Perhaps the best place to start the story is in Sun-baked northern Egypt, for it was here that the Bible and archaeology may, just may, first collide. For centuries, the Old Testament has been widely interpreted as a story of disaster and rescue — of the Israelites falling from grace before picking themselves up, dusting themselves down and finding redemption. In this podcast, biblical scholar John Barton considers the historical background to the most influential book in western culture, exploring its creation and how it fits into the histories of Judaism and Christianity:.
So what happened next? The Bible is in little doubt. It tells us that Moses led the Israelites out of their captivity in Egypt whose population had been laid low by ten plagues inflicted on them by God before Joshua spearheaded a brilliant invasion of Canaan, the promised land. The historical sources, however, are far less forthcoming. Like all good autocrats, Merneptah, pharaoh of Egypt, loved to brag about his achievements. And when he led his armies on a successful war of conquest at the end of the 13th century BC, he wanted the world, and successive generations, to know all about it.
The medium on which the pharaoh chose to trumpet his martial prowess was a three-metre-high lump of carved granite, now known as the Merneptah Stele. But it is the final three lines of the inscription that has arguably excited most interest among historians. But the Israelites would survive. It would spawn what is surely the most influential book of all time: the Bible. If the early history of the Israelites is uncertain, so is the evolution of the book that would tell their story.
Catherine Nixey and Edith Hall discuss a pivotal moment in religious history, when Christianity became the dominant faith of the Roman empire:. Until the 17th century, received opinion had it that the first five books of the Bible — Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy — were the work of one author: Moses.
That theory has since been seriously challenged. Scholars now believe that the stories that would become the Bible were disseminated by word of mouth across the centuries, in the form of oral tales and poetry — perhaps as a means of forging a collective identity among the tribes of Israel. Eventually, these stories were collated and written down. The question is by whom, and when? Beginning around 70 A. But for more than a century, scholars have generally agreed that the Gospels, like many of the books of the New Testament, were not actually written by the people to whom they are attributed.
In fact, it seems clear that the stories that form the basis of Christianity were first communicated orally, and passed down from generation to generation, before they were collected and written down. Traditionally, 13 of the 27 books of the New Testament were attributed to Paul the Apostle , who famously converted to Christianity after meeting Jesus on the road to Damascus and wrote a series of letters that helped spread the faith throughout the Mediterranean world.
These are believed to have been written between A. Authors of the later epistles may have been followers of Paul, who used his name to lend authenticity to the works. The first three are effectively different editions of the same materials, and for that reason are known as the 'synoptic gospels'.
The writer of Luke also wrote the Acts of the Apostles, which tells the story of how Christianity spread from being a small group of Jewish believers in the time of Jesus to becoming a worldwide faith in less than a generation. The New Testament concludes with the book of Revelation , which begins with a series of letters to seven churches in the area of Asia Minor modern Turkey , but then offers a visionary presentation of the meaning of all things, from creation to the end of the world.
Some Biblical scholars, armed with archaeological evidence, dispute the historical accuracy of some of the books from the Old Testament.
The sheer diversity of literature in the Bible is one of the secrets of its continuing popularity through the centuries. There is something for all moods and many different cultures. Its message is not buried in religious jargon only accessible to either believers or scholars, but reflects the issues that people struggle with in daily life. Despite their different emphases, all its authors shared the conviction that this world and its affairs are not just a haphazard sequence of random coincidences, but are the forum of God's activity - a God who unlike the God of the philosophers is not remote or unknowable, but a personal being who can be known by ordinary people.
Melvyn Bragg believes the King James version of the Bible, first published in , has had a profound effect on human history over the last years. Search term:. Read more. This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets CSS enabled. While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience. The Muratorian Canon, which is believed to date to A. It was not until the 5th century that all the different Christian churches came to a basic agreement on Biblical canon.
The books that eventually were considered canon reflect the times they were embraced as much the times of the events they portray.
During the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, books not originally written in Hebrew but Greek, such as Judith and Maccabees, were excluded from the Old Testament. These are known the Apocrypha and are still included in the Catholic Bible. Additional Biblical texts have been discovered, such as the Gospel of Mary, which was part of the larger Berlin Gnostic Codex found in Egypt in Among the Gnostic Gospels were the Gospel of Thomas—which purports to be previously hidden sayings by Jesus presented in collaboration with his twin brother—and The Gospel of Philip, which implies a marriage between Jesus and Mary Magdalene.
The original texts are believed to date back to around A. The Book of Judas was found in Egypt in the s. Dated to around A. These have never become part of the official Biblical canon, but stem from the same traditions and can be read as alternative views of the same stories and lessons. These texts are taken as indications of the diversity of early Christianity.
First printed in , this edition of the Bible was commissioned in by King James I after feeling political pressure from Puritans and Calvinists demanding church reform and calling for a complete restructuring of church hierarchy.
In response, James called for a conference at Hampton Court Palace, during which it was suggested to him that there should be a new translation of the Bible since versions commissioned by earlier monarchs were felt to be corrupt. King James eventually agreed and decreed the new translation should speak in contemporary language, using common, recognizable terms. This version of the Bible was not altered for years and is credited as one of the biggest influences on the English language, alongside the works of Shakespeare.
The Oxford Illustrated History of the Bible. John Rogerson, ed. The Book: A History of the Bible. Christopher De Hamel. New Testament History and Literature. Dale B. The Gnostic Gospels.
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