Summary of Introduction to the Bible (from an academic point of view)

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00:00:00 - 01:00:00

This academic video discusses the origins of the Hebrew Bible and how it was put together over time. The video also discusses some of the major books in the Bible and their importance to the overall story.

00:00:00 The Bible was written by multiple authors over a period of time, and is not the work of a single author. The Torah, or Pentateuch, is a collection of five books that were likely written by different authors and over a period of time.
00:05:00 The original theory was that four different sources (J, E, P, D) created the Torah. Recent research indicates that the Bible greatly exaggerates its description of Solomon's reign, and that there never was a unified Kingdom. The supplementary hypothesis is that Deuteronomy (D) was the original version of the Torah and was written around the time of King Josiah. Some scholars believe that this is when monotheism really started to be promoted in a big way. The Dual Origins Theory posits that the ancient Israelites originally had two separate origin myths- one involving the three Patriarchs Abraham Isaac, Jacob, and Moses, and the other involving the Exodus story. These two literary traditions developed independently from each other and remained separate until they were combined for the first time by the Priestly writer. D, based on the Moses tradition, was written down first during the time of King Josiah, but at the same time as D there were other fragments of text floating around. Some of which were based on the Moses tradition, but others of which were based on the Abraham Isaac and Jacob tradition. Then, sometime during the second temple period, the Dual Origins Theory suggests that the Priestly writer added just a few more things to D before the Torah was finally complete
00:10:00 The third theory of the Bible's origins is that the Moses and Abraham stories were developed separately in different parts of the world, and that the transition between Genesis and Exodus is abrupt and has several chronological problems. The idea is that the Israelites were originally two separate nations, and that the unification happened during the days of Hezekiah and Josiah. Joseph, another main character associated with Egypt, is more of a northern hero in the north, while in the south Judah is portrayed as the most important son of Jacob.
00:15:00 The Old Testament is the same in both the Jewish and Christian Bibles, although the order and categorization is slightly different in the Jewish Bible. The first five books of the Bible, traditionally called the Torah, are included in the Jewish Bible, but the Apocrypha, seven books written by Jews, are not. Christians divide the Old Testament into four sections after the pentateuch, with the History, Poetry, and Prophecy sections being the same in both versions. The Jewish Bible includes only three sections, Torah, Neviim, and Ketuvim, while the Christian Old Testament includes the entire Old Testament, with the exception of the Apocrypha, in the four sections.
00:20:00 The Torah, which includes the four books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, was pieced together from the work of four different authors or schools of authors. Scholars today believe that the Torah was written by Samuel and Kings was written by Jeremiah. The four books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings were written during the reign of King Josiah. The book of Joshua is centered around two story arcs, the accession history of King David and the court history of King David. The book of Kings appears to rely heavily on two previous documents, The Chronicles of the Kings of Israel and The Chronicles of the Kings of Judah, which are now lost.
