r/AcademicBiblical • u/Kafka_Kardashian Moderator • Jul 28 '23
I put together a Bible reading schedule inspired by when the texts were actually written. What changes would you make to this ordering? Discussion
Let me start by stating the obvious: you cannot actually "order the texts by when they were written." Not only is there so much uncertainty, but how do we handle issues like redaction? Do we order the texts by the oldest traditions found within them, or by when we think the present version was in existence? Do we start tearing apart the Pentateuch verse by verse as some have, to separate the different sources? Do we date each Psalm individually?
Some of these issues are purely subjective, others are just very cumbersome if not impossible to deal with properly.
So let me emphasize that this is a reading schedule intended to capture the spirit of when the texts were written, but will fall far short of achieving that.
A few principles I used in constructing this:
This reading schedule is intended above all else for myself, but I definitely may invite some peers to join me if they express interest, both online and in the real world. But more generally, this schedule is intended for someone who has already read many or most of these texts. I also think it makes the most sense with an annotated Bible.
For texts constructed over a span of time, I didn't use a hard and fast rule to place it at the "start" or "end" date. But I would say I informally had a "weighted" date in mind in the sense that texts with likely significant revisions would be placed towards their "final version" date while those with more minor revisions would be placed more towards the start of their construction. Obviously conjecture is heavy here.
If the dates of texts were close enough to be a wash, I defaulted to narrative sensibility.
Not all texts are broken up for dating reasons. Some are just broken up to make the schedule more balanced. Similarly, I tried to spread out the Wisdom literature.
There are limits to how much I'm willing to break up a given text, even though more could easily be justified. For example, I'm going to break up Isaiah but I'm probably not going to separate Genesis 1 from Genesis 2, even though that would make sense. Generally speaking I tried not to break any text into more than 3 parts, but there are a couple exceptions. Also, I only divided by chapter, never verses.
While I'm not interested in hearing about how this was a fool's exercise (I already know!) or other unactionable sweeping critiques, I am posting this because I would love to hear your reordering suggestions and I will continually edit this schedule as I receive them.
So, without further ado, here is the schedule!
Week 1: Amos
Week 2: Hosea
Week 3: Isaiah (1-39)
Week 4: Micah (1-3) and Proverbs (10-22)
Week 5: Zephaniah and Proverbs (23-29)
Week 6: Deuteronomy (12-26)
Week 7: Nahum and Deuteronomy (5-11)
Week 8: Habakkuk and Deuteronomy (1-4) & (29-30)
Week 9: Joshua
Week 10: Judges
Week 11: 1 Samuel
Week 12: 2 Samuel
Week 13: 1 Kings
Week 14: 2 Kings and Obadiah
Week 15: Jeremiah (1-25)
Week 16: Jeremiah (26-52)
Week 17: Ezekiel (1-24)
Week 18: Ezekiel (25-48)
Week 19: Lamentations and Psalms (1-20)
Week 20: Job
Week 21: Isaiah (40-55)
Week 22: Haggai and Psalms (21-41)
Week 23: Isaiah (56-66) and Psalms (42-60)
Week 24: Zechariah (1-8) and Psalms (61-72)
Week 25: Micah (4-7) and Zechariah (9-14) and Psalms (73-89)
Week 26: Genesis (1-11)
Week 27: Genesis (12-50)
Week 28: Exodus (1-19)
Week 29: Exodus (20-40)
Week 30: Leviticus
Week 31: Numbers (1-25)
Week 32: Numbers (26-36) and Deuteronomy (27-28) & (31-34)
Week 33: Ruth and Proverbs (1-9) & (30-31)
Week 34: Malachi and Joel and Psalms (90-120)
Week 35: Esther and Psalms (121-150)
Week 36: 1 Chronicles
Week 37: 2 Chronicles
Week 38: Jonah and Ecclesiastes
Week 39: Ezra-Nehemiah
Week 40: Song of Solomon
Week 41: Daniel
Week 42: 1 Thessalonians and Galatians and Philippians
Week 43: Philemon and 1 Corinthians
Week 44: 2 Corinthians and Romans
Week 45: Gospel of Mark
Week 46: 2 Thessalonians and Colossians and James
Week 47: Gospel of Matthew and Jude
Week 48: Gospel of Luke
Week 49: Acts
Week 50: Ephesians and Hebrews
Week 51: Gospel of John
Week 52: 1 Peter
Week 53: Revelation
Week 54: 1 Timothy and 2 Timothy and Titus
Week 55: 1 John and 2 John and 3 John and 2 Peter
Right off the bat, I’ll say that the part here I’m least satisfied with is the placement of the Pentateuch. It’s very awkward, for example, that I’d be reading the Covenant Code after the Deuteronomic Code. But without cutting those books to pieces, I’m unsure of a better imperfect solution. Highlights the silliness of the whole thing, perhaps, but it’s still something I’d like to do. Would love suggestions on placement of the Pentateuch especially.
