Okay, Google, How Was the Bible Written?

You were curious, so you asked. You opened your web browser and recited, “Okay, Google, how was the Bible written?” And here were your first-page results:

1. Truthnet.org, “How Was the Bible Written? How did the prophets write the Bible?”
2. Everystudent.com, “History of the Bible – Who Wrote the Bible – Why It’s Reliable”
3. Biblica.com, “When was the Bible written?”
4. Biblica.com, “In what language was the Bible first written?”
5. BibleOdyssey.org, “How Was the Bible Written and Transmitted?”
6. Wikipedia.org, “Bible”
7. Bible.org, “2. How the Bible was Written”
8. PBS.org, “NOVA | Origins of the Written Bible”
9. Carm.org, “When was the Bible written and who wrote it? | List of dates”
10. Newsweek.com, “The Bible: So Misunderstood It’s a Sin”
11. PBS.org, “From Hebrew Bible to Christian Bible | From Jesus to Christ”
12. NewRepublic.com, “A Newly Deciphered Babylonian Tablet Details Blueprints for ‘Noah’s Ark’”

Google helpfully recites the opening paragraph of the article from Bible.org (result #7). Thanks, Google. While we could immediately start reading the sites offered up to us, it would be smart to get an idea of how reliable and helpful they actually will be. The common-sense question we might ask, then, is, “Who are the people who run these sites?” (In case you were wondering, I didn’t ask Google this one; I looked up the sites myself.)

‍Faith-based sites, with a strong trend toward biblical literalism

• Truthnet.org “is a group of people who are involved in letting the world know about the exclusive truth found and expressed in the teachings of the Bible.”
• Everystudent.com “is a safe place to explore questions about who God is and what it might be like to know God.”
• Biblica.com is “passionate about reading the Bible well so we can live it well. For over 200 years, we’ve helped millions of people access and experience God’s Word, so it can transform their lives.”
• Bible.org—Google’s favorite to read aloud—exists “to freely share the good news from God to the entire world so you can KNOW the Truth about life and eternity.”
• CARM stands for “Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry.” Enough said?

Public media, crowd-sourced data, journalism

• Wikipedia.org—do I even need to tell you?—is “a multilingual, web-based, free-content encyclopedia project supported by the Wikimedia Foundation and based on a model of openly editable content.”
• PBS.org is “America’s largest classroom, the nation’s largest stage for the arts and a trusted window to the world.”
• Newsweek “is a premier news magazine and website, bringing high-quality journalism to readers around the globe for over 80 years. Newsweek provides the latest news, in-depth analysis and ideas about international issues, technology, business, culture and politics.”
• “Tailored for smart, curious, socially aware readers, The New Republic covers politics, culture and big ideas from an unbiased and thought-provoking perspective.” (Could possibly be placed with Bible Odyssey below?)

Academic and nonpartisan sites

• BibleOdyssey.org is a project of the Society of Biblical Literature, “the oldest and largest learned society devoted to the critical investigation of the Bible based on the Humanities’ core disciplines.”

For the sake of time and space, I’ll stick to one example from each of the groups above.Truth.net. This turns out to be an apologetic defense of the inerrancy of scripture, specifically the Old Testament, based on the fact that people in ancient times did write stuff down (i.e., it’s not all oral tradition). It speaks generically of “critics who attack the Bible,” and names only one ostensible critic, Julius Wellhausen, who died in 1918. It never actually quotes or adequately summarizes Wellhausen about his Documentary Hypothesis but instead quotes a critic of Wellhausen. It’s possible to be a biblical literalist without being so generic in one’s criticism of alternative views.

What’s going for it:

• It acknowledges that people might “agree on the inspiration of the Bible” even if they don’t agree on how it was written. Perhaps this allows for variety of opinion at least within circles that embrace biblical literalism?
• It challenges oversimplified claims that “nobody could write” in the ancient world. One wonders if any credible scholar actually holds quite this simplistic a view, but I can at least imagine a conversation taking this turn in the local pub.

What it needs:

• up-to-date information (a lot has changed since 1918!)
• a more charitable treatment of opposing views instead of putting up an oversimplified version of Wellhausen’s argument as a “straw man” that presents no real challenge
• awareness that the existence of writing in ancient times has little bearing on the documentary hypothesis, which could just as easily describe the blending of multiple written as multiple oral traditions (indeed, it was likely a mix of both!) into the Bible

PBS.org. This is a nice follow-up on the article above because it also begins with oral transmission and the written word, but it tells a more complex story of the transition from mostly oral to mostly written culture while observing that even into the Second Temple period (530 B.C.–A.D. 130) and beyond, “a fierce ideology of orality would persist in rabbinic Judaism.” It also includes information about the Christian New Testament as a natural outgrowth of the same forces that shaped rabbinic Judaism.

What’s going for it:

• It tells a complex story about oral and written tradition rather than an oversimplified claim.
• It includes the Christian New Testament without treating Christianity as a wholly separate phenomenon from Judaism.
• It shows awareness that modern readers may not share the worldview of ancient readers.
• The name and credentials of the author are included.

What it needs:

• acknowledgement of a wider conversation and diversity of views about this subject, without necessarily having to go in depth about those views
• better coverage of how both Judaism and Christianity came to “close” their canons

BibleOdyssey.org. This article begins in what strikes me at least as a more natural starting point: that “Bible” means “library.” Oral versus written transmission is covered, but is not the primary thrust of the article. Rather, this article explains a bit about canonization, including taking the time to define it as the “process of including certain books as Scripture and rejecting others.” This article also describes how scribes physically copied texts and why not all manuscripts of the Bible are exactly the same.

What’s going for it:

• It does not overemphasize oral versus written tradition, which was only one factor among many in the development of the Bible.
• It defines terms and doesn’t overwhelm the reader with details.
• It makes very clear that there is no one Bible or biblical text. Variety exists across canons based on the concerns of particular communities.
• The name and credentials of the author are included.

What it needs:

• frankly, even though this article offers a more well-rounded response to our actual question, it doesn’t have much “curb appeal” compared to most of the other sites on Google’s top list
• links to more information (although the “ask a scholar” option helps), especially given how much competing responses to this question offer by comparison
• like the article above, it does not really imply wider conversations about this subject or alert the reader to interesting points of dispute

From cringe-worthy statements like this opening line from EveryStudent.org—“unlike other religious writings, the Bible reads as a factual news account of real events, places, people, and dialogue”—to perhaps overly harsh accusations against biblical literalism like this one on an otherwise interesting NewsWeek article—“they are God’s frauds, cafeteria Christians who pick and choose which Bible verses they heed with less care than they exercise in selecting side orders for lunch”—it is clear that asking Google about how the Bible was written opens a raw spot in the Western psyche. Is Google, like a good psychiatrist, probing our reasons for asking the question? Have we revealed our cards unexpectedly to the algorithms that impassively map the emotional turmoil spurred by our favorite text to love and hate? This is one historical question for which a straightforward historical answer may never be good enough.

Shameless plug: we’ll be talking about this pain point at the next national meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, with Harvey Cox, author of the brand new book How to Read the Bible. Why not join us?

Cassandra Farrin joined Westar in 2010 and currently serves as the Marketing & Outreach Director. A US-UK Fulbright Scholar, she has an M.A. in Religious Studies from Lancaster University (England) and a B.A. in Religious Studies from Willamette University. She is passionate about books and projects that in some way address the intersection of ethics and early Christian history.