Posted on 04/13/2016 8:46:30 AM PDT by avrakay
Certain texts of the Bible may have been written earlier than previously believed, according to a new research based on the handwriting analysis of ancient inscriptions.
It is dated to be at least 600 B.C. and the presumption is that literacy was prevalent and the texts were composed in the kingdom of Judah, a city with biblical reverence, according to researchers from the Tel Aviv University. They suggest that the educational infrastructure to support Bible writing presumably existed at that time.
(Excerpt) Read more at techtimes.com ...
I am a big fan of conspiracy theories. They provide much entertainment.
There’s a theory out there that the Bible was written +- 60 years after the death of Christ by a person in Rome, as a mechanism to control and manipulate the masses.
The New Testament was written after Christ’s death. It was written by eye witnesses, his brother, a doctor and an early church planter.
The Old Testament is much older. The Jews were meticulous about lineage. It wouldn’t be hard to trace most of the writings to Moses, David, and Soloman.
>It is dated to be at least 600 B.C.
I believe that Daniel was written during the captivity, ~350 years before the one-horned goat. Before that, we have the Psalms by King David, the first five books by Moses, and Job, the oldest book, perhaps 3,000 years ago. Do you think the the Living God would leave anything out?
-Frank
Of course, the Old Testament was written while the Israelites were in exile.
“When Was The Bible Written? New Study Suggests Earlier Than We Thought”
Different texts at different times. Duh.
After the meeting where the New Testament was approved and hand-written into numerous copies....the Greeks got a copy and went back to Athens.
Eventually, the folks in Rome...wanting an organization that headed the movement....copied the Greek version, and translated into....NOT Italian....but Latin. This prevented the masses from reading (what few of the masses could read and write Italian at the time). You can figure that for every couple hundred folks who could handle reading and writing Italian....there was probably one priest who could handle Latin.
The rest is pretty much history. Rome had freedom of religion up until that time-period, and within two generations....freedom of religion within Rome itself dissolved. Over the next couple of decades, the Catholic Church used it’s influence and the strength of the Legions to go out over the ‘empire’ and forceably remove literally hundreds of religions over what is Europe today.
Until 1619...that was the systematic program of control via the Catholic Church. The Thirty Years War ended the domination.
The study suggests that there was sufficient literacy in 600 BC to have written the early books of the Bible at that time.
Previously one argument against that early date was the lack of widespread literacy.
The “Bible” as opposed to components of the Bible was created by editors over a long period of time: first Jewish priests, then Catholic ones. Wikipedia:
Rabbinic Judaism recognizes the 24 books of the Masoretic Text, commonly called the Tanakh or Hebrew Bible, as authoritative.[1] Modern scholarship suggests that the most recently written are the books of Jonah, Lamentations, and Daniel, all of which may have been composed as late as the second century BCE.
The article is about the secular one, not the religious one, which ascribes the first five books to Moses.
Secular historians use archaeology, and in this case writing analysis, as well as literary analysis to try to determine the age of various parts of the Bible.
I don't think the Bible actually says that Moses wrote the first five books, it's more folklore.
There is no scholarly consensus as to when the Hebrew Bible canon was fixed: some scholars argue that it was fixed by the Hasmonean dynasty (140-40 BCE),[5] while others argue it was not fixed until the second century CE or even later.[6] The Catholic Pontifical Biblical Commission says that "the more restricted Hebrew canon is later than the formation of the New Testament".[7]
On the New Testament:
For the Orthodox, the recognition of these writings as authoritative was formalized in the Second Council of Trullan of 692, although it was nearly universally accepted in the mid 300s.[1] The Catholic Church made dogmatic definition upon its Biblical canon at the Council of Trent of 1546, reaffirmed the Canons of Florence of 1442 and North African Councils (Hippo and Carthage) of 393-419.[2][3] For the Church of England, it was made dogmatic on the Thirty-Nine Articles of 1563; for Calvinism, on the Westminster Confession of Faith of 1647.
So, the formalization of the basic outline goes back to 393. Back to Wikipedia:
Marcion of Sinope, a bishop of Asia Minor who went to Rome and was later excommunicated for his views, was the first of record to propose a definitive, exclusive, unique list of Christian scriptures, compiled sometime between 130–40 AD.[24]
It is my understanding that the Torah was passed on verbally from generation to generation by the Levites since OT times, until it was finally compiled into a single written work much more recently. The question is when that written work was compiled.