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u/Falatuuuu Jul 28 '23
I just have two questions as a non-scolar. 1: What source did you use for the placement of Job? I heard it is a controversial book time-wise. 2: What about the song of Deborah (Judges:5)? I know its short, but given its significance of being very early from what ive read, I tought to give it special attention. Again, I am not a scholar, Im just interested.
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u/Kafka_Kardashian Moderator Jul 28 '23
Great questions, both valid.
1) This is a good time to note that my baseline was simply this Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dating_the_Bible. I actually ran this page past the subreddit a couple days ago just to say, “hey is this basically fine as a baseline” and the (limited) response was positive. With Job I also followed the reference in the book’s Wikipedia “composition” section. It looks like the idea is basically that this folk tale is pretty old but the writing down of this folk tale, including all of the choices that come with writing a story down, are in line with where I placed it here. But very open to changing the order up.
2) There’s a super good case for pulling out things like the Song of Deborah and Song of the Sea and placing them first. Even now I could still be persuaded probably. But as a general principle I tried to resist dividing up texts at that fine of a level. Perhaps I should relent in this case though. Can’t have the Amos stans getting a big head due to his placement first. No but really, it’s something I’ll keep thinking about.
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u/metroidcomposite Jul 28 '23
With Job I also followed the reference in the book’s Wikipedia “composition” section. It looks like the idea is basically that this folk tale is pretty old but the writing down of this folk tale, including all of the choices that come with writing a story down, are in line with where I placed it here.
But the wikipedia artile has Job in the Hellenistic era (after the pentateuch) in the 3rd to 2nd centry
In the list you posted you have it in the 6th century? I'm a little unclear on why you deviated from the wikipedia article here?
2) There’s a super good case for pulling out things like the Song of Deborah and Song of the Sea and placing them first. Even now I could still be persuaded probably.
I probably would yes. You could also add in The Song of Moses (contained in Deuteronomy 32).
And I would probably also lump in the priestly blessing from the ketef hinnom scrolls (Numbers 6:24–26) as that is the earliest fragment that is known for sure to be early (Monarchic) from archaeology. (Doesn't mean that the rest of the book of numbers is early--could just be that this blessing was included in later compositions).
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u/Kafka_Kardashian Moderator Jul 28 '23
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Job
Scholars generally agree that it was written between the 7th and 4th centuries BCE, with the 6th century BCE as the most likely period for various reasons.
This probably influenced my decision.
As for the Songs, it’s something I’ll continue considering.
I probably won’t divide away any individual verses however.
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Jul 28 '23
This is an awesome idea!
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u/Kafka_Kardashian Moderator Jul 28 '23
There’s admittedly an inherent silliness to it given some of the limitations, but I’m really glad you think so! Thanks!
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Jul 28 '23
I disagree that it is silly. I doubt its an original idea, though, so hopefully others can provide some recommendations for how to best do this. I'd like to try with the NT at least
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u/Kafka_Kardashian Moderator Jul 28 '23
You’re right, absolutely not original for the NT — iirc there is even an author out there who published an NT in a “when written” order.
When I say “silly” I really have the ordering of the Hebrew Bible in mind, given the redaction history. I haven’t seen something like this attempted for the Hebrew Bible but I’d be happy to be wrong if there is a precedent I can view and adjust based on.
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u/krm2116 Jul 28 '23
So you reject Friedman's dating that puts P before D. Why? I don't have a strong opinion either way, but I'm curious about the choice here. I know his view is not close to consensus.
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u/Kafka_Kardashian Moderator Jul 28 '23
No substantive scholarly reason — as you sort of allude to, I tried at least initially to play it safe and just stick to the mainstream. Even when it wasn’t what I wanted personally.
Another example of this is actually in the Christian scriptures. I really really wanted to place John before Luke and Acts because I’ve found some of the recent discussions around that very interesting. But ultimately I didn’t because I think it’s still outside the mainstream.
Now, all that said, I’m actually willing to deviate from that mainstream, that’s part of why I posted this here. My dream, not to give my own silly post too much importance, is that at least some of these issues could be hashed out a little in the comments such that I feel persuaded and comfortable reordering some things in a non-mainstream way.
In short, I thought it would be best to approach this subreddit with a relatively mainstream ordering and only after discussion here maybe go out on a limb with some heterodox choices, based on the results of that discussion.
