# Authors & Audiences



## InSlaveryToChrist (Mar 29, 2011)

Does the Bible provide us with adequate knowledge to conclude the author and the audience of each book of the Bible? Are there any resources/books/articles exposing these? Which books' authors and audiences we know _for sure_ (that is, _exegesis being unnecessary_)? I would especially like to know these things concerning the New Testament.

Thanks in advance!


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## InSlaveryToChrist (Mar 30, 2011)

Answers, please.


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## Joseph Scibbe (Mar 30, 2011)

Yes and no. Reading the NT is like listening to one side of a phone conversation. You can kinda figure out things about the other end but unless you know about the other side you will never understand the full conversation. Does that make sense?


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## athanatos (Mar 30, 2011)

I want to say yes, but with qualification. Insofar as translators have adequately translated the words in a way that accommodates the context (of the passage, the culture, the writer/audience, etc.), we can understand very well. However, accommodating for context is something that often requires outside sources to speak where we are ignorant and would otherwise be without adequate understanding of the audience (and author). And having that information in the hands of the pastor or lay-person definitely helps aid the interpretation.


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## InSlaveryToChrist (Mar 31, 2011)

Are there no resources revealing these things, then? These are such important things whenever one attempts to interpret any passage of Scripture. Someone should have written a book concerning them(?).


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## py3ak (Mar 31, 2011)

Most books on introduction will tell you about the author and the audience: sometime's its pretty cut and dried, like Paul writing to Philemon, because the letter itself contains the information you are interested in. Other times, as with 2 John, the terms of identification used are less exact. I like J. Gresham Machen's _The New Testament: An Introduction to its Literature and History_. There are bulkier and more detailed volumes, of course, but there are also less well-written and less profitable volumes. There are likewise many OT introductions. Two I have enjoyed are Gleason Archer's _Survey of OT Introduction_ and Alec Motyer's _The Story of the Old Testament_ (recently reprinted as _Roots_).


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## InSlaveryToChrist (Mar 31, 2011)

A certain website answered the question, "Who were the authors of the books of the Bible?" Here is how they responded:



> Ultimately, above the human authors, the Bible was written by God. Second Timothy 3:16 tells us that the Bible was “breathed out” by God. God superintended the human authors of the Bible so that, while using their own writing styles and personalities, they still recorded exactly what God intended. The Bible was not dictated by God, but it was perfectly guided and entirely inspired by Him.
> 
> Humanly speaking, the Bible was written by approximately 40 men of diverse backgrounds over the course of 1500 years. Isaiah was a prophet, Ezra was a priest, Matthew was a tax-collector, John was a fisherman, Paul was a tentmaker, Moses was a shepherd, Luke was a physician. Despite being penned by different authors over 15 centuries, the Bible does not contradict itself and does not contain any errors. The authors all present different perspectives, but they all proclaim the same one true God, and the same one way of salvation—Jesus Christ (John 14:6; Acts 4:12). Few of the books of the Bible specifically name their author. Here are the books of the Bible along with the name of who is most assumed by biblical scholars to be the author, along with the approximate date of authorship:
> 
> ...



Is this valid information?

---------- Post added at 09:43 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:32 AM ----------

An interesting thought came into my mind: *While ALL the books of the Bible are certainly written FOR us, are ANY of them written TO us?*


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## InSlaveryToChrist (Apr 1, 2011)

Please, respond to the above post.


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## py3ak (Apr 1, 2011)

Samuel, of course most of the items on that list are debated in one way or another, but to my cursory and inexpert glance it looks like the attributions and dates are those often assigned by conservative students. As such, it's not bad as a point of reference. But not everything is of the same weight: for instance, the attribution of Job to Moses is not as certain as the attribution of Exodus to the same author. And there are warm exponents of an earlier date for Revelation from various areas of the theological spectrum.


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## InSlaveryToChrist (Apr 1, 2011)

py3ak said:


> Samuel, of course most of the items on that list are debated in one way or another, but to my cursory and inexpert glance it looks like the attributions and dates are those often assigned by conservative students. As such, it's not bad as a point of reference. But not everything is of the same weight: for instance, the attribution of Job to Moses is not as certain as the attribution of Exodus to the same author. And there are warm exponents of an earlier date for Revelation from various areas of the theological spectrum.


 
What would you say about the books that John wrote? Did John really write the Gospel of Mark with Mark? What about Revelation? These are especially important questions when one attempts to understand John's usage of the term "world."

Could you also answer my other question (bolded) in my previous post?

Thanks!


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## py3ak (Apr 1, 2011)

> What would you say about the books that John wrote? Did John really write the Gospel of Mark with Mark? What about Revelation? These are especially important questions when one attempts to understand John's usage of the term "world."
> 
> Could you also answer my other question (bolded) in my previous post?
> 
> Thanks!



As far as I know, there's no evidence that John and Mark collaborated: Mark is often seen as associated with Peter: there is some external evidence to this effect, and in that connection the omission of the word "bitterly" from the description of Peter's weeping in Mark's gospel is interesting.

As for the bolded question, I think it might be best to distinguish. The epistles, for instance, were certainly written to specific churches and situations, yet intended from the first for a broader use (thus the instruction to swap letters with Laodicea in Colossians 4). And since they are written for the church, and we are the church, they are written to us; but mediately, through an intervening local congregation or group of congregations that were historically situated. So 3 John is written immediately to Gaius, and mediately to all believers.


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## Grillsy (Apr 1, 2011)

I don't think the list is saying John and Mark wrote the Gospel together rather it is saying that John-Mark (from Acts) wrote it.


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## InSlaveryToChrist (Apr 1, 2011)

Grillsy said:


> I don't think the list is saying John and Mark wrote the Gospel together rather it is saying that John-Mark (from Acts) wrote it.


 
Wow! I never knew such a person exists in the Bible! According to Wikipedia, however, this person might be Mark the Evangelist. He also appears several times in the Acts of the Apostles. *Who is John Mark?*


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## py3ak (Apr 1, 2011)

He is Barnabas' nephew, and the traditional view is that he authored the Gospel of Mark.


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## Jack K (Apr 1, 2011)

Samuel:

There are different levels of certainty about the New Testament authors depending on the book. We hold that none of the authors intended to deceive his readers, so therefore we can be certain about those books that identify the author. Yet, questions remain.

In some cases, the author is identified by name but there's limited information from which to identify the particular person of that name who wrote that book. For example, the identity of "Paul" is pretty obvious and it's clear from the epistles of Peter that the "Peter" who's speaking is Peter the apostle. But which James wrote James? Which John wrote Revelation? And which Jude wrote Jude? In these latter cases we may have strong clues, but our certainty is less than it is with some other books.

In other cases, the author is never identified by name in the book but we have strong church tradition to rely on. For example, none of the gospels names its author. But we have no evidence that these books ever circulated without the names of the authors in the titles, like "The Gospel According to Matthew." That makes a pretty strong argument that indeed Matthew was the author. But again, our level of certainty is only so high. And can we be absolutely sure that "Matthew" in this case means Matthew the apostle? Not absolutely, though it's highly likely.

Then you have the epistles of John where the author is either not named or referred to merely as "the elder." Again, both church tradition and the content of the books lead us to identify him as John the apostle, but the further we get from an absolute statement within the text itself, the less certain we can be.

Finally there's Hebrews, about which there is great uncertainty.

So that fact is we just have to live with various levels of certainty depending on the book. And we have to trust that God has preserved in those books all the information about their original purposes that we need in order to properly understand them. If the author's identity is unclear, that means it isn't necessary for rightly understanding the text.


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