The Word of a Humble God: The Origins, Inspiration, and Interpretation of Scripture

By Karen R. Keen and Michael Graves

“Scripture is a spring of life-giving, life-altering truth, but when we don’t understand how and why it came to us, we end up misusing it.” 

How did we get the Bible? And why does it matter? History reveals that Scripture can be used for both life-giving and destructive purposes. Discovering the Bible’s origins makes all the difference for fostering redemptive interpretation of Scripture. Bringing together both historical criticism and theology, this investigation examines ancient scribal culture through the lens of faith. What we find is a divine-human collaboration that points to the character of God and the value of human agency. 

In this concise presentation of a breadth of scholarship usually only found across multiple volumes, Karen Keen offers a vital introduction to the material origins of the Bible, theories of inspiration, and the history of biblical interpretation—with reflections on what this all means for us as we read Scripture today. Through the ins and outs of these important topics, and with the aid of thought-provoking questions and learning activities at the end of each chapter, Keen argues that the Bible and its origins reveal a humble God who invites us to imitate that humility—a humility that is itself the most powerful antidote to the misinterpretation and abuse of Scripture.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Release date: Oct 6, 2022
• ISBN: 9781467465342

Karen R. Keen

 Karen R. Keen is a biblical scholar, author, and spiritual care provider who has taught biblical and theological studies in both academic and church settings. She currently teaches classes and leads retreats through the Redwood Center for Spiritual Care and Education. You can find her online at redwoodspiritualc are.com.

Book preview

Part 1

THE MAKING OF THE BIBLE

1

Context: People, Places, and Times

In 1979 a thirteen-year-old Israeli boy, Nathan, volunteered with his youth archaeology club for an excavation at a burial site, where he made an exciting discovery. He had been assigned to clean what appeared to be an empty chamber. The supervisor of the project, Dr. Gabriel Barkay, hoped the job would keep the restless youngster occupied.¹ But instead of cleaning, Nathan began hammering on the rocks covering the ground. As he did, the slabs of stone suddenly gave way to an undiscovered repository, untouched by looting. The rocks on the ground were actually part of a ceiling that had collapsed, keeping the repository hidden for centuries. Hundreds of objects were found, including pottery, silver, gold, and ivory. Among the treasures were two miniature silver scrolls, now referred to as the Ketef Hinnom Scrolls, so named for the excavation site near Jerusalem.

For several years experts tried to unroll and study the scrolls. What did they say? When were they written? Eventually, with the help of advanced technology, the mystery was solved: the scrolls contained the Priestly Blessing that appears in Numbers 6:24–26;² they could be dated to the late seventh or early sixth century BCE. This time period was decades after Israel fell to Assyria in 722 BCE and shortly before Judah was conquered by Babylon in 586 BCE.³ One scroll reads: May he/she be blessed by Yahweh the warrior/helper and the rebuker of Evil. May Yahweh bless you, keep you. May Yahweh make his face shine upon you and grant you peace.⁴ The tiny scrolls were likely amulets or prayers worn around the neck to protect against adversity. Perhaps they reflect a culture of religious renewal in Judah during the reign of King Josiah (c. 639–609 BCE). This discovery is significant because, to date, the scrolls contain the oldest surviving text with words resembling a passage from the Bible. Either the scrolls quote from a version of Numbers or the Priestly Blessing was a common Hebrew benediction that was also recorded in what became the book of Numbers.

While the Ketef Hinnom Scrolls might quote from a biblical text, the oldest surviving manuscript fragments that are definitely from a biblical scroll are found among the Dead Sea Scrolls.⁵ These fragments were first discovered in 1947 by two bedouin shepherds grazing a flock among the local caves in Qumran near the Dead Sea. When one of the animals strayed, it prompted a shepherd, Muhammed, to look for it while his cousin stayed with the flock. As he walked along, Muhammed casually tossed a rock into one of the many caves and was startled to hear a shattering noise. Spooked, he initially ran away. But further investigation revealed the cave contained jars with ancient scrolls. Over the next several years more scrolls were found in the Judean desert.

