Who Wrote the Books of the Bible?

The question itself might be considered inflammatory. To Evangelical Protestants and other conservative Christians, to suggest that traditional attributions of biblical writings may not always be historically accurate smacks of heresy. To Orthodox Christians, questioning the traditional authorship of a biblical book seems to be questioning biblical authority itself, throwing into question the judgment of Church Fathers and undermining Holy Tradition.

My purpose in raising the issue is not to provoke ire, nor is it to question the value and authority of tradition. It is simply to address a question that often arises in our parish communities, especially when they are visited by interested but suspicious inquirers who come from a conservative Protestant background.

It is important to recognize and acknowledge that the authorship of certain biblical books was a matter of dispute even in the early Church. Already in the second century, St Irenaeus had to defend the Johannine authorship of the Fourth Gospel against other Christians who rejected its apostolic authority. Origen (†254), after long meditating on the question, concluded that only God knows who wrote the Epistle to the Hebrews. The authenticity of the three small letters ascribed to the apostle John was widely doubted in certain areas of early Christendom. And if the book of Revelation was accepted in Syriac-speaking areas only toward the tenth century, it was also because of dubious apostolic authorship.

Jesus and the apostles, together with ancient Church Fathers, all presupposed “Mosaic authorship” of the first five books of the Old Testament (the “Pentateuch,” the Hebrew Torah or Law; see for example Jn 1:45). Yet how would they respond if we could raise the question with them, “Did Moses actually write down all the material contained in those five books?”

Knowing how written texts were produced in their day, they would almost surely have replied that he did not. In the first place, authors frequently made use of a scribe, or amanuensis, who was often given a great deal of leeway in the final shape of the text. There is no more “Pauline” letter in the New Testament than the Epistle to the Romans, yet it was penned—and probably edited—by Paul’s disciple Tertius (16:22). Then we should recall the Orthodox icons of St John the Theologian, shown dictating his Gospel to his disciple Prochorus.

The authorship of the Pentateuch, however, is a different matter. First, we should note that the book of Deuteronomy ends with Moses’ death, an account which, of course, he did not write himself. This does not prove that he did not compose the remaining material, from Genesis 1 through Deuteronomy 33. To hold that he did, however, dismisses a great deal of convincing evidence to the contrary: evidence given in any standard introduction to the Old Testament, which demonstrates clearly that the Pentateuch was composed using a broad variety of traditions, both oral and written, and in stages spanning hundreds of years.

No serious scholar who has studied the question in depth doubts the composite character of the Pentateuch. Detailed studies have shown that it contains great varieties of literary style, vocabulary and syntax, together with “doublets,” or repetitions, of discrete yet inconsistent traditions stemming from different periods, all of which argue powerfully against the hypothesis that it was produced by a single author. The differences between the ancient tradition recorded in Genesis chapters 2-3 and the much later creation account of Genesis 1, for example, are strikingly apparent, even to the casual reader. Oral traditions circulated in prophetic and cultic circles for many years before being gathered, edited, and by a process still unclear, incorporated into what became Torah.

While some of the oral material behind those books may go back more or less directly to Moses, his association with Torah is important not from the point of view of redaction, but from the point of view of authority. To hold that those books are “Mosaic” is to affirm their canonical authority. Yet they are canonical not by virtue of the fact that Moses (or any other single figure) actually penned the words, but because they were received as canonical within Israel, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. And tradition naturally associates such authoritative material with the revelation God accorded to Moses on Mt Sinai. Torah stands in direct continuity with that revelation and thus in its entirety is deemed to constitute “the Law of Moses.”

The authority the Pentateuch possesses is greater than any human authority, that of Moses or anyone else. This is because both Jews and Christians recognize that God inspired the written witness-through a variety of authors and over a long span of time— and that God Himself invests those Scriptures with divine authority because they are truly revelatory. This, and not the redaction of a particular text by a particular author, is what makes the Scriptures uniquely authoritative, the vehicle of divine truth.

This approach to the question will be unacceptable to many Orthodox, just as it will be to many Evangelicals. Rather than undermine the faith, however, it confirms the essential truth that the true “author” of Scripture is God Himself, who conveys His revealing Word through a great number and variety of inspired human witnesses.

With this in mind, Readers in the Church often wonder if they should continue to announce during a liturgical service the traditional authorship of a book of the Bible whose authenticity is in doubt. Should we, for example, continue to refer to “the Epistle of the holy apostle Paul to the Hebrews”?

Certainly the answer should be “yes.” These are traditional attributions, sanctioned by the Church, which have behind them a long and venerable tradition. And it should be noted that scholars very often disagree among themselves as to which books are “authentic” and which are pseudepigraphical. Traditional attributions, once again, usually arose out of a concern to recognize in a given writing its apostolic authority and revelatory value. It may be appropriate to discuss questions of authorship in a seminary classroom or even a parish Bible study. Nevertheless, we should let stand the traditional attributions when we celebrate the Divine Liturgy or other services, since those attributions are concerned less with historical accuracy than with the need to draw our attention to the canonical, and thus authoritative, Word of God.

Who, in the final analysis, wrote the books of the Bible? The faith and experience of the Church affirm that the true Author of Scripture is the Holy Spirit. It is He who inspires human authors to compose—in their own terms, in light of their received traditions, and with all the limits human authorship implies—the unique body of writings produced in and by the Church as its regula veritatis, its canon or rule of truth.