In this course, ancient-language expert Dr. Mike Heiser gives a thorough background of the Hebrew Bible’s writing, composition, canonicity, and transmission through the ages. This course also surveys text criticism—what are Hebrew scholars today doing with these ancient manuscripts? How does their work affect English translations of the Bible? By understanding criticism, your personal Bible study will be richer, even with little knowledge of the Hebrew language.
“Now, if we start with the Torah, which is the first five books of the ot, the law—also known as the Pentateuch, again, because there’s five of them—if we start with that, and we assume that Moses wrote the Pentateuch or he at least wrote part of the Pentateuch, then according to biblical chronology, Moses would have lived around 1450 bc. That would sort of be a starting point, the earliest possible point. The last books of the ot are written, finished somewhere around 400 bc. When it comes to the scope of the ot, you’re talking about a timespan of authorship of about a thousand years or a millennium.” (source)
“The oldest examples of writing specifically would be Sumerian (roughly 3300 bc) and Egyptian (roughly 3150 bc), according to scholars.” (source)
“It’s a very clear indication that you have two hands in the text, some sort of editorial activity going on where first person language on Ezekiel’s part is part of the text, and third person language (the result of an editor) is also in the text. If inspiration happens by dictation, none of this makes any sense.” (source)
“With respect to Hebrew, the oldest evidence we have of Hebrew writing is about 1000 bc, and it’s not the biblical material that comes from inscriptions.” (source)
“There are about 1,375 different readings between the Great Isaiah Scroll and the traditional Masoretic Text that we have” (source)