The Dead Sea Scrolls include manuscript fragments for every biblical book in the Hebrew Bible except Esther. While they are copies, not originals, they represent our oldest cache of biblical texts uncovered thus far, dating from about the third century BCE to the first century CE. To put this in historical perspective, these manuscripts are dated almost a thousand years after King David lived and hundreds of years after the falls of Israel and Judah. Most are only short fragments in disrepair. But among these treasures is the oldest complete copy of a scriptural book, the Great Isaiah Scroll (c. 125 BCE). Prior to this, the oldest copy of Isaiah we had was dated to the Middle Ages (tenth century CE).

The discovery of these ancient texts is exciting, yet it also highlights what we are missing. We do not have original manuscripts for the Bible. The fragile material used for writing disintegrated over time. That means we have to dig for clues to discern where, when, and by whom the Bible was written.

WHERE DID THE BIBLE COME FROM?

As a kid growing up in church, I didn’t think a lot about how the Bible came into existence. I assumed that the famous figures in the biblical stories wrote them as they were inspired by God. I imagined Moses hiking up Mount Sinai and God dictating the first five books of the Bible. Here you go, Moses. Now go down and read the Torah to the people. I also imagined prophets sitting at their desks writing as God audibly revealed insights to them. In my mind the books of the Bible were each single documents written by one particular author (e.g., Moses or Ezekiel or Solomon). It never occurred to me to wonder how all these books came together into one volume. I didn’t realize that Scripture ever looked any different than the nice leather-bound book my parents gave me.

As it turns out, the creation of the Bible is more complex than my youthful imagination envisioned, but also more fascinating.

The Bible originated with an ancient Semitic people alternately called Israelites, Judahites, or Jews. Most of us have heard of Israel but may not realize that a schism in the tenth century BCE divided this tribal collective into two separate nations: Israel (ten tribes) and Judah (two tribes). Eventually both Israel and Judah were conquered by foreign invaders (in the eighth and sixth centuries BCE, respectively). Some years following these traumatic events, the term Jew became a more common way to refer to the descendants of Judah.⁶ The distinction between Israelite and Judahite, in particular, becomes important when we consider the Bible’s origins. Judah survived as a nation more than a hundred years after Israel was destroyed by the Assyrians. That means the Judahites continued to edit and shape parts of the Hebrew Bible long after Israel had fallen (more on this below).

Before conflict divided this Semitic group into two nations, they were a united tribal collective called Israel. The earliest known reference to Israel outside the Bible appears in a thirteenth-century BCE Egyptian inscription (c. 1207 BCE).⁷ Pharaoh Merenptah erected a ten-foot granite monument bragging about his military conquests, including a claim that he wiped out the Israelites living in Canaan, the region between Egypt and Anatolia that came to be governed by Israel and Judah. In truth, his attack didn’t destroy the Israelite people, but exaggeration was common in ancient Near Eastern war records.

Archaeological evidence from this same period shows the beginning of a population explosion in the highlands of Canaan. Between 1200 and 1000 BCE, about 250 new settlements popped up.⁸ We know that these settlements continued to be occupied through the start of the Israelite monarchy, which developed around the tenth century BCE. So it appears the Israelites participated in this mass migration into the hill country, perhaps spurred by socioeconomic changes or to flee violence.⁹ Significantly, the Bronze Age collapse, resulting from multiple natural and human-made catastrophes, caused considerable unrest in the region and may have been a factor in these migration patterns.

What’s not clear is if Merenptah’s attack and the migration to the hill country have any relationship to each other, or whether these events have any connection to the biblical story of an Israelite exodus from Egypt. Any exodus likely occurred in the thirteenth century BCE.¹⁰ But what the exodus story doesn’t mention is that Egypt dominated and colonized Canaan for three hundred years. The superpower only withdrew around 1150 BCE as a result of the Bronze Age collapse.¹¹ In other words, Egypt was sometimes a threat in Canaan as well, leaving the Israelites struggling for complete liberation until the Egyptians withdrew from the region.

