Who Wrote the Bible?

Many times Jesus made a general reference to those who wrote the Bible when he declared "it is written" (Matthew 11:10, 21:13, 26:24, 26:31, etc.). Indeed, in the KJV translation of the Bible, this phrase is recorded no less than twenty times. His quote from Deuteronomy 8: 3, during the period in which he was tempted by the devil for forty days, confirms the validity of the Old Testament and who wrote it (Matthew 4: 4).

As for those who wrote the various books of the Bible, it is known that Moses wrote the Torah. What is considered the Torah, or Law, is made up of five books (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy) written during the forty-year period when the Israelites roamed the desert.

After his Bible books were completed, Moses had Levite priests placed within the Ark of the Covenant for future reference (Deuteronomy 31:24 - 26, see also Exodus 24: 4).

According to Jewish tradition, Joshua or Ezra inserted, at the end of Deuteronomy, the account of the death of Moses. The scriptural book named Joshua bears his name because he wrote it. He continued where the part of Moses ended in the Book of the Law (Joshua 24:26). The book of judges is generally attributed to Samuel, but it is not clear exactly when he wrote it.

The prophet Isaiah is believed to have written the books of 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 King, the first part of 2 Kings and the book that bears his name. Some sources, such as the Pelubert Bible Dictionary, say that a variety of people wrote these books, such as Samuel himself (1 Samuel 10:25), Nathan the prophet and Gad the seer.

The books of the first and second chronicles are traditionally attributed by the Jews to Ezra, as well as the section that bears his name. It should be noted that some modern scholars believe that these books were written by someone else after Ezra's death.

The biblical books named after Job, Ruth, Esther, the three main prophets (Isaiah, Ezekiel and Jeremiah), the ten minor prophets (Amos, Habakkuk, Haggai, Hosea, Joel, Jonah, Malachi, Micah, Micah, Naum, Obadiah, Zechariah, and Zephaniah), together with Nehemiah and Daniel, were each written by the person from whom the section takes its name.

Although King David authored most of the Psalms, the priests who served while he was king, as well as Solomon and even Jeremiah, each contributed to this section. The book of Proverbs was written mainly by Solomon, who also composed Ecclesiastes and the songs of Solomon.

How long did it take to write the Old Testament from the time of the first book to the author of its final chapter? Surprisingly, the first recorded Old Testament book, in temporal sequence, was not of Moses but of Job! Job wrote his book around 1660 BC, more than two hundred years before Moses started writing.

Malachi wrote the last book included as part of the Old Testament canonized around 400 BC This means that it has taken more than 1.200 years to write the only Bible available for the New Testament church.

There were a total of eight New Testament authors. Two of the gospels were written by men who were the first disciples of Jesus (Matthew and John) and two who were not (Mark and Luke). Acts was written by Luke.

The apostle Paul wrote fourteen biblical books or epistles, such as Romans, Galatians, Ephesians, Jews, and so on, two books each sent to the church of Corinth, the church of Thessaloniki and his closest friend Timothy. The apostle Peter wrote two books and John wrote four. The remaining books, Jude and James, were recorded by Jesus' half brothers.