Special Software Sheds Light on Who Really Wrote the Bible - Is it a hoax?

I believe that there are 66 books in total in the bible, some of the books being written by the same author. Moses for example supposedly wrote the first five books, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Could Moses actually write? How do we? Or if we do know, how?

I am a little lost, but does this software actually show that a certain person wrote so many chapters, paragraphs and sentences, due to the way that certain passages have been written in a particular style of phrasing. How would this software work if someone was to dictate to somebody else to write it. Maybe someone who was being dictated to wrote it down in short hand and then wrote it in a more proper manner at a later date. Would that make a difference to the way it was written and the type of phrasing used.

It's also a bit like Chinese whispers, what is said at the beginning sounds like something entirely different at the end of the chain of whisperers. Well that's what I think, not that it's worth the paper it's written on. I know that it's not written on paper, but you know what I mean...............................I hope............

Are we to rely on current technology to figure out that the Bible and other religious texts are nothing more than ancient bloggers with too much time on their hands/paws/claws? I call it hoax.

The concept of multiple authors within the Torah is hardly new or the results of special software. What you're reading about is a computer exploration of Wellhausen's documentary hypothesis.

Originally posted by Ghost375
What would be interesting is if it discovered any of the Luke, John, Mark, Matthew texts were written by different authors.

This is hardly likely simply becouse they would need a fair body of work to draw a comparison from and this body of work doesnt exist. There has been sugestions over the years that several of these authors drew from an unknown text called the "Q" document which would have been an early written account no longer extant. This idea is based on similarities in at least several of the authors you list above. However these sililarities take away nothing from the clear styles of each writer.

Originally posted by Ghost375
What would be interesting is if it discovered any of the Luke, John, Mark, Matthew texts were written by different authors.

Actually you can get a good sense of the possibility of this just by reading them either critically or with a halfway-working intuition.

Matthew, for example, reads like it was largely written by one person, but with completely off-topic things abruptly inserted throughout the entire text. For example 18:15-19. Before and after these verses Jesus is giving a bunch of parables, but in the middle of it all the sudden it's like He's writing a constitution for the Church judicial hierarchy.

Originally posted by Ghost375
What would be interesting is if it discovered any of the Luke, John, Mark, Matthew texts were written by different authors.
I have a feeling the fundamentals would just deny it just like evolution.
I'm gonna have to read the comments of this on Fox News...Fox News always has great comments filled with derogatory names for liberals. I can only imagine what they are saying on this story.

Looks like they're just ignoring that story.

edit on 30-6-2011 by Ghost375 because: (no reason given)

i wonder if they are using original texts ?

i thought there were no "originals".......

the Vatican may have some old copies laying around.

the rumor is that the Roman scribes and scholars wrote and re-wrote and re-wrote like crazy.

that goes for all of the "Big 3" religions.

anyways, aren't all religions by "self-proclamation" ?

who wrote the latest version ?

I also wonder what different languages this "software" recognizes ?

ancient languages are not the same as today's .........

something determined to be "conflicting" today may not have been 2000 years ago in an old form of a language !

Originally posted by xuenchen
i wonder if they are using original texts ?
i thought there were no "originals".......
the Vatican may have some old copies laying around.
the rumor is that the Roman scribes and scholars wrote and re-wrote and re-wrote like crazy.
who wrote the latest version ?

a very valid point worth mentioning.
What database of words and phrases
did they use to compare against if there
were no originals ???

maybe I need to go to seminary college just
to understand this stuff.

Originally posted by boondock-saint

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.

Ok, I admit, I was a lil taken back by this story. What would subjecting this type scrutiny to
the Bible do for those who want to prove the Bible a hoax ???

Nothing at all. I *do* happen to know a little bit about this type of coding and research, and it simply makes it easier to tell where the narrative has been changed by someone coming in and writing in their own style. For instance, the Book of Genesis has at least five editors... an original version and was rewritten by four other people (who probably added things.)

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.

So it shows a different sequence in the writing, which is interesting.

The differences "have the potential to generate fruitful discussion among scholars," said Michael Segal of Hebrew University's Bible Department, who was not involved in the project.

I agree with Segal. The scholars are going to be intrigued and excited about this and will look at the various versions of the Biblical books to see how this changes the timeline of who edited what. If I worked in the field, I'd be champing at the bit to get to my favorite bits!

How long will it be before technology will prove the Bible and/or religion a hoax ??? Will this software aid
in that process ???

Well, it proves the Bible is NOT a hoax -- because it involves too many editors. It proves what everyone but the Biblical Inerrants knew all along, that the Bible was written by many people (and what scholars have known since before St. Jerome rewrote the Vetus Latina into the "Vulgate Bible.") I sometimes think that Biblical Inerrancy people think that Jesus strolled down from the heavens with the St. James version of the Bible tucked under his arm and began handing it out. They have no idea what the original language is (unlike the older Catholics, Biblical Inerrants don't usually read the old original Latin of the Vulgate/Douay Rheems) and how it has been edited and changed throughout the ages.

No, not pseudo science. Solid science.

Originally posted by boondock-saint
a very valid point worth mentioning.
What database of words and phrases
did they use to compare against if there
were no originals ???

