Who wrote the bible?

150 CE						Second Peter
120 CE					Luke/Acts	Barnabas Hermas
100 CE				John	John’s Ltr John’s Rev	1st  Clmt 1st Peter
90 CE		Matthew			Ephesians
80 CE		Q2	Mark		Colossians
70 CE		Pronouncement Stories
60 CE					Paul’s Letters
50 CE	Q1	Miracle Stories
40 CE		Oral Tradition
30 CE	Jesus Died	Lore Teachings
20 CE	Jesus in Galilee
	Galilee	Northern Palestine	Southern Syria	Northern Syria	Greece Asia Minor	Rome

There are many people who will tell you that God wrote the Bible and they will beat you over the head with their interpretation of the Bible. Many more people are really turned off by this "God said it, I believe it, case closed" bumper sticker mentality.

Lutherans and others have done serious scholarship on the subject and I think it is important that we are clear about our position on the Bible. The diagram above is one that I put together from Burton Mack's book, "Who wrote the New Testament."

It is commonly accepted that Jesus was murdered around 33 CE. For the next 30 years, there is no written record of the life and teachings of Jesus. An oral record was created by various Jesus cults and societies. Many scholars speculate that two documents existed but have since been long lost that were written records. They are called Q1 and Q2.  "Q" is the first letter of the word "quelle" which is German for "Source."

Paul's letters are the first written evidence of Jesus and Paul was not an eyewitness to the life and death of Jesus. Mathew, Mark and Luke are thought to have been based on the Q documents because they are so similar. No one knows who wrote the Gospels and ascribing the names Matthew, Mark, Luke and John is simply something that happened over time. We know that the author of Luke is the author of Acts because he says so in the first chapter of Acts.

The Bible is a collection of various documents that were written over a very long period. From the chart above, you will see that the books and letters in the New Testament were written to various audiences over a period of 100 years. The books and stories in the Old Testament were written over a period of thousands of years and many were changed over time. The book of Job, for example is an ancient fable that was split in two and someone inserted a middle part.

In the 4th century, Constantine appointed a bishop named Eusebius to cobble together a single volume which would be the Bible. This list of documents is called the canon and various versions exist. The Roman Catholics, for example, include several books that Lutherans do not. Scholars and theologians debate to this day whether or not the canon is closed.

The point is that all of the documents were written by men and women and almost none are historically accurate and certainly none are books of science or geology.

It is also not arguable that the Bible has been used over the centuries for nefarious reasons. Slavery was defended on the basis of scripture and today, homosexuals are castigated from holy scripture.

Luther was clear about the use of scripture. He said that scripture is one way that the Great Mystery reveals itself to us. There are other ways. Music (Lutheran great, J.S. Bach, is often called the fifth evangelist), art, literature, poetry are others. The book of James is so full of great arguments for works righteousness that Luther said it was an epistle of straw and should be removed from the canon and be replaced with a letter written by his buddy Melanchthon. Luther opposed works righteousness.