How Old Is the Bible?

Some fragments, found at a border fortress dating back to 600 BC, were written by at least six different people, suggesting that the reading was popular in the ancient kingdom of Judah, said co-author Israel Finkelstein, a Bible archaeologist and scholar at Tel Aviv University in Israel.

Pieces of ceramics discovered in the seventh century, in a fortress in a desert in Israel, can be discovered when portions of the Bible are written. Ostraca, or pottery fragments, show that the literacy was widespread about 600 BC, suggesting that the Bible could have been composed about that time.

“We are dealing with real low-level soldiers in a distant country who can write”, Finkelstein told “Live Science”. So there must have been some kind of educational system in Judah at that time”.

The scripture shows that the kingdom had intellectual resources to write and compile large pieces of the Old Testament during this period, he added.

Bible History

Religious scholars have debated many times when the Bible was written. Until the Middle Ages, people believed that the Bible was written almost in real time (as events have happened).

The Bible text mentions scribes and trained officials of the kingdom of Judah, which remained a state about the 10th century BC, reports “Locking”, Transmission Periscope. In 586, when Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the temple and forced most Jewish elites to exile in Babylon. So scholars assumed that the text should have been written before the temple was destroyed.

But this line of reasoning assumed that Bible accounts were historically correct. In recent years, a camp of scholars has postponed a later date for the drafting of the Old Testament, with some even arguing that the summary occurred centuries later, when Greeks or Persians decided on what is now Israel, Finkelstein said.

He said he and his colleagues realized there could be another way to address the question. Decades earlier, archaeologists had uncovered archaic inscriptions of the Hebrew ink on ostraca, or pottery, from a border fortress called Arad, a remote garrison that is far from the city of Judea, Jerusalem. Finkelstein said that he wondered whether these inscriptions, written during the 600 ' s, could reveal how many people could read and write at that time.

The Spreader

To answer that question, Ari Shaw, a research and archaeology candidate at Tel Aviv University, along with Chira Faigenbaum-Golovin, a math doctoral candidate at university and colleagues, tried through computer programs to find a precise time when the Bible was written.

They used computer programs to scan digital images of the text, systematically completing lost text lines and analyzing each detail. Finally, computer algorithms compared the scenario to each of the 18 inscriptions to see if they were written on the same side.

All of them write or read on ostracas, including individuals rank in command of the fortress, a man named Malchiyyahu, to a deputy head, a low - ranking soldier, under the person who runs the storage depots of the fortress, reports the National Academy of Sciences.

This is really very amazing,” said Finkelstein, “in a distant place like this one, there were more than one person, some people who could write”.

Furthermore, other border towers have similar ostraca, suggesting that writing was widespread at the time, at least within the Jewish army, researchers reported.

Other archaeological evidence suggests that no more than 100,000 people lived in Judah at that time. Together, these lines of evidence suggest that a considerable portion of the population - perhaps several hundred people - could read and write, Finkelstein said.

Early Bible Summary

In order for so many men of low rank to be able to read and write, it must have been a Jewish educational system, Finkelstein said.

In contrast, after the destruction of the first temple, when Israel's educated people were killed or deported to Babylon, there is not as much as a ceramic piece, seal, or seal with a piece of writings from the region for more than 200 years, Finkelstein said. This suggests that it is far less likely that these books were compiled after the destruction of the temple, he said.

The findings are very important and match other research lines, said Christopher Rollston, a researcher in the Near East at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. There is no doubt that elites in Jewish society could read and write about 600 prior to Christ, Rollston said.

“Actually, I have argued in the press that writing-reading elites (screbe, senior government and religious officials) is already present about 800 BC”, Rollston told “Live Science” on an email.

However, not everyone agrees with all the literature assumptions. And the notion that many could read and write in the Kingdom of Judah during the seventh century BC./Periscopi/