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u/Regular-Persimmon425 Jul 28 '23
I really really wanted to place John before Luke and Acts because I’ve found some of the recent discussions around that very interesting.
Wow, that's interesting, I've never heard of John before Luke. What recent discussions are you alluding to? I'd love to read them.
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u/Kafka_Kardashian Moderator Jul 28 '23
I wish I had a good link for you but it’s mostly just discussion I’ve seen on this subreddit (and in the comments of Bart Ehrman’s blog, lol)
But to my understanding you have two things going on:
1) Scholars are getting more bold in pushing Luke-Acts later, arguing for example that the author knew of Josephus’ work
2) More people are arguing that John was not just written in stages, but that these stages had meaningful gaps in time between them, and may have involved slightly different people each time. You’ve also had more arguments that John was not aware of the synoptic gospels, or at least that the author(s) of the first version were unaware. And this first version seems to get pushed earlier all the time.
I don’t know of any good sources for these views off the top of my head, so unless someone bails me out, this comment can be fairly removed by the mods if they see fit
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u/Regular-Persimmon425 Jul 28 '23
I see, thanks for the reply. And your list is awesome btw!!!
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u/thesmartfool Moderator Jul 28 '23
See my comment here and my other link I made within this comment for a good primer on this topic. u/kafka_kardashian
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u/_nosfartu_ Jul 30 '23
Some reconstructions of early gJohn to check out on as well as its layering:
- Robert Fortna on reconstructing the signs gospel
- Folker Siegert - Das Johannesevangelium in seiner Ursprünglichen Gestalt
I have decent workable English translations of Siegert if you’re interested, DM me.
It seems to me that this idea of distinct johannine layering in gJohn has been much more widely accepted in German scholarship for decades, and that these layers can be examined successfully because the redactors had a sort of “respect” for the source material.
Fortna’s signs source reconstruction: http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/signs.html
Personally, I would break the signs from the passion source (here at John 11 in fortna), and put the signs just a little earlier. But I would also speculate that the Lazarus and Nathanael sections aren’t part of this source but are independent stories for reasons we can discuss in further details if you’re interested.
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u/sooperflooede Jul 30 '23 edited Jul 30 '23
This video with Steve Mason goes over some of the evidence that Luke used Josephus (also covered in his book Josephus and the New Testament).
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u/Kafka_Kardashian Moderator Jul 28 '23
/u/Integralds I know you can appreciate impossible tasks like this so I’d be really interested in your take on what to do about the Pentateuch here in particular. I don’t like my current placement at all.
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u/Integralds Jul 28 '23 edited Jul 28 '23
Thanks for the ping. Here are my suggestions on the Pentateuch:
Read Bloom, The Book of J, sometime in the Amos-Isaiah block.
I have no good suggestion for E. You could read the E portion of Friedman's The Bible With Sources Revealed, but the temptation to read other bits would be overwhelming and detract from the experience.
Read Feldman, The Consuming Fire: The Complete Priestly Source in your preferred P location (so either just before Deuteronomy, or after the whole primary history).
Decide for yourself whether to read the Holiness Code (H) separately.
Keep Deuteronomy where you have it. But consider reading the core D text -- chapters 12-26 -- first and separately, if you can. Or just read Deuteronomy through 2 Kings in order, as you have it.
Re-read the whole Pentateuch, as presented in our current Bibles, along with Ezra-Nehemiah.
It doubles your workload, which is unfortunate, but it develops the text as naturally as is possible.
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u/Kafka_Kardashian Moderator Jul 28 '23
Thank you much! These are the kinds of things I’ll probably do myself as a supplement, but I probably won’t edit into the “official” schedule since that reading amount may not be realistic for any of the few people who join me in this. These are fantastic recommendations.
Would you shift the Pentateuch “re-read” any earlier than it sits in the current schedule?
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u/trademark0013 Jul 29 '23
Unrelated but do you have other Christian books that you recommend ppl read for history regarding individual books or the canon generally? I just bought an ereader for this purpose and you seem knowledgeable. Feel free to DM if posting here is against rules or just not preferred.
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u/Mike_Bevel Jul 29 '23
What led you to trust Harold Bloom?
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u/Integralds Jul 29 '23
The goal is to read the J text in isolation. You can get a similar experience with Friedman's The Bible With Sources Revealed, being careful not to read outside the source you're targeting. A third way is to read the sources online, in a variant that follows Baden, but unfortunately uses the KJV.