00:25:00 The Bible has many layers, parts were combined with other parts and then those combined parts were put together with other combined parts to make even longer parts. The final result was nine books that tell the complete history of the Israelite people. Scholars debate whether or not these first nine books were ever thought of as a single unit.
00:30:00 In this video, an academic discusses the Bible's major prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, as well as the Minor Prophets. Christians call these three the Major Prophets, while for Jews, Daniel is not considered a prophet and the book that bears his name is included in the writings which will be covered in a future episode. Finally, the academic discusses the Minor Prophets, explaining that they are included in the Jewish Bible as a single book called The Twelve, but in the Christian Old Testament they are considered 12 separate books.
00:35:00 The Bible is a collection of religious texts that spans over a thousand years. The books in the Bible are arranged in chronological order, with the oldest books at the beginning and the most recent books at the end. There are also books within the Bible that are divided into smaller books, which offers clues about who wrote each individual psalm. The Psalms are particularly divided into five books, with the oldest psalms appearing in Book 1.
00:40:00 The Book of Psalms is a collection of 150 different compositions, and is thought to be related to a now lost book called the Zabur. The Book of Proverbs is also a collection of compositions, and is thought to have been revealed to David. Muslims believe that the Book of Psalms that exists today is a corrupted version of the original book of Sabor. Jews believe that the Torah or tarat was given to Moses, but that the version we have today is not the original.
00:45:00 The Bible can be divided into six sections, each with its own purpose and author. The first section, the Proverbs of Solomon, is written by a different author and includes poems about specific topics. The Song of Solomon is considered erotic poetry and is associated with King Solomon, but few scholars believe that Solomon was the author. The next five books are grouped together in Jewish tradition, but their placement in Christian tradition is different. Jews place these five books together because they are all literary and late additions to the Hebrew Bible. Each book is associated with a Jewish holiday.
00:50:00 The five books of the Hebrew Bible can be narrowed down by studying the vocabulary and grammar used in the text. In this case, it seems to be heavily influenced by Aramaic, which was the lingua Franca of the Persian Empire and throughout the Persian period. Hebrew slowly replaced Aramaic as the main language in Judea, but the Song of Solomon shares certain similarities to love poetry written by the Greeks and is thus the first book mentioned so far that can probably be placed during the Greek period. Ruth is placed after the Book of Judges because chronologically this is where the story fits, but as with most of the books in the Hebrew Bible, it was probably written many hundreds of years after the time period in which it was set. Ecclesiastes, written during the Persian period, is a strangely pessimistic brooding sort of book. Lamentations, written around the time of Jerusalem's destruction by the Babylonians, allows us to date the book to sometime around this event. Traditionally, the author is said to have been the Prophet Jeremiah, but it's possible that the book was actually written by five different authors. All of these lines come from The Book of Ecclesiastes. The final book in this set of five is Esther, which was
00:55:00 The author of this academic video introduces the Hebrew Bible, specifically the book of Esther. They discuss how the book was likely written during the Greek period and how its content is similar to other ancient stories. He also discusses the Ezra-Nehemiah and Chronicles books and their importance to the Hebrew Bible's overall story.

