Who wrote the bible’s books?

Recently I saw a meme which listed all the books of the bible, and who wrote ’em. And whoever wrote it got so many wrong. It’s a combination of unprovable traditions—Moses did not write “the five books of Moses,” no matter how often people claim he did—and oversimplifications, like “David” writing the psalms and not David plus other psalmists; or “Paul” wrote all his letters but skipping his cowriters.

Anyway here’s the actual list of who wrote what—as best we know, anyway. I’m listing the books in King James Version order; your bible might have ’em in a different order.

Old Testament.

1. GENESIS. Don’t know.
2. EXODUS. Don’t know, but same author as Genesis.
3. LEVITICUS. Don’t know, but same author as Genesis.
4. NUMBERS. Don’t know, but same author as Genesis.
5. DEUTERONOMY. Don’t know, but probably same author as Genesis.

I wrote a whole article on why we don’t know who wrote “the books of Moses,” also known as the Penteteuch, Torah, and “the Law.” Traditionally people have claimed it was Moses ben Amram; I get into why it can’t be.

I tend to call the author of these books “Moe,” as a placeholder. Still not Moses.

Hebrew bibles and Christian bibles include the following books in very different orders. Hebrew bibles bunch ’em into two sections—the Prophets, which were completed during the Babylonian exile, and the Writings, which were completed after the Israelis returned and founded Judea. The translators of the Septuagint re-sorted them into history, poetry, and prophecy, and Christians use that order. It means some of these books are gonna have very different dates when they were written—but Christians weren’t always aware of that, so Christian tradition assigned authors to ’em who can’t have written them.

6. JOSHUA. The Deuteronomistic Historian. (“Deuteronomist” for short.)
7. JUDGES. The Deuteronomist.

Yep, I also wrote a whole article on the Deuteronomist. That’s the person who wrote the histories in the second section of the Old Testament, “the Prophets,” as we can tell by the recurring themes he included in these histories—namely that Israel wasn’t following the Law as spelled out in Deuteronomy, and suffered the consequences.

Christian tradition claims Joshua ben Nun wrote Joshua (well, till the part Joshua died), and Samuel ben Elkanah wrote Judges. But if Joshua wrote any part of Joshua, it would’ve been in the Early Biblical Hebrew of the Torah, and it’s not; it’s a later Hebrew. The same Hebrew used for Judges, Samuel, and Kings. There’s other grammatical evidence it was composed later… so yeah, not Joshua. Nor Samuel.

I tend to call the Deuteronomist “Sam,” as a placeholder. Named for, but is not, Samuel ben Elkanah.

8. RUTH. Don’t know.

Tradition claims Samuel ben Elkanah wrote Ruth. He can’t have; it’s part of the Writings, and Samuel lived centuries before the Writings were composed.

9. 1 SAMUEL. The Deuteronomist.
10. 2 SAMUEL. The Deuteronomist.
11. 1 KINGS. The Deuteronomist.
12. 2 KINGS. The Deuteronomist.

Samuel and Kings were each split into two books for the Septuagint, but they originated as two works, not four. Tradition says Samuel wrote the parts of 1 Samuel till his death; then the court prophets Gad and Nathan wrote the rest, plus 2 Samuel. After all, doesn’t 1 Chronicles say so?

1 Chronicles 27.29-30 ESV

29Now the acts of King David, from first to last, are written in the Chronicles of Samuel the seer, and in the Chronicles of Nathan the prophet, and in the Chronicles of Gad the seer, 30with accounts of all his rule and his might and of the circumstances that came upon him and upon Israel and upon all the kingdoms of the countries.

But it’s far more likely the author of Chronicles tapped those resources—as that author obviously did with Samuel, Kings, and Isaiah.

As for Kings, tradition says Jeremiah wrote it. Though there’s no evidence for that, and the style and themes still match that of the Deuteronomist, who most likely wrote Kings too.

13. 1 CHRONICLES. The Chronicler.
14. 2 CHRONICLES. The Chronicler.