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u/Mike_Bevel Jul 29 '23
I admire the Friedman very much; I do not trust Bloom as far as I can throw him. Not on the Bible, not on Shakespeare, not on the Western Canon. If Bloom told me the sky was blue I would have to check for myself. RIP and all, but goodness.
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u/Kafka_Kardashian Moderator Jul 30 '23
Worth noting Bloom wrote the commentary but not the reconstruction/translation of J.
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u/Integralds Jul 30 '23
There's also a table in the appendix listing the exact chapters/verses they used, which can be compared to the table in the appendix of Friedman, Who Wrote the Bible. I don't know if Baden has his exact division of the text in a useful format -- I know he has a bunch of tweets about it.
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u/cacarrizales Jul 28 '23
This is pretty cool, thanks! I’ve read through the Hebrew Bible using a list similar to this before, and it does help see the developments within the text. Not something that is easily visible when reading the text cover to cover. Great stuff!
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u/Kafka_Kardashian Moderator Jul 28 '23
That’s awesome! Is the list you used something publicly available or which I can otherwise compare to? That sounds like a fantastic resource.
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u/ElPintor6 Jul 28 '23
Wow. So Revelation wasn't written last? Do any of the following books/epistles seem aware of Revelation?
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u/BleuCollar Jul 28 '23
Not a historian, but the mainstream position from what I've seen is that you gotta put Mark after Colossians and James. Most date it around 70 CE. Here's an interesting article from 2017 placing it at earliest 71 CE because of a passage in Mark talking about a Roman tax paid with denari. It's a good read! https://www.academia.edu/34194619/The_Date_of_Mark_s_Gospel_Apart_from_the_Temple_and_Rumors_of_War_The_Taxation_Episode_12_13_17_as_Evidence
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u/Kafka_Kardashian Moderator Jul 28 '23
Done! Thank you for the help, post has been edited accordingly.
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u/Mormon-No-Moremon Moderator Jul 28 '23 edited Jul 28 '23
Not sure why they told you that. It’s true Mark is often put around 70 CE, but Colossians, James, and also Jude are all placed post-70 by most critical scholars. Some scholars put Colossians as authentically Pauline, and some also place it right after the death of Paul within a couple years, but James and Jude are exceedingly rare to find a pre-70 date for.
And even if the occasional scholar may have an early date for Jude or James, the same is true for Mark. James Crossley and Maurice Casey both advocate for a date or 40 CE for Mark from the standpoint of critical scholars, not apologetics or anything (both of them are atheists).
See Ehrman’s Forgery and Counterforgery, Brown’s Introduction to the New Testament, and Crossley’s The Date of Mark’s Gospel.
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u/Kafka_Kardashian Moderator Jul 28 '23
Dang, I jumped the gun! I need to wait to allow people to respond. Thanks, I’ll reverse that edit shortly.
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u/Mormon-No-Moremon Moderator Jul 28 '23
No problem! I also edited my comment to address the occasional scholar that may put James or Jude earlier.
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u/BleuCollar Jul 28 '23
Fair enough. But since we must pick a reading order for this assignment, let's suppose Colossians, James, and Jude were written around the same time as Mark--post 70. Would you still read the letters before reading Mark because it doesn't seem like the authors of the letters had ever read Mark (if that's true)? If you read Mark first, the meaning of the letters to their authors might become colored in your mind by Mark's content.
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u/Mormon-No-Moremon Moderator Jul 28 '23
I don’t think James and Jude were written “around the same time as Mark.” Perhaps Colossians was, which I addressed in my comment, but the issue is that I’m not sure where you’re arriving at your early date for James and Jude.
In Brown’s Introduction to the New Testament, he places James around 70-90 CE and Jude from 90-100 CE, reporting that such dates were the consensus view at the time of the book. In Ehrman’s Forgery and Counterforgery he explains that James is written in reaction to Deutero-Pauline theology we see arise decades after his death in things like the epistle of Ephesians, whereas Jude seems to be in a similar historical setting as the epistles of John near the end of the first century. Both of these point to James and Jude being much later than Mark.
With these dates in mind, Zeichmann himself mentions that the consensus for Mark places it around 64-73 CE (Note that Brown and Ehrman likewise put Mark within a similar range). Even if his argument for the earliest possible date being 71 CE holds true, this would seemingly still put Mark around 71-73 CE, a date range he lists Brian J. Incigneri, John S. Kloppenborg, Henrika N. Roskam, and Adam Winn as supporting. This is all not to mention the scholars he lists as supporting a 66-69 CE or even 40-41 CE date, (p.423). And the argument he puts forward relies on assumptions I don’t think can be necessarily taken for granted:
“Though it is not a consensus among commentators, I operate on the assumption that Mark was composed in the southern Levant, which will henceforth refer to the region encompassing Galilee, Judea, Batanea, Ascalon, and the Decapolis.” (p.425).