Social and Political Backdrop of the Hebrew Bible

During the two-hundred-year period of development in the hill country, the Israelites lived primarily as agriculturalists in small villages, raising goats and sheep and tending crops. They lived in modest houses made of stone, wood, and mudbrick.¹² Courtyards and sometimes lower levels of the home were shared with livestock. As with the rest of the ancient Near East, literacy among the general Israelite population would have been low.¹³ This has implications for how we conceptualize the origins of the Bible. Almost certainly, some biblical content was passed down orally before taking written form. This is reflected in the prevalence of lyrics and stylistic devices in the Hebrew Bible. Poetry, song, and story are performative and foster memorization. Some texts—such as the Song of the Sea (Exod 15:1–18), one of the oldest passages in the Bible—were almost certainly oral compositions first.

Around the tenth century BCE, the Israelites gradually transitioned from a loose association of tribes into a unified state with growing political power. The prevalence of writing in Israel probably coincided with the rise of urbanization and the development of the Israelite monarchy. Across the ancient Near East, writing was commonly associated with political, business, or religious affairs. Israel was no exception. Israelite scribes engaged in diplomatic negotiation with other nations (2 Kgs 18:17–37) and management of temple funds (2 Kgs 12:10–16; 22:3–7).¹⁴ Seraiah is named as King David’s scribe (2 Sam 8:17), and Seraiah’s sons became scribes for Solomon (1 Kgs 4:3).

While scholars debate whether the biblical scribes were primarily associated with the royal administration or with the priestly class, we do know politics affected the final shape of the Hebrew Bible. Israel as a unified state was short-lived. The schism that developed during the reign of Solomon’s son Rehoboam separated the nation of Judah in the south from Israel in the north. Israel was destroyed by the Assyrians around 722 BCE. But Judah survived for over a century longer until the Babylonians sacked Jerusalem in 586 BCE. As mentioned previously, this resulted in Judahites and their descendants influencing the Hebrew Bible’s formation. Judahite editorial oversight contributed to a noticeable slant in the Hebrew Bible favoring Judah over Israel. For example, in 1 and 2 Kings, the Israelite kings are portrayed as evil, while Judah continues the favored royal line of King David. In 1 and 2 Chronicles, Israelite kings are left out entirely while Judahite leadership is praised. The editors of the Hebrew Bible interpreted Judah’s comparative longevity as a sign of God’s favor and recorded history accordingly.

Messianic Hopes and the New Testament

Eventually Judah had to reckon with its own demise at the hands of the Babylonians, leading to existential questions about God’s presence. Ultimately, the devastating exile and loss of nationhood suffered by both Israel and Judah set the backdrop for the development of the New Testament in the first century CE. The early Christians were Jews longing for freedom from foreign occupation. By this time, Jews had lived under Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Greek, and Roman rule. Greek was the lingua franca in the Greco-Roman world and therefore became the language of the New Testament.¹⁵ But a spirit of resiliency also influenced the New Testament. The Jewish people believed that God would not abandon them. They trusted that restoration would come, uniting descendants of Israelites and Judahites into one nation of Israel that would rise from the ashes. But as the followers of Jesus and the first Christians came to conceptualize it, that restoration would look much different than expected.

In the beginning, Christianity was not a distinct religion. It was a Jewish sect among other Jewish groups that existed at the time (e.g., Essenes, Pharisees, Sadducees). Jesus was not the only traveling rabbi or Jewish leader perceived to be a messiah (meaning anointed one or king). After the destruction of Judah in 586 BCE, various leaders arose, attempting to throw off the foreign occupiers (e.g., Judas Maccabeus). Jesus was one of the leaders who some Jews hoped would bring national independence. When Jesus was killed, his followers mournfully declared, We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel (Luke 24:21). Even after Jesus’s resurrection the pressing question was still, Is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel? (Acts 1:6). From these messianic hopes, under the shadow of the Roman empire, the New Testament was written.

