Raewyn said:
My question is.......... where did the Bible come from.
A number of sources. It varies from book to book.
Much of the Old Testament stories are actually reworkings of the myths and folklore of other cultures. It is well-established (by even most mainstream Jewish scholars) that the story of Noah and the Flood comes from the Babylonian "Epic of Gilgamesh". Likewise, as Joseph Campbell desmonstrated in his publications, the entire creation story from Genesis is simply a patriarchal re-casting of Sumerian mythology (with the familiar images of the primordial couple, the serpent-god, the tree of wisdom, the garden-paradise, and so on). The "twelve tribes" is an astrological motif inspired by the Babylonian zodiac, "Psalms" is an exegesis on Egyptian wisdom literature, and the Davidic/Enochian motifs of the "end of days" and the "messiah" are both derived from Zoroastrianism.
Now, it may be that some of these stories were passed down as "oral tradition" for quite a few centuries. But, if so, either we don't have evidence for it or the stories were in quite a different form that what is currently in the Bible. Prior to the Babylonian Captivity, the Jewish people seem to have been entirely polytheistic (or perhaps henotheistic), with the resulting "One God" being a late composite of numerous pre-existing deities (the most popular perhaps being a local volcano deity named Yahweh) created by the post-Exile priesthood. There also seems to have been no mass "exodus" from Egypt nor does there appear to have ever been a Davidic "empire", which calls the historical provenance of these tales into question.
The dominant explanatory framework for Old Testament scholarship now is what is referred to
Documentary Hypothesis, which posits that the Old Testament is derived from four pre-existing sources or traditions: Yawhist, Elohist, Priestly, and Deutoronomist. When the Jewish Bible was actually written down, these four sources were used to create the text we have today (as with the New Testament, there never was a unilinear or monolithic tradition).
As for the New Testament, most scholars date the composition of the four canonical gospels to sometime between 70 and 100 CE. Given the geographical and cultural errors of some of the gospel authors (notably Mark and John), they do not appear to have been authored by natives of Judea. They were most likely written by Hellenized Jews living somewhere in the Roman Empire. And, as I mentioned on another thread, Markan Priority is the dominant form of gospel scholarship currently, with Matthew and Luke (and possibly John) apparently copying from Mark's gospel in the composition of their own (placing Mark at least a decade before the other three). As for Mark itself, the author appears to composed his work from pre-existing sources (mostly Old Testament passages).
As for the Paulines, only seven of the thirteen letters ascribed to "Paul" appear to have actually been written by him. Both textual and statistical analysis have indicated that the remaining six fall into two clusters: the "Pastoral Letters" in one cluster and Hebrews/Ephesians/Colossians in yet another cluster. Interestingly enough, these two clusters appear to gravitate in opposite "directions", the former representing the Orthodox and the latter representing the Gnostic. The authentic Paulines themselves appear to be proto-Gnostic/proto-Orthodox.
The Apostolic Letters (attributed to James, Peter, John, and Jude) are most likely second or third century compositions by the Roman Church. They deal almost entirely in proto-Catholic propaganda and anti-heresy rhetoric. They also don't appear to have been very popular, as even in Eusebius' time (mid-300's) they were highly disputed and controversial texts. As for the Revelation of John, that has been disputed by various elements of Christendom as recently as the tenth century and is still rejected by Syriac Christians today.
The emerging picture from all of this is that, contrary to apologist belief, the Bible was not some magically produced text resulting from "intelligent designs" at different periods in history with a monolithic and unilinear trend. Rather, the Bible as such evolved slowly over time, with various groups and factions competing for attention, and various differing sources used in its composition. In fact, it is precisely because the Bible is a product of such social evolution, that I would argue it actually is a "living document".
Laterz.
