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The Modern critical study of the Bible

The academic study of the Bible, also known as Biblical scholarship, has a long history dating back to the ancient civilizations of Greece and Rome. However, the modern, critical study of the Bible as an academic discipline can be traced back to the Enlightenment period of the 18th century, when scholars began to apply historical and linguistic methods to the study of the texts. In the 19th and 20th centuries, Biblical scholarship became increasingly specialized, with the development of new methodologies and approaches such as textual criticism, archaeology, and form criticism. Today, the academic study of the Bible continues to be an important and vibrant field, with scholars from a wide range of disciplines contributing to our understanding of these ancient texts.
• Read more, Age of Enlightenment [wikipedia] | [The Academic] Biblical Studies [Wikipedia]

Facts

In the ancient world (say, Athens in the days of Plato), maybe 15% of the population was roughly literate
In most times and places, it was more like 10%
Of this number, far more can read than write, let alone produce decent, coherent text
In first-century probably only 3% of the population of Palestine was literate
In Luke 4:16-21 is the one and only passage in the entire New Testament that indicates that Jesus could read
- Source: The Bart Ehrman Blog
Who Were the Twelve Apostles?

¹⁶And He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up; and as was His custom, He entered the synagogue on the Sabbath, and stood up to read. ¹⁷And the scroll of Isaiah the prophet was handed to Him. And He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

¹⁸“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,
Because He anointed Me to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent Me to proclaim release to captives,
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set free those who are oppressed,
¹⁹To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.”

²⁰And He rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down; and the eyes of all the people in the synagogue were intently directed at Him. ²¹Now He began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your ^[e]hearing.”
New American Standard Bible, The Gosbel of Luke, Chapter 4

What do we know about the historical Jesus?

Most likely the person named Jesus was a real living person
He was born in Nazareth, not Bethlehem
He was possibly a disciple of John the Baptist who baptized him
When John the Baptist was killed, Jesus began to lead part of that movement
He had his own disciples and followers
He had his teachings
- ”One of Christianity’s sharpest critics was Celsus, an academically trained Greek philosopher about whom few biographical facts are known. In about 180 CE, he published his polemical writings in which he called Jesus an “imposter,” who spread “wicked lies,” performed “magic tricks,” and gathered around him “persons of notorious character.” He compared him to an Egyptian magician, a person who cons people out of their money—an out-and-out charlatan.” Excerpt from the book: Paul Verhoeven. ”Jesus of Nazareth”. Apple Books (2007, 2010).
- There were many contenders who wanted to be the Messiah the Jews were waiting for. It is possible that Jesus’ alleged “miracles” were a collection of several tricks performed by different magicians.
He was crucified by the Romans in Jerusalem, possibly because of a temple disturbance
Jesus was a Jewish version of Hellenistic cynic philosopher / a revolutionary zealot / a peasant social reformer / an apocalyptic prophet who believed very strongly that the end of the world was going to happen during his lifetime
- Source: The Gospel of Thomas, lecture by John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place (at 1:17:35)

The Lost Years of Jesus Revealed at Last! (Feb. 17, 2023), by James Tabor

My arguments

If in the Bible was only a single mention of Jesus reading the Bible, it does not prove that he had the ability to read. He might have known that passage by heart
Then again in his occupation (a carpenter) he was not required the ability to read
Most likely majority of his most closed disciples were unable to read or write, or compose texts
- If Matthew was originally a tax collector, he would probably have been literate and could write highly educated Greek. Source: Wikipedia
- [The disciples of Jesus] were a diverse group of ordinary uneducated men with quick tempers. They argued among themselves. All of them fled when Jesus was crucified on the cross (Matthew 26:56). They were probably not the type of men who would be chosen by religious leaders today. [Owlcation]
That is the main reason there exists no texts written by Jesus, and majority of Gospels has been written after his death
And in the case of Gospels and other biblical writings, some of them can be written by somebody else than the person they are addressed to
- Jesus and disciples spoke Aramaic which was a language close to Hebrew
- All The Old Testament were written in Hebrew, and The New Testament (mainly) in Greek
- While Jesus was quoting The Old Testament, it was in the accurate Greek version of the Gospels from the Old Testament translated around that time, The Septuagint Greek Translation [source: Giants and Fallen Angels – The Context of the Book of Enoch, lecture by John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place (at 8:12)]

The bible says, Peter and John were illiterate:

¹³Now as they observed the confidence of Peter and John and understood that they were uneducated and untrained men, they were amazed, and began to recognize them ^[k]as having been with Jesus.
New American Standard Bible, Acts, Chapter 4

Who wrote the Bible

Many ancient biblical manuscripts do not have a formal title or the name of an author
Over time, various systems were developed for organizing the texts of the Bible and assigning titles and authors to them
For example, in the Latin Vulgate, a translation of the Bible into Latin made by St. Jerome in the 4th century, the texts of the Bible are organized into the Old Testament and the New Testament, and each text is given a formal title and attributed to a specific author
Since most people were illiterate at the time, it is assumed that the books were not written by the person the books were titled after, but rather a successor of the titled person, or a member of the movement who knows how to compose a coherent text. For sure there is only a handful of writings by Paul they know were actually written by him. The rest of the bible we cannot be sure of.

– – those who were involved with Jesus in his ministry were lower-class Aramaic-speaking Jews in rural Palestine. They were not literate. They were not educated. They were poor. They did not have the time, money, inclination, or wherewithal to travel around the world. Jesus never left Palestine. He spent almost his entire life in Galilee before making a trip to Jerusalem in the last week of his life. The same can almost certainly be said about virtually all of his followers. And about those who saw and heard him during his public ministry.

The Gospel writers, on the other hand, lived in other parts of the world, probably major cities scattered throughout the empire. Their language was Greek, not Aramaic. They never indicate that they interviewed eyewitnesses. – – They almost certainly did not go to Palestine to make inquiries among the people who knew Jesus during his lifetime—for example, through interpreters. They inherited the stories they heard in Greek. These stories had been in circulation for years and decades before they themselves heard them. There had been stories, of course, during Jesus’s lifetime, tales of his activities, sayings, and death. These would have been told in Aramaic, in Palestine. Some of those stories came to be translated into Greek and circulated in Christian communities in that form. Other stories were almost certainly constructed originally in Greek – –
Jesus before gospels (2016), by Bart D. Ehrman (chapter Jesus and Eyewitnesses)

The Modern critical study of the Bible

Facts

What do we know about the historical Jesus?

My arguments

Who wrote the Bible

More readings