THE CHALLENGE OF DATING THE BIBLE

It’s not clear when the Israelites or Judahites began to write lengthy texts that would eventually become Scripture. In antiquity, writing was a time-consuming process and reading materials were not readily available. No public libraries or bookstores existed. The book, or codex, did not develop until a thousand years later, around the first century CE. While some lengthier texts existed in the ancient Near East (e.g., the Gilgamesh Epic), most documents were short and written on materials not suitable for mass production, including clay, pottery, leather, and papyrus. There were no bookbinding machines or factories producing reams of paper. What we typically call books of the Bible, such as Genesis or Jeremiah, are more often anthologies of shorter texts that have been collected together. The reality of many different texts being woven together makes dating the Hebrew Bible difficult.

All the biblical books were originally preserved on separate scrolls, and the order of the books in the canon does not correspond to the chronological order in which they were written. For example, Genesis is not the oldest book in the Hebrew Bible. The Hebrew Bible as we now know it consists of multiple texts from different time periods being pieced together like a quilt, making it difficult to distinguish the chronological layers. Additionally, a lack of clear historical references often makes it challenging to pinpoint when a text was written.

Early Jewish and Christian traditions assumed Moses wrote the Torah (the first five books of the Bible). Most scholars today place Moses around the thirteenth century BCE. Yet the Torah itself does not claim Moses is responsible for the entirety or even most of Genesis through Deuteronomy. A survey of the textual evidence reveals a few references that describe Moses writing select texts such as laws, a song, and records of certain events such as a battle with Amalek (e.g., Exod 17:14; 24:4; 34:27–29; Num 33:1–2; Deut 31:9–11). In some cases, he is pictured using clay or stone. But the Torah also includes references to Moses in the third person, suggesting other authors and editors later incorporated Mosaic oral or written tradition into the Hebrew Bible.

Exodus describes a predominantly oral law. Moses "transmits what God has spoken, orally, to the people. So, for example, the Ten Commandments are prefaced by Moses’ saying that ‘God spoke all these words’ (20:1). The people ask Moses to speak to them, to tell them what God has said" (20:19).¹⁶ According to the narrative, the tablets of the Ten Commandments are not passed around for the population to read. In fact, they are stored away in the ark of the covenant (Exod 25:21; Deut 10:2).

Likely, an oral culture persisted concurrently with the writing of scriptural texts even after writing became more prevalent in Israel.¹⁷ For example, Habakkuk reports that God told him to write down a vision but to have a runner travel from place to place, reciting it aloud to the people (Hab 2:2). Literacy was usually the domain of trained scribes and not widespread. Some nonprofessionals might have rudimentary skills to sign their names or make a business transaction, but the general population relied on a culture of oral transmission. Most Israelites and Judahites heard the words of prophets and priests recited at communal gatherings rather than reading texts.

In an oral culture, written texts could have symbolic significance. For example, the laws of Hammurabi, a Babylonian king, are etched into a stone monument, not for the population to read and study but as a symbol of the king’s authority. Moses’s teaching was probably oral, supplemented with short texts placed in the ark for symbolic purposes, as well as preserved for use by priestly scribes.

