About the Bible: The Authors

The authors of the Bible reflect the diversity of the book.  In fact about 40 different people wrote different sections of the Bible over a period of about 1500 years.

Moses, who wrote the first five books, was brought up in the Egyptian court before becoming the leader of his people Israel.

His successor was Joshua, an Israel army commander, who added the book named after him.  Other books were added by Samuel, a great religious leader and the last of Israel's judges.

King David and his son Solomon penned most of the Psalms and Proverbs, while the later writers of the Old Testament include the prophet Amos (a farm worker), Jeremiah (a prophet and priest in Jerusalem), and two exiles, Ezekiel in Chaldea and Daniel in Babylon.  Daniel was second in command to the great king Nebuchadnezzar.

The 500 year gap between the Old and New Testaments saw a major revolution as the Jewish state was absorbed into first the Greek and then the Roman Empires, and Jewish thought correspondingly absorbed the philosophy of the Greeks.

The New Testament was then produced in a very short space of time by a wide variety of authors.  Peter and John were fishermen from Galilee, Luke was a doctor, Matthew a tax official, Paul was a graduate of the highest school of Jewish learning, and Jude was the the brother of Jesus.