Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2020 September 16

= September 16 =

What part of Amos is most likely to be written in c. 750s BCE?
Dating the Bible says that was only the initial composition of earliest layer. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:56, 16 September 2020 (UTC)
 * According to Brevard Childs in Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture, the oldest kernel in Amos was found in chapters 3-6, as distinguished by Hans Walter Wolff. This kernel, along with the visions from ch. 7-9 and some early redactions, was attributed to Amos himself and his contemporaries in the eighth century.  bibliomaniac 1  5  23:09, 16 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Are there any Bible verses that are older than Amos to almost everyone? Maybe large disagreements on how much older exactly (i.e. Genesis 1 is 4004 BCE to some and younger than Amos to most atheists and agnostics) but general consensus on older. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 02:49, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Your question is hard to answer. First, you're conflating the time that the events that were written with the (purported) time that the events took place. Second, there's little agreement about when different parts of the Bible were written, or if we want to expand things, when they originated, considering that the oral tradition could have predated what was written by a considerable amount of time. You would have to be more specific about what you want in your question.  bibliomaniac 1  5  03:13, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Right I should've said c. 1400s BC for Genesis 1, still a very large disagreement as the scientific view is many centuries later. I'm wondering if I read those parts of Amos in Young's Literal Translation or that word-to-word thing with alien (Hebrew) word order should I consider that close to the words of c. 750s BCE person(s) and is that as old as it gets without some mainstream experts starting to doubt? Like the very old-fashioned Hebrew of Exodus 15 has convinced some non-believers it's up to 13th century BCE old but it's not a fringe theory that it might've reached mostly final form after 750 BCE so that wouldn't count. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 04:13, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
 * If you're including traditional dating schemes, most traditional (inside-the-faith) sources ascribe the writing of the Torah/Pentateuch to Moses, so circa 16th century - 14th century BCE, depending on which traditional date for Moses's life you ascribe to; modern scholars don't ascribe to this dating however. As another idea, the Genesis flood narrative bears many similarities to earlier flood narratives (c.f. Gilgamesh flood myth and also compare Utnapishtim to Noah), so if that narrative is a version of the older flood narrative story, the flood story may be the oldest story in the Bible, dating to at least the third millenium BCE.  -- Jayron 32 15:27, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
 * That's the oldest lower bound I just mentioned, which only true believers believe. 1494 BCE was the Ussherian sea parting I think. It's not even the oldest lower bound as Job is c. 2000 BCE to Young Earth creationists. I'm wondering what's the oldest upper bound that isn't a fringe theory. Perhaps it's Amos 3-6, perhaps it's some poetry that was later added to J, E, D, P or elsewhere but I haven't got a clue, when I learned most of my Bible knowledge I harrumphed at any non-Young Earth creationist date I saw without remembering many.. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 18:15, 18 September 2020 (UTC)


 * Two of the oldest passages are "The Song of the Sea" and "The Song of Deborah", which were originally freestanding poems that probably existed before there was a Bible as we know it today, and were later incorporated into the Bible... AnonMoos (talk) 11:23, 17 September 2020 (UTC)