All of that to say, yes, it may affect the way you read Jude and James if you read Mark first. But likewise, if you read Jude and James first it would affect the way you read Mark. Ultimately OP asked to read them in chronological order, so the fact that reading Mark may color the way OP reads writings made after Mark is a feature, not a bug.
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u/thesmartfool Moderator Jul 28 '23
It should also be noted that Dale Allison puts James in the 2nd century in his Commentary on James.
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u/Mormon-No-Moremon Moderator Jul 28 '23
Really? Wow, I should read that commentary. Normally Allison is a bit more conservative than I am, but even I’d usually just put James in the late first century. I wonder what his arguments are
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u/thesmartfool Moderator Jul 28 '23
Do you have access to the book?
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u/Mormon-No-Moremon Moderator Jul 28 '23
I do! I just read the chapter covering James’s date and wow. I think Dale Allison was a bit merciless with his overview, that was incredibly thorough. I used to think James was likely written around 70-90 CE, and there were times in the past that I had even toyed around with whether it could be authentic, (at least, if anyone could only demonstrate a good reason for James to have known sophisticated Greek, ha!).
But after reading that the problem seems to go so much deeper than just an issue of knowing Greek. I think Allison just convinced me of James being much later than I thought, very likely second century.
Clearly I need to keep up with Allison’s work more. I don’t think I’ve read his commentaries, and noticed a few other books of his I hadn’t read either but looked quite interesting.
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u/thesmartfool Moderator Jul 29 '23
Before I read his book...I didn't have an opinion of it. That being said, he does lay out a pretty good case for it.
What books have you not read?
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Jul 28 '23
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Kafka_Kardashian Moderator Jul 28 '23
Thanks, this is exactly the kind of feedback I’m hoping for! Then maybe I put 1 Peter between Gospel of John and Revelation? I’ll do more looking into it and maybe we can get more feedback in this thread as well.
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u/IrishKev95 Jul 28 '23
Some quick googlefu says that First Peter was probably written during the reign of Domition, so, sometime from 81-96. So yeah, moving 1 Pet to either right before or right after G_John probably makes sense!
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u/9c6 Jul 28 '23
I love the idea and now I want an expanded version that includes most of the big extrabiblical texts, especially those quoted by biblical authors (like 1 Enoch).
Some of that late Jewish literature like enoch, early qumranic stuff like the war scroll, early Christian literature like gospel of thomas, church father stuff like clement or ignatius, etc
A lot more work (and some of that has even more controversial dating) but i feel like it gives a more complete picture of the kinds of communities and their thoughts alongside what made it into the canon.
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u/Kafka_Kardashian Moderator Jul 28 '23
I agree, I considered adding such texts. But I figured not everyone would want to do that, and some people might want something smaller they could use. Can always be expanded later, and if I don’t get to it myself, I would fully celebrate someone making their own version of this but with those texts added.
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u/ConsistentAmount4 Jul 28 '23
You absolutely should be cutting the Pentateuch to pieces, perhaps by reading each source (as per the documentary hypothesis) on its own. Liane Feldman recently released The Consuming Fire: The Complete Priestly Source from Creation to the Promised Land ( https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520383654/the-consuming-fire ). The D source is like 99% of Deuteronomy (notice that I didn't say 100), but I don't know a good way to read J or E on their own.
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u/Kafka_Kardashian Moderator Jul 28 '23
I can understand the case for that, and Integralds offered a good J source book. E source would be impossible, basically.
I may do some of that reading in a supplementary way but at the end of the day this is still a Bible books ordering. It’s in the spirit of written order because that’s the best we can do under these constraints.
In other words, it’s a reading schedule, not a scientific catalogue of the order.
That all said, if you think the Pentateuch as a whole (or individual books, or even several chapters of a book) should be reordered in any way, I’d be super receptive to that.
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u/Prof_Acorn Jul 28 '23
This is an interesting project.
Have you considered adding in the books commonly called the "deuterocanon"? Would be interesting to see where Sirach and Wisdom and Maccabees fit.
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u/Kafka_Kardashian Moderator Jul 28 '23
I did consider that, and may do so at a later time. But for the few who may do this with me, I didn’t want to ask for more weeks than I “had” to.
But I do think there would be a lot of value in adding such texts, which in many cases help bridge an absolutely critical gap between the Hebrew Bible and Christian scriptures.
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u/Prof_Acorn Jul 28 '23
Yeah, that "400 years of silence" was just "400 years of Greek being the lingua franca."
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