Talk:Authors of the Bible

Article Checklist for "Authors of the Bible"

Workgroup category or categories	Religion Workgroup, Literature Workgroup [Editors asked to check categories]
Article status	Stub: no more than a few sentences
Underlinked article?	Yes
Basic cleanup done?	No
Checklist last edited by	Michael Yates 23:23, 21 June 2007 (CDT)

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I have started this article, which is suggested by the Books of the Bible article. It is very much in draft stage and is open to input by anyone. My first goal is to give a brief summary of support for the most popular author of each book, then to go back over it in more detail with more research. Suggestions are welcome. Michael Yates 23:19, 21 June 2007 (CDT)

Nature of claims -- organization of entry

There are a number of questions raised by this entry.

First off, is this going to be a list of what historical scholarship into the origins of the Bible has produced? If so, rather than organizing it by all the books of the most commonly accepted Christian Biblical canon, it would seem to make much more sense to organized it by the authors as historically adduced. Thus, we should have sections on the Elohist, the Yahwist, and other Old Testament authors, along with the same treatment of the New Testament, with sections on the Q document and so forth.

Or, is this going to be a summary of the authors of Biblical texts as believed in by Jews or Christians? That is, are we to imagine that Moses wrote the books of Moses, Solomon wrote the Song of Solomon, and so forth. If so, then, we have an important CZ:Neutrality_Policy issue, as it will take a great deal of time and effort to craft neutral statements about what different faiths believe.

Or will this just be a catalog of popular notions about the authors of the Bible? That wouldn't, by itself, be to my mind a useful entry for an encyclopedia, unless under a different title such as "Popular conceptions of the Bible." Russell Potter 11:01, 24 June 2007 (CDT)

Thanks for your analysis. It is my hope that this will be a summary of historical scholarship on the books that Jews or Christians have at least in some part accepted as canonical. Based on that, I don't think I would include the Q document, etc. as it was never recovered as such, and has never appeared in any "canonical" collection.

Changes on the arrangement are always possible. You are wise in suggesting an arrangement by authors/cultures. I would not be so simple as to assume the traditional authorship of each book as believed by many Jews or Christians. What has been written already was merely what I recall top-of-the-mind on each book. Ultimately I would love a scholarly but simplified analysis of the authorship of each book, ideally no more than 300 words each. Michael Yates 16:02, 25 June 2007 (CDT)

Thanks for your reply. Well, I was concerned at first that there's a sub-header for each and every book -- that's going to be hard for readers to scroll through, and leads to an auto-generated Table of Contents that's very long. Whereas, if we have fewer sections, each one with a header for the author(s) -- "Elohist," "Yahwist," etc. -- there will be many fewer headers, and a much easier article to consult. Some books, such as the Song of Songs, are anomalous enough that they may deserve their own section, I suppose, but why not treat the books of Moses, the Prophets, etc. as groups? The other word that concerned me a bit was "popular" -- there are so many popular notions, that made me think the article would have to be too exhaustive to be really useful. Russell Potter 17:02, 25 June 2007 (CDT)