Probably nothing you could easily relate to. All they're really doing is work that's been done by hand by scholars for centuries. They're looking for patterns in sentence and word formation. This kind of program could tell the difference between your writing and my writing very easily.

maybe I need to go to seminary college just
to understand this stuff.

Seminary won't help you. You'd have to get a Masters' in applied linguistics and specialize in the ancient languages of the Middle East.

That's a bit too much for most folks. Instead, make friends with someone who has credentials or start hanging around on message boards where you have Biblical scholars and linguists.

reply to post by boondock-saint


Hey Boondock, great thread. It would be very interesting to broaden the search by the application of the software to multiple translations of the text to see if the results were the same. I think it would help reveal whether the change in 'voice' was consistently strong enough to stand the application of 'one translators voice'. Indeed not all, or probably many; if any translations would have been undertaken by one person, and it would reveal whether the change in voices falls in the places different individuals translated different sections as opposed to authored them.

I assume that the software has been applied to a Hebrew version: let it rip on a Latin version, English versions, German etc etc. That would be truly revealing, use this study as a 'control' to see the different variations in other versions that the software finds. One thing i think it could tell us is whether the 'original bible text' as claimed is a translation in itself of something else - which i assume it is.

It could well account for these 'voice changes' simply being a change in the translator.

www.youtube.com...


It is pretty common knowledge that the bible is full of falsities. This is a great debate about just that. long but worth the watch if you are interested in these things.

well...
I think if people would just listen, and see, and feel, and think, with the gear god gave em..
they would realize he never did, does not now, and never will, need a third party to communicate with people he chooses to communicate with.

I am sure he wanted people together to work out what is right in the context of life as we live it and know it.

I think this a heavey topic and thread,
and Boon I think you are very brave as a Christian for posting it.
star that and flag that too
and new rules and all...
no takebacks

Ps
i think the trouble starts when people turn off their brains and take the book literaly
like any book or ats even
THINK!
its about denying ignorance

Personaly, i do not think the bible a hoax or anything like that, but, the men who wrote it may be just that, a hoax.
Hopefully, someday people will understand that it's just a long set of moral codes witch anyone can use in their daylly lives... Nothing else. no religion, no savior, no end of times, no date for that "end of times"...
Then, paraphrasing something i said somewhere else in this forum, but noone picked on it, i'll just say it again:

"The bible is a book, just like any other, writen by men, not god or any higher power..."

I was quite happy with this little group of authors en.wikipedia.org... especially as J was considered to be a woman.

I just wonder at the point of this, simply because the texts that make up the bible were probably written over a longer period of time than most people realise encompassing many scribes lifestyles. Also it was not worked on like Bede's records within a safe and secure environment with a known continuum. These people lost wars, were carted off having theirTreasures seized, their Temples and most likely records destroyed. You can't be sure how many times due to loss stuff was rewritten etc. There is also the fact that we are told Ezra composed the first part of the Bible but from this link which says every man should compose his own Torah who knows what is actually being analysed. "Ewww.biu.ac.il... man should compose his own Torah"

Perhaps it doesn't matter people believe what they want to believe but should it be pointed out that none of this early biblical work is either Hebrew nor part of their history. This questions who the Hebrew God later in the Bible actually is. The ancient originals of these stories are: Adapa and the South Wind, Athahasis, the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Enuna Elish. Repackaged to suit the later Hebrew politics of the time.

In the Babylonian myth the serpent is Ningishzidu and is a friend to Adapa who helps him in his search for immortality. Genesis serpent is an enemy to Adam telling him to eat of the Tree of Life/Knowledge so God will kick him out of the garden and turn against mankind which leads into the concept of God later changing his mind and deciding to choose a certain group of mankind.

Originally posted by boondock-saint
reply to post by babybunnies

 

I think you missed the point in the article.
Meaning the computer program thought
that multiple authors wrote in the same book.

a cabal maybe ???

If there were two Isaiah authors then Jesus lied.

I can't accept that.

What happens when everyone finds out that jesus or whoever was really an ancient self help guru and they're essentially worshiping an ancient Tony Robbins book?

reply to post by boondock-saint


yea.. it's foxnews..

It's my understanding that Moses had access to ancient documents, which were compiled into the book of Genesis. Shem's record of history was available in the land of Ur. Abram took copies of that record with him when he headed out to the area of the Shepherd Kings. Abram passed them onto Isaac and then they were passed to Jacob. A number of Jacob's 12 sons must have retained a copy of those records by the time Moses appeared on the scene.

Originally posted by Komodo
reply to post by boondock-saint

 

yea.. it's foxnews..

what the heck does that have to do with it?
Fox just published the story.
The research came from a University
in Israel.

Originally posted by NOTurTypical
If there were two Isaiah authors then Jesus lied.
I can't accept that.

maybe the original book of Isaiah was written
by one author and somehow later pages got
torn or destroyed in it's travels and had to be
re-written by a more modern author. This
re-writing might not have matched the original
authors penmenship. Doesn't mean that Jesus
lied. We just don't know enough facts about how
the books came to be in their present condition.