Archaeological remains, including extrabiblical inscriptions, suggest writing began to flourish between the eighth and sixth centuries BCE for Israel, Judah, and their neighbors, as they grew in political and socioeconomic power. (This is the time period of the Ketef Hinnom Scrolls mentioned at the beginning of the chapter.) The earliest surviving Hebrew inscriptions appeared in the tenth or ninth century BCE, written in Paleo-Hebrew, a form of the alphabet that is virtually indistinguishable from other Canaanite scripts, such as Phoenician.¹⁸ These early texts are not biblical writings but rather simplistic inscriptions. For example, the Zayit Stone consists only of letters of the alphabet etched into a boulder, and the Gezer Calendar describes monthly agricultural activities in short phrases. Other early extant texts in Paleo-Hebrew are similarly terse.¹⁹ The appearance of Paleo-Hebrew inscriptions does not mean the ancestors of the Israelites necessarily lacked a writing system before this time. They might have used an earlier Canaanite script that eventually evolved into Hebrew.²⁰

Writing did exist in Canaan prior to the rise of the Israelite state in the tenth century. The fourteenth-century BCE Amarna Letters include correspondence from the Canaanite ruler of Jerusalem, Abdi-Heba, requesting military assistance from Egypt. Other evidence of writing includes clay seals that were sometimes used to secure documents, as well as short inscriptions; a few of these date to the tenth or ninth century BCE.²¹ In any case, archaeological evidence suggests writing was more prevalent after the eighth century BCE.

The lack of archaeological evidence for lengthy written Hebrew texts prior to the eighth century BCE has led some scholars to say no portion of the Hebrew Bible was written before that time. Prior to this, we don’t have evidence of extensive writing in Israel or Judah. But this lack of physical evidence does not rule out the possibility that parts of the Hebrew Bible are older than the eighth century BCE. The materials might have simply disintegrated, leaving no trace, or have not been found.

Having assessed the evidence, what can we affirm about when the Hebrew Bible was written? An oral tradition likely preceded and ran concurrently with written Scripture. The texts were written over hundreds of years with some portions possibly created by the tenth century BCE and through the fifth century BCE (with portions, if not all, of Daniel around the second century). Scribal activity increased from the eighth to sixth century BCE and most editing probably occurred by the fifth or fourth century BCE. The Torah as a cohesive collection of biblical books was translated into Greek by the third century BCE. Some minor editing, particularly in other books of the Hebrew Bible beyond the Torah, may have continued for another century or so.

Dating specific texts in the Hebrew Bible beyond these broad strokes is difficult. The lack of archaeological clues, as well as minimal reference in the books themselves to the circumstances of their composition, has resulted in little consensus for specific dates. The scholarship on the matter provides such variant conclusions for a single book of the Hebrew Bible that one scholar rightly says that the dating of almost all parts of the Old Testament is now in disarray.²²

However, scholars generally agree on a few additional basics.²³ Some texts are clearly older than others, as evidenced by how biblical authors quote or allude to earlier biblical material. For example, we know the author of Deuteronomy engages with Exodus. The books of 1 and 2 Chronicles are later than 1 and 2 Kings. Certain prophetic books, such as Hosea, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and parts of Isaiah, are closely tied to specific historical events in the eighth and sixth centuries BCE and seem to reflect eyewitness knowledge of those time periods. Daniel refers to events in the Greek period, suggesting a second-century BCE date. Some would also date Ecclesiastes to around this time frame, given its similarities to Greek philosophy, but less agreement exists for this wisdom text.

One of the most ambitious attempts to date texts in the Hebrew Bible is a theory referred to as the Deuteronomistic History. Many scholars believe that similar ideology and style in Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, and 1 and 2 Kings indicate these books were written or edited by the same scribe or school of scribes. But this proposal remains speculative, and the theory itself has undergone various interpretations. For example, were there several scribes or only one? Did they work during the reign of King Hezekiah or King Josiah or after the destruction of Judah? To what extent were the scribes acting as editors of earlier texts versus authors? Initially the Deuteronomistic History was dated to Judah’s exile (post-586 BCE), but many scholars now propose a first edition in the seventh century BCE.²⁴

