With this article we enter the ongoing debate about not only the formation of, but also the nature of scripture. This has been made clear to me over the past few weeks as I have watched an ongoing debate about scripture in a forum on Linked-In. The forum concerns whether or not Christians have to believe in the absolute literal nature of the creation texts (a 6 day/24 hour view) and thus of all of scripture. Those who push for the 6/24 interpretation do so on the basis that the scriptures are literally God-breathed and thus perfect as regards history, science and wording. In other words the original manuscripts contain the very dictation of God. Those who disagree and believe that the universe is several billion years old argue that scripture, while being inspired by the Holy Spirit contains not the dictated words of God but saga, history, theology, poetry and prophetic announcements from human beings writing with particular pre-scientific world views. This second approach is the one that I will take as we move forward and examine the history and use of scripture.
The exact means by which the Hebrew canon was compiled is shrouded in mystery and in the mists of time. Most modern Biblical scholars take the view that the scriptures were composed and compiled over hundreds of years beginning with oral transmission and then only at a rather late date compiled into written form. In terms of the Torah this oral transmission phase was probably carried out by at least four different groups referred to as J, E, D and P (this is the Documentary hypothesis). The letters J, E, D and P refer to either the use of different names for God (J for YHWH and E for Elohim) or different foci (D for the focus on the exile as God's judgment and P for a focus on the work of the priests). The dating of these sources ranges from 900-550 BCE with final editing perhaps around 450 BCE after the return from exile. The Psalms were probably composed during the same 900-500 BCE period with the prophets coming between 700-500 BCE. The final piece of the OT, the writings and books such as Daniel could be as late as 140 BCE. The current form of the Hebrew Bible was finalized somewhere between 200 BCE and 200 CE.
The New Testament was written between 45 CE and 100 CE. The earliest portions of the NT are the letters of Paul. The Apostle left the church with a wide variety of letters written to specific churches, groups of churches and individual Christians. There are also a number of letters attributed to Paul which scholars believe were written by other people under Paul's name. Scholars believe this because the language, theology and emphases in the letters are different from those of the early Pauline letters (one example is that most of the "anti-woman" bias we sense in Paul's letters comes from these later letters). The Gospels were written between 60 CE and 90CE, with Mark being the first and John being the last. We are not sure of their authorship (the names were attached at a later date) yet the church accepted them as reliable witnesses to the life and work of Jesus. In terms of the final part of the NT, the writings and Revelation, scholars are all over the map in terms of dating. The NT canon (our current 27 books) was considered closed by the Western church somewhere around 397 CE.
One interesting note is that the Bible as we know it (66 books) is a product of the Reformation. The Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches have larger sets of scriptures. The Roman church has an additional seven books, the Greek Orthodox has an additional eleven and other Orthodox churches have a few more than that. Thus even what is considered to be scripture varies from tradition to tradition.
My hope is that this very brief overview has given you a sense of not only the complex nature of Biblical composition, transmission and compilation but also of the enduring nature of the story it tells; that Judaism and Christianity kept telling and retelling these foundational faith stories across hundreds of years because they believed they were vital to giving godly shape and form to the life and work of God's people.
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