Order in which books of the Bible were written

[EricC]

Does anyone know and be willing to share which (if any) resources in Accordance might have authors' lists of the order in which they think the books of Bible were written? I realize that most commentaries have long drawn-out analyses of these things for the individual books, but I'm thinking rather of broad overviews and lists, perhaps with references to more detailed info.

Thanks!

[Fabian]

If you have the Timeline, you'll be able to filter for "books".

 

 

Greetings

 

Fabian

[EricC]

Thank you, Fabian. I do have the Timeline. Will do. 

[Mark Allison]

BTW, you can get a cool printout of the Timeline Data by dragging across the Time Scale above the Timeline display. You can also choose Conservative or Critical dating schemes. 

 

FYI, here's where we collected the data for the Timeline:

 

Conservative Dates:

Old Testament: Eugene Merrill, Kingdom of Priests
Old Testament Writings: Gleason Archer, Survey of Old Testament Introduction

Intertestamental Period: Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Between the Testaments (by Harold Hoehner)

New Testament: Harold Hoehner, Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ Class notes.

Critical Dates:

Old and New Testament Periods: Jack Finegan, Handbook of Biblical Chronology (Revised Edition)

Old Testament Prophets and Writings: HarperCollins Bible Dictionary Kümmel: Introduction to the New Testament

Other Dates:

The chronology of the Hebrew kings was based on Edwin Thiele, The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings.

(This chronology, which is substantially agreed upon by both Merrill and Finegan, was used for both the Conservative and the Critical dates for the period of the Divided Kingdom.)

Extrabiblical dates, such as those for Egypt, Rome, and other regions are all based on the Cambridge Ancient History, 3rd Edition.

Some extrabiblical period names were also derived from relevant articles in the Anchor Bible Dictionary.

The Critical dates for the kings of Aram were derived from Wayne Pitard’s article on Aram in the Anchor Bible Dictionary. Conservative dates for this period were derived from Merrill.

Some extrabiblical writings and early church fathers were derived from the Anchor Bible Dictionary 

 

 

[Timothy Jenney]

Just a word on those commentaries with the long, drawn out explanations:

 

The literary history of any book that is not occasional (e.g. the epistles) is often long and convoluted. Many of them incorporate older sources, even quoting them at times. Once written, many books underwent extensive revisions and expansions over the years, especially in the OT. (Jeremiah is the classic example here. Its final shape in the Septuagint is very different from the Hebrew text. ) 

 

Which date do we want then? The date of the original composition? The date of the most significant revision? Or the date of the final recension?

 

The Hebrew Bible: Critical Edition, now being published by SBL, has chosen to reconstruct up to three of these stages in parallel columns!

 

For those of us who believe in divine inspiration, I suggest we expand our notion of inspiration to include the various editors, not just the original author!

[Mark Allison]

I remember talking to a King-James-only proponent a few years back. His view was that the original texts had become so corrupted that God had to "re-inspire" the KJV translators. I guess he would have dated all 66 books to 1611.

[EricC]

Just a word on those commentaries with the long, drawn out explanations:

 

And let's always look at the presuppositions underlying any position. They often are unstated and one must dig to find out why a proponent of a certain view is so sure X had to happen at date Y.

[Joe Weaks]

I remember talking to a King-James-only proponent a few years back. His view was that the original texts had become so corrupted that God had to "re-inspire" the KJV translators. I guess he would have dated all 66 books to 1611.

Well, that's one way to do it. *facepalm*

[EricC]

BTW, you can get a cool printout of the Timeline Data by dragging across the Time Scale above the Timeline display. You can also choose Conservative or Critical dating schemes. 

 

 

 

Thanks, Mark. If you hadn't told us this, I'd not have known. I appreciate the insight. I can't get the output (list) on my machine to look exactly like yours, but it's close and good enough.

[Mark Allison]

Eric,

 

I created a new Region Layer in the Atlas, and unchecked the "Show Political Periods" option. I also set it to only show the Israel/Palestine Region. In the Item Layers menu, I set it to only show "Writings."

 

 

 

[EricC]

Ahh! Good. Thanks.