who wrote the book of james in the bible

In each case, these writers are talked about as if they were a single person, but each author could just as easily be an entire school of people writing in a single style. Just as English speakers can roughly date a book that uses a lot of “thee’s” and “thou’s,” Bible scholars can contrast the styles of these early books to create profiles of the different authors.

Scholars have developed their own take on who wrote the Bible’s first five books, mainly by using internal clues and writing style.

There are a few issues with this, however, such as the lack of evidence that Moses ever existed and the fact that the end of Deuteronomy describes the “author” dying and being buried. Wikimedia Commons Moses, as painted by Rembrandt.Īccording to both Jewish and Christian Dogma, the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy (the first five books of the Bible and the entirety of the Torah) were all written by Moses in about 1,300 B.C. Who Wrote The Bible: The First Five Books About the best that can be said for that notion is that if God really did “write” the Bible through a millennium-long sequence of various authors, he was certainly doing it the hard way.Īs for the actual historical evidence regarding who wrote the Bible, that’s a longer story. Religious doctrine, of course, holds that God himself is the author of or at least the inspiration for the entirety of the Bible, which was transcribed by a series of humble vessels. Other books can be reliably dated to a given period by either internal clues - sort of the way no books written in the 1700s mention airplanes, for instance - and by their literary style, which develops over time. Some books of the Bible were written in the clear light of history, and their authorship isn’t terribly controversial. We’re not completely ignorant, of course. In other words, who wrote the Bible? Of all the mysteries surrounding the Bible, that one may be the most fascinating. But given its immense reach and cultural influence, it’s a bit surprising how little we really know about the Bible’s origins. That fact can be good or bad, and it’s often been both over the many centuries throughout which Christians have been reading the Bible and Jews have been reading the Torah. Unlike, say, The Great Gatsby, the Bible is a text upon which millions and millions of people have based their entire lives.

HOLY BOOKS HAVE A REACH that goes far beyond what virtually all works of literature can ever accomplish. Wikimedia Commons A depiction of Paul the Apostle writing his epistles.

Who wrote the book of james in the bible