Jewish Writings from the Third to the First Century BCE

During the Greco-Roman period, from the third to the first century BCE, prior to the writing of the New Testament, the Jewish community produced a variety of texts beyond the Hebrew Bible. These works typically address religious life and biblical interpretation. Catholic and Orthodox Bibles include some of these works such as Tobit, 1 and 2 Maccabees, and Sirach (see chapter 4 on different biblical canons). Other Jewish texts never made it into the Bible, such as the Genesis Apocryphon. This book provides interpretations of major figures and events in Genesis, including Noah, Abraham, and Moses.²⁵

The writings of this period contain several different literary genres, including biblical commentary, prayer, hymn, testament, historical writing, philosophical reflection, novella, wisdom literature, and apocalypse.²⁶ Perhaps the most misunderstood of these genres today is apocalypse. Revelation, a well-known apocalyptic text in the New Testament, is often subject to wild interpretations. But other apocalypses, such as Daniel, 1 Enoch, and the War Scroll, predate the New Testament. Often characterized by symbolic and cryptic language, apocalyptic literature appears to have developed, in part, as a response to the turmoil Jews suffered under foreign rule. It cast a vision of hope that God would ultimately bring judgment against evildoers.²⁷

Notably, the authors of the New Testament sometimes allude to or reference extrabiblical Jewish writings. For example, Paul engages with Wisdom of Solomon in his letter to the Romans (compare Wis 13 and 14 with Rom 1). And Jude likely references 1 Enoch (Jude 14–15; 1 Enoch 1:9). This engagement suggests the New Testament writers were familiar with a variety of Jewish literature outside of the Hebrew Bible.

Dating the New Testament

In contrast to the Hebrew Bible, we have more information about dates for the New Testament. In fact, most of it was written in a short span between about 50 and 90 CE, with some books possibly written in the early second century. Paul’s letters are the oldest, with the earliest one, probably 1 Thessalonians (c. 50 CE), penned about twenty years after Jesus’s death. Even though the gospels appear first in the New Testament canon, they were written later than Paul’s works, probably between the mid-60s and 90 CE. Mark was likely penned first, and John was almost certainly the last gospel. Some scholars suggest John was written as late as the second century CE. Revelation is also among the last additions to the New Testament.²⁸

Dates of Surviving Biblical Manuscripts

We do not have original manuscripts for texts that comprise the Hebrew Bible or the New Testament, only copies. But we do have thousands of fragments from these copies. As mentioned already, the earliest fragments of the Hebrew Bible are part of the Dead Sea Scrolls cache, the oldest among them dated to circa third century BCE. The oldest complete copy of an entire biblical book is the Great Isaiah Scroll, dated to about 125 BCE. Keep in mind, much of the Hebrew Bible was probably written between the tenth and fifth centuries BCE (with Daniel a latecomer). That means we have a large gap between the writing of the Hebrew Bible and the oldest surviving manuscript copies (that have been discovered thus far). The possible exception is if the Ketef Hinnom Scrolls from the seventh or sixth century BCE reproduce a line from an early version of Numbers. But if the Priestly Blessing was simply a common benediction that happened to be incorporated into Numbers, the Ketef Hinnom inscription is not a biblical fragment in the strictest sense.

When it comes to the New Testament, the oldest known surviving copy is probably the Rylands Papyrus Fragment P52 containing parts of John 18 (c. 125–175 CE). If John was written around 90 CE, the time between initial writing and surviving manuscript copies is significantly shorter than for the Hebrew Bible.

When it comes to the oldest surviving complete and bound copy of most books in the Bible, both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, we are looking at the fourth century CE. Codex Vaticanus (c. 325–350 CE) has nearly all the books (some are missing due to damage).²⁹ Codex Sinaiticus is also comprehensive (c. 350 CE).³⁰ Both codices contain Greek translations of the Hebrew Bible, as well as deuterocanonical books. (The Greek Old Testament, known as the Septuagint, will be discussed in chapter 4.) The oldest complete copy of the Hebrew Bible in Hebrew is the Leningrad Codex (c. 1008 CE).

CHART: DATES OF BIBLICAL TEXTS