" with god hovering about in the background somewhere?

If it's not "the word of god", then why should we pay any attention to it.

[Sue U]

Oh for goodness sake. No one has seriously believed in a single author of the Pentateuch -- much less the Bible as a whole -- for nearly 400 years. (I don't think any actual scholar ever believed it to be the literal writing of God.) Anyone reading the text can see the obvious differences in style and word choice, not to mention subject matter, in the so-called "Five Books of Moses." The "documentary hypothesis" of Jahwist, Elohist, Priestly and Deuteronomic sources ("JEPD" or "JEDP"), consolidated and revised by a series of redactors, has been the dominant and most widely accepted theory of authorship for well over a century -- at least among those actually paying attention.

ETA:
In checking my assertions, there are several more recent theories of authorship described as the "fragmentary" and "supplemental" approaches to the text (particularly R.N. Whybray's 1987 critique of the documentary hypothesis, The Making of the Pentateuch, which admittedly I have not read), but no one considers what we have today as the original work of a single (let alone divine) writer.

[thestoat]

The Bible cannot possibly be written by god - or if it was then this proves beyond doubt that god is a woman, since he/she/it keeps contradicting him/her/itself

15 and this will be made manifest at the proper time by the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16 who alone has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen
But
12 Then Solomon said, "The LORD has set the sun in the heavens, but has said that he would dwell in thick darkness


17 It is a sign for ever between me and the people of Israel that in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed.'
But
28 Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary, his understanding is unsearchable

Etc

[loCAtek]

Then so was the Magna Carta.

[Andrew D]

Huh?

[Gob]

Huh?

I'll help you Andrew;

Then so was the Magna Carta.

Should read; "I haven't a fucking clue about the issues being discussed, but as long as people reply to me I'll post the most excruciatingly stupid replies to get attention...."