This series is designed to help people better understand the Bible and how it speaks to us. Read the series Introduction post to learn how this series is designed to help you.

In our last post, we outlined a definition of the Bible. In this post, we want to better understand when the Bible was written.

When was the Bible written?

When was the Bible written? The answer to this question is fascinating, and is a bit more complicated than you might realize. The simple answer is that the Bible was written over a period of approximately 1500 years, but there’s more to it than that. Below is a basic breakdown of the historical timeline of the Bible.

Basic Timeline of the Bible

• The Old Testament (OT) spans the time from Creation to about 400 BC.

• Abraham lived around 2000 BC, about 500 years before Moses

• There is approximately 1000 years between Moses and the end of the OT

• The nation of Israel (10 Northern tribes) was exiled in 722 BC

• The nation of Judah (southern 2 tribes) was exiled in 586 BC

• The New Testament (NT) spans the time from roughly 4 BC to the late 90s AD

• The Gospels began being written in the middle of the 1st century AD

• Paul wrote his Epistles between approximately 47 AD to 66 AD

• John is believed to be the last writer of the NT, finishing his works in the mid to late 90s AD

When we ask, “When was the Bible written?,” we cannot give a singular, definitive date as we do with modern books. The Bible¹ is a collection of 66 distinct books that cover a massive historical timeline, as you see above. The earliest books (Job, Genesis through Deuteronomy) were written roughly 1500 years before the last books (John’s Epistles, Revelation). 

Consider this as you read and/or study: How much change must have occurred in the culture and religious thinking of the ancient Middle East during the time of the writing of just the Hebrew Bible (our Old Testament)!! It is easy to sometimes think that life at the time of Malachi was the same as when Moses wrote Leviticus. In reality, the two books were written about 1000 years apart. Just something to keep in mind.

Despite this enormous timeframe, however, the Bible communicates a unified message through a consistent story because the human writers were inspired by the Holy Spirit. God is the author, and humans were the writers. This is why the Bible is able to draw human hearts to God with a consistent message from beginning to end.

Happy Bibleing!

Footnotes

1. I am referring to the Protestant Bible. If you are not aware, the Roman Catholic Church (as well as the original 1611 King James Bible) includes a collection of books called the Apocrypha that are no longer included in modern Protestant Bibles. To say any more on this topic now is an IMMENSE rabbit trail. ↩︎