The original post says that “the Bible” was written “hundreds of years after [Jesus’s] death.” I consider this to be an incorrect statement. When someone says “the Bible,” I wouldn’t think of only the most recently composed passages, but as a whole, from Genesis to Revelation.
This doesn’t mean that those recent passages weren’t written hundreds of years after Jesus died, only that I wouldn’t identify that point in history as “when the Bible was written.”
Except english language discussions on writing would generally be fine with how the post you replied to is written.
If an author writes a book for several decades then publishes it we would generally say “it was written” up to the publishing date even if sections of the book had not changed significantly for decades before publishing it. So I think its completely correct english to say “The Bible was written hundreds of years after christ lived” even if parts of it were written when he lived.
I agree that its misleading but I disagree that it’s incorrect because its correct linguistically and its correct in the broader point that essentially “Christ would likely not quote documents written after his existence” with the caveat being that he may quote documents that eventually found their way into the old testament unchanged.
I don’t disagree that one can generally talk about books in that way, but given what I know about how biblical authorship, I think it’s an incorrect (or as you say, misleading) way of describing the Bible specifically.
Of all the books that became canon in the Christian Bible, the most recent ones were written in the late 1st/early 2nd century CE. The later edits were additions, deletions, or alterations to these existing works rather than entirely new books on their own, and by the time those edits were made the books were already being used as scripture in Christian communities.
I’d liken it to The Hobbit. The first edition was published in 1937. In order to align more with The Lord of the Rings, a 2nd edition was published in 1951, and it contained significant changes to the the characterization of Gollum and the function of the One Ring. However, despite those changes, I would never say that, “The Hobbit was written in 1951.”
My final note: you can see in my first post that I agreed with the sentiment of the post I was responding to: that, “Christ would likely not quote documents written after his existence,” as you said. Many words have been put into the mouth of Jesus of Nazareth, because everything written about him came after he was too dead to make corrections.
This is the post you replied to
The implication was that it was not correct because of a reply that starts with:
The original post says that “the Bible” was written “hundreds of years after [Jesus’s] death.” I consider this to be an incorrect statement. When someone says “the Bible,” I wouldn’t think of only the most recently composed passages, but as a whole, from Genesis to Revelation.
This doesn’t mean that those recent passages weren’t written hundreds of years after Jesus died, only that I wouldn’t identify that point in history as “when the Bible was written.”
Except english language discussions on writing would generally be fine with how the post you replied to is written.
If an author writes a book for several decades then publishes it we would generally say “it was written” up to the publishing date even if sections of the book had not changed significantly for decades before publishing it. So I think its completely correct english to say “The Bible was written hundreds of years after christ lived” even if parts of it were written when he lived.
I agree that its misleading but I disagree that it’s incorrect because its correct linguistically and its correct in the broader point that essentially “Christ would likely not quote documents written after his existence” with the caveat being that he may quote documents that eventually found their way into the old testament unchanged.
I don’t disagree that one can generally talk about books in that way, but given what I know about how biblical authorship, I think it’s an incorrect (or as you say, misleading) way of describing the Bible specifically.
Of all the books that became canon in the Christian Bible, the most recent ones were written in the late 1st/early 2nd century CE. The later edits were additions, deletions, or alterations to these existing works rather than entirely new books on their own, and by the time those edits were made the books were already being used as scripture in Christian communities.
I’d liken it to The Hobbit. The first edition was published in 1937. In order to align more with The Lord of the Rings, a 2nd edition was published in 1951, and it contained significant changes to the the characterization of Gollum and the function of the One Ring. However, despite those changes, I would never say that, “The Hobbit was written in 1951.”
My final note: you can see in my first post that I agreed with the sentiment of the post I was responding to: that, “Christ would likely not quote documents written after his existence,” as you said. Many words have been put into the mouth of Jesus of Nazareth, because everything written about him came after he was too dead to make corrections.