UNKNOWN AUTHORS OF THE BIBLE

UNKNOWN AUTHORS OF THE BIBLE

ANONYMOUS, UNKNOWN & DOUBTFUL  AUTHORS OF THE BIBLE WHICH IS SUPPOSED TO BE THE WORD OF GOD.

By Tiger Hossaam
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful
The Bible as we know has been corrupted and a large part of it has been forged over the course of time. Many of the “authors” of the books of the Bible are COMPLETELY ANONYMOUS and DOUBTFUL!
Genesis : Author. One of the “five books of Moses”
Exodus : Author. Generally credited to Moses.
Leviticus : Author. Generally credited to Moses.
Numbers : Author. Generally credited to Moses.
Deuteronomy : Author. Generally credited to Moses.
A Dead Moses writes about his own Death. Can Dead people write about their own obituaries ?
“And Moses the servant of the Lord died there in Moad, as the Lord had said. He was buried in the land of Moad, in the valley opposite Beth Peor, but to this day no one knows where his grave is. Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died, yet his eyes were no weak nor his strength gone.” (Deuteronomy 34:5-7 )
Could Moses have written that? The answer is obviously NO. So, who wrote it?
(WHO WROTE THE TORAH: THE FIRST FIVE BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT ?)
Early traditions that reject Moses as the author of the Torah are found in the Bible

     “Did Moses write the Torah in the Bible. The radical school of Jewish prophecy did not think so. Christ as portrayed in the gospel of Mark did not think so, and Paul also did not think that Moses was the author of the first five books of the Bible, and neither did many of the earliest churches believe that Moses was the author of the Levitical laws found in the Pentateuch. Rather they called these Levite regulations human commandments, and even went so far as to call some of the laws found in books like Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, ‘the doctrines of demons’.“

Joshua: Author. Major part credited to Joshua.
Judges:Author. Possibly Samuel.
Ruth: Author. Not definitely known, perhaps Samuel.
First Samuel: Author. Unknown.
Second Samuel: Author. Unknown.
First Kings: Author. Unknown.
Second Kings: Author. Unknown.
First Chronicles: Author. Unknown, probably collected and edited by Ezra.
Second Chronicles: Author. Likely collected and edited by Ezra.
Esther: Author. Unknown.
Job: Author. Unknown.
Psalms: Author. Principally David though there are other writers.
Ecclesiastes: Author. Doubtful, but commonly assigned to Solomon.
Isaiah: Author. Mainly credited to Isaiah. Parts may have been written by others.
Jonah: Author. Unknown.
Habakkuk: Author. Nothing known of the place or time of his birth.
Source : Collins’ Revised Standard Version. 1971. Pages 12-17.
Who Wrote the Book of Hebrews  ?
The current Crop of Christian Apologists like Dr. James White, Jay Smith and Professor David Wood have publicly admitted that they do not know the author of the Book of Hebrews. Therefore proving that the claim of the alleged  Divine Nature of the Bible is a ‘Fallacious One’
And so the story goes. The authors of these anonymous books are either “UNKNOWN” or are”PROBABLY” or “LIKELY” or are of “DOUBTFUL” origin. Why blame God for this Fraud ? Surely the Word of God could not have been written by Unknown  Authors.
WHO WROTE NEHEMIAH & THE BOOK OF JOB ?
The same kind of difference is present regarding the author and the period of the book of Nehemiah. The most popular opinion is that it was written by Nehemiah. Athanasius, Epiphanius and Chrysostome believe it to have been written by Ezre. According to popular opinion it cannot be accepted as a revealed book. The first 26 verses of chapter 12 are different from the rest of the book of Nehemiah since in the first eleven chapters Nehemiah is referred to in the first person, while in this chapter the third person is used for no apparent reason. Furthermore, we find Darius, the King of Persia being mentioned in verse 22 of the same chapter, when in fact he lived one hundred years after the death of Nehemiah. The Christian commentators have to declare this anomaly as a later addition. The Arabic translator of the Bible has omitted it altogether.
The history of the book of Job is even more obscure and uncertain than the other books. There are about twenty-four contradictory opinions regarding its name and period. The book has been attributed to various names on the basis of conjecture. However if we assume that the book was written by Elihu or by a certain unknown person who was a contemporary of Manasse, it is not acceptable as a prophetic and revealed text.
Thus, believing in the complete Bible, that we have at hand, to be of a Divine origin, needs a lot of faith. Blind faith – for there exists no other ground for believing so.
What the Non Muslims/CHRISTIANS have to say regarding the authorship of the Bible ?
C. F. Evans writes in “The Cambridge History of the Bible”, Vol. I, “The New Testament: The New Testament in the Making”, 1970:
With the exception of the Pauline letters the New Testament writings were relatively slow in appearing and a high proportion of them are anonymous. (p. 233)
He writes further:
… such external evidence on matters of origin, authorship, sources and date as has come down from the second and succeeding centuries is very meagre, and, when itself subjected to critical examination, turns out to be of dubious value, if not worthless. (C. F. Evans, The Cambridge History of the Bible, Vol. I, “The New Testament: The New Testament in the Making”, 1970, p. 235)
About the Pauline letters, the author writes:
Further elucidations of the Pauline letters as documents in the Church is faced by three not unconnected problems, their formation into a corpus, their unity and authenticity, and their chronology; and in each case the data are insufficient for a solution. (C. F. Evans, The Cambridge History of the Bible, Vol. I, “The New Testament: The New Testament in the Making”, 1970, p. 239)
What does the Encyclopedia Britannica says about the Gospel of Mark ?