So they found routine operational communications in a fort written by at least 6 people and they extrapolate that to claim that the bible was written before Christ?
And they make fun of people who see the face of Jesus in a piece of burnt toast.
An excellent read and source document is Pagans: The End of Traditional Religion and Rise of Christianity....which covers the Roman Empire and how various religions were forced out, and the Catholic Church spread across Europe.
ping
***(what few of the masses could read and write Italian at the time).***
Probably none of them as Latin was the common language of ROME at that time.
Education for the masses was not a priority, with the exception of upper-class families or those with wealth.
Welcome to FR. In the future please post your material in our bloggers forum.
After the meeting where the New Testament was approved and hand-written into numerous copies..
Well there were a series of meetings starting with the Synod of Hippo where the cannon of the Bible was agreed to. Hippo was in North Africa, and North Africa was longstanding part of the Roman Empire in 393 AD.
The Church was already pretty organized at this time, there were Bishops, who were the ones who voted on the resolutions of the Synods.
So this whole claim of yours:
..the Greeks got a copy and went back to Athens.
I'm not understanding this claim, in light of the above.
Eventually, the folks in Rome...wanting an organization that headed the movement....copied the Greek version, and translated into....NOT Italian....but Latin.
Well assuming we are talking about the Bible as formulated in the early period, such as the Synod of Hippo above the reason it was not translated into Italian is that the Italian language (which is essentially a degenerated form of Latin) did not exist circa 400 AD, it would take another 400 years for the earliest version of it to appear.
This prevented the masses from reading (what few of the masses could read and write Italian at the time). You can figure that for every couple hundred folks who could handle reading and writing Italian....there was probably one priest who could handle Latin.
No, not even close. It was not a conspiracy of Roman Catholic Church to deprive everyman from reading the Bible.
The rest is pretty much history.
It's all history, yes. But it's hard to know what you are talking about. Please feel free to site some times, dates, locations or reference material in explaining your views of history.
Rome had freedom of religion up until that time period)(which time period?), and within two generations....freedom of religion within Rome itself dissolved.
Surely you are aware of the role played by the Emperor Constantine the Great in making Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire (as well as moving the center of the empire from Rome to the new capital he built, Constantinople (today's Istanbul)).
Over the next couple of decades, the Catholic Church used it’s influence and the strength of the Legions to go out over the ‘empire’ and forceably remove literally hundreds of religions over what is Europe today.
Constantine used the power of Rome (he was the Emperor, not the Bishop of Rome or Pope) to make Christianity the official religion of Rome. Constantine ruled from 306 to 337 AD. He was followed as Emperor by his nephew Julian who attempted to eliminate Christianity and return the Empire to the the Pagan gods. He is known as Julian the Apostate and ruled from 361 to 363.
Until 1619...that was the systematic program of control via the Catholic Church. The Thirty Years War ended the domination.
You've skipped ahead 1,300 years. A lot happened in that period, and the Catholic Church did assume a central role in the development of Europe from Late Antiquity until the Reformation began to end their hegemony.
If I had to guess I'd say you probably grew up in a Protestant church that retains anti-Catholic teachings. It seems you learned some apocryphal history that mashes together all sorts of time periods and puts the Catholic Church in sort of a role of boogie man / conspiracy.
The Catholic Church has plenty to apologize for over the centuries, but I don't think your basic idea (that they used Latin to keep people in the dark in Europe) has any basis in reality.
Many parts of Europe were never part of the Roman Empire. Most of them were illiterate when the Church was formulating the Bible, circa 400 AD. Poland for instance was illiterate and Pagan until the coming of Christianity around 1000 A.D., which is usually considered the start of Poland as a unique entity. The Church had a similar role in many other parts of Europe.
Here is a map of the Roman Empire (and it's four prefectures) circa 400 AD, around the time the canon of the Bible was being agreed to at a series of councils ("Synods") in North Africa:
I read an article that the earliest New Testament found was Greek. I would imagine first century Christians had the original Gospels written by the Apostles. I think the jury is still out on who originally assembled all the books and letters.
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