Assisted by the charism of inspiration, the hagiographers were the men who preserved the Word of God and later put it into writing. The reader will be interested to know when and how they wrote it.  

Newsdesk (July 25, 2021, 13:30 PM, Gaudium Press) It is known today that the Bible was written for a little more than a thousand years.

For many centuries, historians believed that one of the first great hagiographers was Moses, who wrote the Pentateuch. The Bible, therefore, could have begun to be written around 1200 B.C. This belief is contested today by most specialists who, based on future scientific discoveries and meticulous studies, prefer to date the first writings to the time of Solomon, approximately 1000 B.C.

The New Testament occasionally refers to Moses as the author of these books, and it should not confuse us. We know that the intention of the hagiographers (and, above all, of the Holy Spirit) was not to communicate precise scientific or historical knowledge; but rather the truths that are important for our salvation. The hagiographers, therefore, expressed themselves in these matters according to the ordinary and current concepts of the time.

In the same way, nowadays, the general belief is that the first writings of the Old Testament were not the Pentateuch but some historical books. Many scholars even maintain that the first written text was the song of Deborah, from the Book of Judges.

It is not possible to determine the exact time at which the sacred books of the Old Testament were written. The most commonly accepted chronology is as follows:

• From 1000 to 930 B.C.: during the reign of David and Solomon, the Song of Deborah, the books of Samuel, and some episodes from Genesis appeared.
• From 930 to 586 B.C.: several prophetic books appeared: Amos, Hosea, Micah, Isaiah (1 – 39), Jeremiah, Zephaniah, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Deuteronomy.
• From 586 to 538 B.C. (during the period of exile in Babylonia): the books of Ezekiel, the second part of Isaiah, the so-called deuteron Isaiah (40-55), Joshua, Judges, and Kings.
• From 583 to 300 B.C. (the first post-exilic period): the books of Haggai, Zechariah, the third part of Isaiah – the trite Isaiah – (56-66), Malachi, Job, Jonah, and Song of Songs appeared. The completion of the Psalms, the Proverbs extended, and Ezra and Numbers appeared. It is only in this period that the Pentateuch was completed.
• From 300 to 50 B.C., the second period after the exile: the Maccabees, the books of Tobit, Ecclesiastes, Ecclesiasticus, and Wisdom appeared.
• And finally, in the century before the birth of Jesus Christ, the last books: Joel, Daniel, Judith, First and Second of the Maccabees.

As for the New Testament, its books were probably written between the 50s and the 100s of the Christian era. And the first ones were not the Gospels but some Pauline letters.

Papyrus and parchments

When the kings of Israel reigned and in apostolic times, the typewriter did not exist, much less modern computers. Not even pen and paper! How then did they write these texts?

Today we know that in a certain period of ancient times, people often used stone, metal plates, or ceramics for writing. The latter were clay tablets on which they printed the characters with the help of a stylus to make up the texts. These plates were then baked in the oven and preserved.

However, when the biblical books began to be written, simple means of writing had already been developed, using ink on papyrus or parchment, precursor materials of paper.

The former comes from a vegetable, abundant on the banks of the Nile, whose pressed stem offered something like a sheet of paper. The Israelites knew it well from their time in Egypt, and the Egyptians traded it widely. They also used to make boats and other objects. The basket in which Moses was placed among the reeds in the river to escape Pharaoh’s wrath was of papyrus.

Parchment has its origin in the city of Pergamos, capital of Mysia and an important city in Asia Minor, from which it takes its name. It is specially treated sheepskin, resulting in a consistent and relatively thin sheet. Much sturdier and more durable, but more costly than papyrus, they began to use it extensively for the most valuable documents.

In general, they wrote papyrus books on scrolls. They kept them in the Temple and synagogues for reading during liturgical ceremonies. Parchment, more consistent but harder to preserve in rolls, led to the great invention of notebooks or codices. They produced them by folding parchment sheets into four, thus composing volumes similar to our current books. Perhaps we owe this significant discovery to the Christians, for codices were already in use in the first centuries of Christianity.

The Codices, the oldest copies of the Bible available to us, are from the first centuries of Christianity. Some of them contain almost complete versions of the Scriptures. The main ones are at the Vatican Library, the British Museum, and other major museums worldwide. Many modern translations of the Holy Scriptures come from these “originals.”

From the Middle Ages, by the valuable work of the monks who copied the Scriptures, we have a vast number of copies of the Scriptures. And the most recent archaeological discoveries confirm the admirable fidelity of the medieval manuscripts to the oldest versions.

The oldest known manuscript fragments of the Old Testament are from the 2nd century B.C., and the Old Testament books probably began to be written during Solomon’s reign, around the 10th century B.C. Therefore, there are 800 years between these first writings and the oldest preserved fragments. It means that the Scriptures have come down to us through a long succession of copies from copies of manuscripts that are now lost.

By Father Arnóbio José Glavam, EP

Compiled by Ena Alfaro