Though the author of Mark is probably unknown, authority is traditionally derived from a supposed connection with the Apostle Peter, who had transmitted the traditions before his martyr death under Nero’s persecution (c. 64-65). Papias, a 2nd century bishop in Asia Minor, is quoted as saying that Mark had been Peter’s amanuensis (secretary) who wrote as he remembered (after Peter’s death), though not in the right order… (harmony of the Gospels). (Biblical Literature and Its Critical Interpretation, THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS, The Gospel According to Mark: Background and overview.)

Regarding the Gospel of Matthew, the encyclopedia says:
Although there is a  Matthew named among the various lists of Jesus’ disciples, more telling is the fact that the name of Levi, the tax collector who in Mark became a follower of Jesus, in Matthew is changed to Matthew. It would appear from this that Matthew was claiming apostolic authority for his Gospel through this device but that the writer of Matthew is probably anonymous. (Biblical Literature and Its Critical Interpretation, The Gospel According to Matthew.)
Regarding the Gospel of Luke, it says:
The author has been identified with Luke, “the beloved physician,” Paul’s companion on his journeys, presumably a Gentile (Col. 4:14 and 11; cf. II Tim. 4:11, Philem. 24). There is no Papias fragment concerning Luke, and only late 2^nd century traditions claim (somewhat ambiguously) that Paul was the guarantor of Luke’s Gospel traditions. The Muratorian Canon refers to Luke, the physician, Paul’s companion; Irenaeus depicts Luke as a follower of Paul’s gospel. Eusebius has Luke as an Antiochene physician who was with Paul in order to give the Gospel apostolic authority. References are often made to Luke’s medical language, but there is no evidence of such language beyond that to which any educated Greek might have been exposed. Of more import is the fact that in the writings of Luke specifically Pauline ideas are significantly missing; while Paul speaks of the death of Christ, Luke speaks rather of the suffering, and there are other differing and discrepant ideas on Law and eschatology. In short, the author of this gospel remains unknown. (Biblical Literature and Its Critical Interpretation, The Gospel According to Luke.)
Regarding the Gospel of John, it writes:
From internal evidence the Gospel was written by a beloved disciple whose name is unknown. Because both external and internal evidence are doubtful, a working hypothesis is that John and the Johannine letters were written and edited somewhere in the East (perhaps Ephesus) as the product of a “school,” or Johannine circle, at the end of the 1st century. (Biblical Literature and Its Critical Interpretation, THE FOURTH GOSPEL: THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN, Uniqueness of John.)
Likewise, consider the following statement that appears in “The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church”, regarding the Gospel of John:
The Apostolic origin of the book, however, is contested by a large body of modern scholars whose position vary from a complete rejection of both its authenticity and its historicity to the admission of Apostolic inspiration and a certain historical value. The unity of the book has been disputed esp. by German scholars, e.g. J. Wellhausen, R. Bultmann. Where its unity is admitted, its attribution to John the Presbyter is favoured. (The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, John The Apostle, 1974, pg. 743)
Again, in “Peakes Commentary on the Bible”, the introduction of the Gospel of John starts with the following words:
The origin of this Gospel is veiled in obscurity (Peakes Commentary on the Bible, C. K. Barrett, “John”, Nelson 1967)
Knox, (although not ascribing to this view) in his “New Testament Commentary” writes about the authorship of John’s Gospel:
The picture which emerges (according to these critics) is that of a profound logical treatise, composed late in the first or more probably early in the second century, by some unknown author who had a thesis to propound, and did so under the (now established) literary form of a “gospel”. It was not, evidently, a fisherman from Galilee who had the learning and the culture to leave such a monument behind him. Possibly the author may have been that “John the elder” who is referred to by Papias (Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History, 3.39.4 and 14) as a valuable source of early tradition. (Knox, New Testament Commentary, Introduction, 1955, pg. xiii)
Knox, further states, regarding the Gospel of John:
In 21.24, and possibly in 19.35, another hand, not that of the author has made its contribution (cf. Rom. 16.22). This raises the question whether we ought to think of John as sitting and writing the gospel with his own hand. It is improbable that one who was regarded as “a simple man, without learning” by his own fellow countrymen (Acts 4.13) would have lived to write Greek as idiomatic as that of the Fourth gospel. (Knox, New Testament Commentary, Introduction, 1955, pg. xv).
THE ISLAMIC VIEW ON BIBLICAL CORRUPTION:
The Qur’an mentions in chapter 2 verse 79:
 “Woe to those who write the “scripture” with their own hands, then say “This is from God” in order to exchange it for a small price. Woe to them for what their own hands have written and Woe to them for what they earn.”
Commenting on this verse Ibn Kathir, the Qur’anic exegete cites Az-Zuhri who said that `Ubadydullah bin `Abdullah narrated that Ibn `Abbas said, “O Muslims! How could you ask the People of the Book about anything, while the Book of Allah (Qur’an) that He revealed to His Prophet is the most recent Book from Him and you still read it fresh and young, Allah told you that the People of the Book altered the Book of Allah, changed it and wrote another book with their own hands.”
If we examine the Bible as we have done above, we see that the Qur’an’s claim is true.
Conclusion:

• From the above study we found out that a large  number of books in the Bible have been written by Unknown Authors.
• Christian Scholars have not been able to reconcile huge contradictions in the Bible
• Many Christian Scholars and Christian Encyclopedias have themselves admitted that the Bible has been heavily Corrupted
• Many Christian Scholars have themselves admitted that the Bible has been Forged by many Unknown Authors.
• A book which has been corrupted by Unknown, Anonymous and Doubtful authors can never be referred as the “Word of God”
• Qur’an attests to the Fact that the Bible has been corrupted and written by Unknown and Anonymous authors.
• The Encyclopedia Britannica maintains that even the 4 Gospels are heavily Corrupted and concocted. Thus Demolishing the very pillars on which the Christian belief supposedly Stands upon.
• More over we’ve seen that the Christian Scholars and their sources themselves debunk the Bible and attest to the Islamic position which says that the Bible is corrupt and written by UNKNOWN AUTHORS. Jeremiah 8:8 state 'because of the false scribes that have used their false pen to write this book has made this book false'.

Wa Allahu Aalam (Verily Allah Knows Best)
Peace be on you

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The earliest known version of The King James Bible, perhaps one of the most influential and widely read books in history, has been discovered mislabeled inside an archive at the University of Cambridge. The find is being called one of the most significant revelations in decades. It shows that writing is a process of revising, cutting, and then more rewriting. The Bible is no different in this regard, even though some conservative Christians claim it is the divine word of God himself. Perhaps God, then, is a revisionist. This find certainly seems to suggest that.

The notebook containing the draft was found by American scholar, Jeffrey Alan Miller, an assistant professor of English at Montclair State University in New Jersey, who announced his research in an article in The Times Literary Supplement. The New York Times didn’t take long to pick up the story. They ran an article about it, HERE. Mr. Miller was researching an essay about Samuel Ward, one of the King James translators, and was hoping to find an unknown letter at the archives. While you can say he certainly accomplished that end, he definitely wasn’t expecting to find the earliest draft of the King James Bible — which is now giving new insights into how the Bible was constructed.

He first came across the plain notebook not knowing what it was — it was incorrectly labeled. That’s why no one has found it until now. It had been cataloged in the 1980s as a “verse-by-verse” Biblical commentary with “Greek word studies, and some Hebrew notes.” When he tried in vain to figure out which passages of the Bible the commentary was referring to, he realized that it was no commentary at all — it was an early draft of part of the King James Version of the Bible.

Professor Miller described what it felt like when he first knew what he had in his hands:

“There was a kind of thunderstruck, leap-out-of-bathtub moment. But then comes the more laborious process of making sure you are 100 percent correct.”

The material in the manuscript discovered by Miller covers the apocryphal books called Esdras and Wisdom and seems to show that the translation process at Cambridge worked completely different than what researchers had previously known. Until now, it had been assumed that six different teams, or companies of translators that is, had worked more collaboratively rather than individually. Yet — this draft throws that idea out the window.

Ward’s draft seems to indicate the people were assigned individual sections of the Bible and then worked on them almost entirely by themselves — a massive undertaking with little guesswork. You would think this would cause people to become more error prone. In fact, quite hilariously, Professor Miller noticed that the draft suggests that Ward was picking up the slack for another translator. This really shows how human the entire job was, according to him.

“Some of them, being typical academics, either fell down on the job or just decided not to do it. It really testifies to the human element of this kind of great undertaking.”

This is sure to piss off a lot of religious conservatives who claim that the Bible is the “actual word of God.” While this finding certainly doesn’t disprove God, it does show that the translators of the Bible didn’t get a finalized product the first go around — it wasn’t a walk in the park with an angel over their shoulder telling them what to write. It took many different individuals, working separately — and they often suffered from man-made struggles, like meeting deadlines. You know, now that we think of it, doesn’t sound that much different from the writers of today’s workforce. 

Courtesy : http://churchandstate.org.uk/2015/10/handwritten-draft-of-king-james-bible-discovered-reveals-no-divine-powers/