Analysing the Bible
 

This is a fascinating story!

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 analyzes 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.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/...#ixzz1QloR6mhN

Re: Analysing the Bible
 

this theory has been around for a while. i believe the field is called source criticism and was started by wellhausen. in the pentateuch there are believed to be at least 4 sources. p for priestly, j for yawehist, e for elohim and d for deutoronomy. more info here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Documentary_hypothesis

Re: Analysing the Bible
 

Wellhausen didn't actually start this field of investigation. It had already been around since at least the 2nd Century A.D. Wellhausen popularized it in Germany and Europe and brought together a lot of the earlier material from the Talmud, Maimonides, Baruch Spinoza, Jean Astruc and many others.

A simple reading of the Pentateuch reveals that Moses was not the only writer. And, most compellingly, the Bible itself doesn't assert that Moses was the sole author of the Pentateuch. Religious traditions, though they may have been well intentioned, get in the way of a lot of real Bible studies. One Roman Catholic cleric wrote a couple of volumes on the Documentary Hypothesis in the late Middle Ages but was forced to recant upon pain of the Inquisition.

Free societies and free access to Bible study materials have been hard to come by over the ages. This is perhaps the main reason why "source criticism" and the Documentary Hypothesis appears to be a recent development when in fact, it is a rather ancient conversation.

Re: Analysing the Bible
 

Wow...very interesting.

Re: Analysing the Bible
 

interesting post pel, can i ask you where you learned about the history of source criticism and how did you learn about wellhausen sources? was it a book or a website? thanks for any info.

Re: Analysing the Bible
 

I'm hoping for a more in depth article about the results of this software. For instance, does it indicate that any of the authors were women (it claims it can detect a woman versus a man author 4 out of 5 times).

Re: Analysing the Bible
 

I "learned the history of source criticism" over the course of the past 30 years or so. It was always a point of fascination for me, even when I accepted the Fundamentalist view. There was something that just nagged my mind about the priesthood in Shiloh (Eli, Samuel and all) and the way they were pushed aside by Solomon and then by Jeroboam.

Then, Solomon sends Abiathar and his clan into exile in the city of "Anathoth in Benjamin." The next thing we hear about this family of priests is that Hilkiah of Anathoth is the High Priest in Jerusalem (having been restored by the revolt that placed Josiah on the throne) when the "Book of the Law" is found in the Temple. This book is universally seen as being either the Book of Deuteronomy ("Deuteronomy" means "The Second Law" in Greek) or the core of the book - it's law code found in Chapters 5 and 12-21. Hilkiah's son (Jeremiah 1:1) then becomes a highly influential prophet with a dedicated scribe in his employ (Jeremiah 36:4).

If you read the historical parts of Deuteronomy combined with the books of Joshua - 2 Kings (excluding the Book of Ruth which the Jewish Bible places among The Writings - Psalms and such - and not The Prophets as in the KJV), you will find a very neat and continuous history. There is a constant refrain of things being in place "unto this day..." The poles of the Tabernacle were placed in the Temple at Solomon's time and they are said to be there "unto this day." What "day" was that? Since a couple of wooden poles are mentioned as still being in the First Temple at the time, we can safely say that "this day" was at a time when the First Temple was still standing and before it had been burned.

Little riddles like this bugged me to no end. Who wrote that "Deuteronomist History?"

Wellhausen's seminal work on this subject is a book called (In English) "The Prologemma to the History of Israel" and it is available for free download from Amazon's Kindle and also on Google Books (among a number of other sources). Most translations are a bit dated and it can be a clumsy read for some, but it's worthwhile for understanding the major terms of this debate. I also don't really recommend it, despite its obvious importance, because Wellhausen's primary theme has been largely disproved by later scholars of the Documentary Hypothesis.

A book that I highly recommend is Richard Elliott Friedman's "Who Wrote the Bible." Friedman will give you a good and very readable cover of the history of the Documentary Hypothesis and focuses upon Wellhausen's work specifically. Friedman's point in narrowing his gaze on Wellhausen to actually refute some elements Wellhausen's theory.

Julius Wellhausen had founded a particular school of thought that would later develop into what is today called "Biblical Minimalism." That is, the Bible and its writing is "minimized" to a rather brief period AFTER the founding of the Second Temple following the return of the Jews from Babylon. Today, adherents to this theory argue that there was no "King David," no "Kingdom of Israel" or "House of David" and that the Jews were just a rough assemblage of tribes and clans that were taken away by the Babylonians. Writers from this school of thought have also taken a rather dim view of faith over the years.

The May/June issue of the BAR had an article entitled "The Birth & Death of Biblical Minimalism." PM me if you don't already subscribe but want a copy of the article. It gives a good (and brief!) overview of that debate. Professor Friedman subscribes to the school of thought which has opposed "Biblical Minimalism" all along. Friedman's "Who Wrote the Bible?" goes into some detail debunking the claims of Biblical Minimalism:

1) That the Books of the Prophets never quote the Priestly Source (P) - they do.

2) That there is no archaeological evidence for the Kingdom of Israel or the House of David - there is.

3) That there is no evidence for the exclusive worship of Yahweh in Preexilic times - there is, though obviously, since the Bible's main point from this time period is a complaint about this very thing, we should expect to find a lot of evidence for "mixed worship" as well.

4) There is no evidence for the existence of an Aaronic priesthood or the use of a "Tabernacle" as per the Pentateuch's accounts - there is.

Another good writer on this subject is Frank Moore-Cross (who was Friedman's old professor at Harvard). Friedman's book, which is available in paperback will get just about anyone up to speed on the particulars of this discussion. When it first came out in the mid-nineties it was like a breath of fresh air to me. Friedman doesn't come right out and "evangelize" in any manner (he's a member of the Conservative sect of Judaism) since he is writing to both a scholarly and a general audience. But, when you see what he has in his sights to be "shot down" I think that you'll be encouraged as well.

Re: Analysing the Bible
 

thanks for the info pel. I checked out the bar website and the article is still available if I join. I think friedman's book is available at avax. I have much respect for your knowledge, I just became recently acquainted with source criticism in the last few months.

Re: Analysing the Bible
 

pel, can I ask you what you think about scholarly dating of the books of the bible? I've heard professors give daniel a late date because he is so accurate about the history of the kings after alexander's empire breaks up. I found that scholars don't believe in prophecy so they give a later date to the writing. Also in the nt, the fall of jerusalem is not mentioned except for luke saying the roman armies will surrond the city, so scholars give luke a later date. here again they don't believe in prophecy. what do you think of these later dates? is there any significance to scholarly dating? thanks for sharing any info.

Re: Analysing the Bible
 

A lot of people have posited the notion that the author of "J" was a woman. I'm not persuaded by their arguments. The "Song of Deborah" - which is written in a very archaic form of Hebrew, one that confused even the Hebrews at times - is attributed to a woman.

My sense is that with more refinement, the program may end up taking a more subjective approach - that is, until those results are held up to scrutiny and debate. Then, better releases of the software will come out. There will be a whole process and development cycle that will still take years.

Of course, most of the basic premises from the start are based upon parameters that have already been debated for centuries; so I think that the underlying framework is already fairly solid.