Chronicles—also originally one book—is part of the Writings, written centuries after Samuel and Kings in a later style of Hebrew, and contains different themes than the Deuteronomistic History. Tradition says it was written by Ezra the scribe, but historians just call its author “the Chronicler.” I don’t call him anything for short. Maybe I should give him a nickname right now. How about “Eric”?

15. EZRA. Don’t know.
16. NEHEMIAH. Nehemiah.

In Hebrew, Ezra-Nehemiah is one book, but the Septuagint split ’em in two because the Nehemiah part was obviously written by Nehemiah as an autobiography or report. Traditionally Ezra wrote his own book, but the author never says so in the scriptures, so we can’t say for certain.

17. ESTHER. Don’t know.
18. JOB. Don’t know.

Tradition says Mordecai wrote Esther… because traditionalists were sexists and couldn’t fathom the idea that Esther wrote her own book. No, she didn’t write it either. We don’t know who wrote it.

Tradition also claims Moses wrote Job, but if so, Moses must’ve somehow picked up a whole lot of Aramaic loanwords from 1,000 years in the future. Nope; we don’t know Job’s author either.

19. PSALMS. David ben Jesse, Asaph, the sons of Korah, Moses ben Amram, Solomon ben David, and other anonymous authors.
20. PROVERBS. Solomon ben David, Agur, Lemuel of Massa’s mother, and other anonymous sages.
21. ECCLESIASTES. Qohelet of Jerusalem.
22. SONG OF SONGS. Solomon ben David.

Since many psalms start with the author’s name, we know who wrote ’em. Those which don’t, we don’t—although tradition often claims David ben Jesse wrote all the anonymous psalms.

Proverbs through Song of Songs are often entirely attributed to Solomon ben David. The claim is the other writers of Proverbs were just pen names of Solomon. (So if Lemuel of Massa was in fact Solomon, it’d mean Lemuel’s mother was really Solomon’s mother Bathsheba. Really unlikely.) Of course, this sort of subterfuge would be inappropriate for an author of scripture, so I don’t take that idea seriously.

Ecclesiastes is also attributed to Solomon, though the text indicates it was written long after Solomon. Qohelet says he was a king of Jerusalem, Ec 1.12 so it’s one of those kings; we just don’t know which one.

23. ISAIAH. Isaiah ben Amoz.
24. JEREMIAH. Jeremiah ben Hilkiah.
25. LAMENTATIONS. Jeremiah ben Hilkiah.
26. EZEKIEL. Ezekiel ben Buzi.
27. DANIEL. Daniel (in part).
28. HOSEA. Hosea ben Beeri.
29. JOEL. Joel ben Pethuel.
30. AMOS. Amos of Tekoa.
31. OBADIAH. Obadiah.
32. JONAH. Jonah ben Amittai.
33. MICAH. Micah of Moresheth.
34. NAHUM. Nahum of Elkosh.
35. HABAKKUK. Habakkuk.
36. ZEPHANIAH. Zephaniah ben Cushi.
37. HAGGAI. Haggai of Jerusalem.
38. ZECHARIAH. Zechariah ben Berechiah.
39. MALACHI. Malachi of Jerusalem.

With the books of the prophets it’s really easy to know who wrote them: They put their names on them.

We don’t know whether the narrative parts of Daniel were actually written by the prophet Daniel. The apocalyptic vision parts, yes; the rest we just don’t know.

There is a tradition that Malachi was written by Ezra. Since מַלְאָכִֽי/Malakhí means “my messenger,” the very same word we find elsewhere in the book—

Malachi 3.1 ESV

“Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts.”

Yep, you could just as easily translate that, “Behold, I send Malachi, and he will prepare the way before me.” But that’s probably a bad interpretation.

And of course there’s no reason Malachi couldn’t be a proper name. People name their kids anything.

New Testament.