01:00:00 - 02:00:00

This video introduces the Bible, discussing the origins of the different texts and the purposes they served. The video goes on to discuss the different authors of the Bible and the debates surrounding their authorship.

01:00:00 This video introduces the Bible, discussing the differences between the Jewish Tanakh, the Protestant Old Testament, and the Catholic Old Testament. The video then goes on to discuss the deuterocanonicals, which are books in the Catholic and Orthodox Old Testaments that are not found in the Protestant Bible. Finally, the video discusses the Ethiopian Old Testament, which is the largest of the three.
01:05:00 The Bible is a collection of writings that were written over a long period of time. The first set of writings were written in the early period of Jewish history, and the second set of writings were written much later. In order to make room for these writings, we need to expand our timeline to include the next three periods in Jewish history: the Hasmonean period, the Herodian period, and the Post-Temple period. The hasmonean period began in 167 BCE when a family of Jewish priests known as the Maccabees managed to win independence for Judea. Their rule continued until 37 BCE when Herod the Great took the throne and Judea became a client state of Rome. In 170 CE, the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the second temple, ushering in the final period on the timeline, the Post-Temple period. Baruch was a prophet who lived around the time of the Babylonian exile, and it is unlikely that he actually wrote the book. It is more likely that a later writer wrote the book as if it was written by Baruch. The Book of Jeremiah was written during the time of the Babylonian exile, and a prologue was added to the book several decades later by its grandson. This prologue is particularly helpful
01:10:00 The Bible includes books that were not written by the biblical authors, including the Apocrypha. First and Second Maccabees were written in two different languages and have different authors, while Estros is the Greek version of Ezra. Third and Fourth Maccabees are also different books and were written about different events.
01:15:00 The Bible consists of three books written in Greek: First and Second Maccabees and Third Maccabean. The first two books are loosely based on the Maccabees, while the third book focuses on Bible characters like Adam and David. Fourth Baruch, written in Greek sometime in the post Temple period, is off the chart compared to the other books. The Book of Enoch, written in Hebrew during the Greek period, is the most interesting of the apocryphal books and is referenced in the New Testament.
01:20:00 The video discusses the book of Watchers, which is a section of the Bible that was likely written in the Greek period. It describes how Fallen Angels end up having sex with human women, leading to a race of giants known as the Nephilim. The Tanakh (the Jewish Bible) doesn't include much information about angels or Fallen Angels, but the Book of Enoch does. This book fleshes out the Genesis account and describes how the sons of God (angels) went into the daughters of Men (human beings). The Book of Enoch also lists the names of many Angelic beings, including samyaza the leader of the Watchers, Azazel the Fallen Angel who teaches humans to use metal and to make weapons, and Uriel one of the good angels who acts as Enoch's guide. Over the course of several hundred years, two Origin stories were combined to create second temple Judaism. However, after the second temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE, the Sadducees basically disappeared because there was no longer a temple for them to use. The very bookish Pharisees ended up redefining Judaism and it eventually evolved into rabbinical Judaism, the type of Judaism that exists today. The essenes are the group that
01:25:00 There is some debate about who wrote the Bible, but most scholars agree that at least three of the gospels - Matthew, Mark, and Luke - were written by people associated with early Christianity. While most conservative Christian scholars believe that all four authors wrote the gospels, most critical scholars believe that at least one - or possibly more - of the authors may not have written their assigned gospel.
01:30:00 The three most popular solutions to the synoptic problem are the two-source hypothesis, the greisbach hypothesis, and the Q Plus papius hypothesis. The two-source hypothesis states that Mark was written first, and both Matthew and Luke used Mark as a source. The greisbach hypothesis argues that Matthew was written first and that Luke was written second, using Matthew as a source. The Q Plus papius hypothesis argues that Q and Mark were written first, and that Mark had access to it.
01:35:00 The Bible was written by various authors over a period of centuries, with different purposes in mind. The synoptic gospels, written by Matthew, Mark, and Luke, place Jesus on a timeline and discuss his teachings. John, which has little in common with the other three, is mostly theological in nature and adds many events not found in the other gospels. Synoptic authors were likely familiar with the Q source, which is a collection of short sayings about Jesus, but added material from Mark and Matthew. Luke, the final author, would have had access to all four sources.
01:40:00 The author introduces the Bible, discussing its origins and various texts. He explains that the book of Acts is a two-part work, and that Paul is the most important person in the development of early Christianity. The author also points out that the year 70 CE is a important date in the development of Judaism and Christianity, as it is the year the Second Temple was destroyed.
01:45:00 The Bible was likely written over a period of many years, and includes letters written by Paul to different churches. Some scholars believe that a Thomasine community and a Johnan community existed within early Christianity, and that the followers of Thomas saw the resurrection as more of an act of spiritual enlightenment, while the followers of John saw it as more of a factual bodily resurrection. Differences among early Christians on how to understand Jesus were highlighted in the Gospel of Thomas, which scholars believe was not written by Q (the source of the synoptics), but by another author.
01:50:00 The seven Pauline epistles that are generally accepted as genuine are Galatians, First Thessalonians, Romans, 2 Corinthians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Titus. The three epistles that are generally accepted as pseudopigrapha are Philemon, Titus, and the two Timothy epistles.
01:55:00 The Bible was written by a variety of authors, with Hebrews attributed to a woman. Scholars debate its authorship, with one theory being that it was written by a woman pretending to be James the brother of Jesus. Other arguments include that the letters were not written by someone who knew Jesus personally and that John's letters were probably not written by John, the leader of the Twelve Apostles.

02:00:00 - 02:20:00

This video covers the main points of the Bible from an academic point of view. It discusses how the Bible was created and the various theories surrounding its meaning. It also covers the timeline of the Bible, discussing key events that happened during its creation.