40. MATTHEW. “Matthew.”
41. MARK. John Mark.
42. LUKE. Luke.
43. JOHN. John bar Zebedee.
44. ACTS. Luke.

There’s some debate as to whether the apostle Matthew wrote the gospel of Matthew—mainly because that gospel quotes Mark, and why would someone who was there, following Jesus personally, need to quote somebody else who wasn’t there? So maybe it was written by another guy… and okay, maybe that other guy’s name was also Matthew, and people mixed him up with the apostle, and here we are.

Another theory is the original text of Matthew was written in Syriac, and when it was translated into Greek, somebody added info from Mark to it.

Maybe; these are all theories. As is a theory John didn’t write John, since the author deliberately avoided referring to the apostle John bar Zebedee by name—the only “John” in his gospel is John the baptist—and maybe it’s another guy, and maybe the author is also another guy. But the traditional explanation is the simplest: John wrote it, and was simply trying to downplay himself.

45. ROMANS. Paul of Tarsus.
46. 1 CORINTHIANS. Paul and Sosthenes.
47. 2 CORINTHIANS. Paul and Timothy.
48. GALATIANS. Paul.
49. EPHESIANS. Paul.
50. PHILIPPIANS. Paul and Timothy.
51. COLOSSIANS. Paul and Timothy.
52. 1 THESSALONIANS. Paul, Silas, and Timothy.
53. 2 THESSALONIANS. Paul, Silas, and TImothy.
54. 1 TIMOTHY. Paul.
55. 2 TIMOTHY. Paul.
56. TITUS. Paul.
57. PHILEMON. Paul and Timothy.

The “Pauline Epistles” were written or cowritten by Paul of Tarsus, and are named for the recipients because it’d be really confusing to call them 1 Paul, 2 Paul, 3 Paul, and so on up to 13 Paul.

That meme I referred to up top, attributed all the Pauline Epistles only to Paul. Even though the letters themselves state Paul had coauthors. Paul alone wrote Romans, Galatians, Ephesians, Titus, and the letters to Timothy. The rest were cowritten—and we don’t know how much, but enough for them to get credit—by Timothy, Silas, and Sosthenes. So don’t overlook those guys when you list the bible’s authors.

58. HEBREWS. Don’t know.
59. JAMES. James bar Joseph, Jesus’s brother.
60. 1 PETER. Simon Peter.
61. 2 PETER. Simon Peter.
62. 1 JOHN. John bar Zebedee.
63. 2 JOHN. John bar Zebedee.
64. 3 JOHN. John bar Zebedee.
65. JUDE. Jude bar Joseph, Jesus’s brother.
66. REVELATION. John bar Zebedee.

The “Catholic Epistles” were written by other apostles than Paul, and yes Revelation is one of them, though it usually comes last because it’s about the End, so it’s an appropriate end to the New Testament. And for the most part they’re named for their authors instead of their audience.

Plenty of Christians insist Paul wrote Hebrews, though there’s no evidence for that. The editors of the KJV included the note, “Written to the Hebrews from Italy, by Timothy,” although it’s rare you’ll find anyone talk about Timothy as its author. Other speculated authors are the apostles Silas, Barnabas, Luke, Clement, Priscilla, and Onesimus. But the author or authors don’t give their names, so we just don’t know.

Jesus’s brothers James and Jude wrote the letters which bear their names. That’s not in dispute; what’s in dispute, for some Christians, is whether they’re his literal brothers, since those Christians like to believe Mary remained a virgin and never begat other children, and don’t believe Joseph fathered other children. Those folks will claim James and Jude are Jesus’s cousins—the apostles James the Less and Jude Thaddeus, who followed Jesus and whom he included in the Twelve. But earliest tradition says nope, literal brothers.

Lastly there are those scholars who aren’t so sure Simon Peter wrote 2 Peter, or whether John bar Zebedee wrote his letters or Revelation. They’re far from a majority of scholars, and their evidence is shaky, so don’t worry about ’em.

Lastly-lastly, I should bring up the apocrypha: We don’t know the provenance of those books at all. They first appear in the Septuagint. They might all be pseudepigrapha, meaning none of the people who claim to be their authors actually wrote ’em. So they all get listed as “Don’t know.”