How old are the years of the Bible?

The Bible is rightfully considered one of the oldest and most influential literary works of mankind. Her texts are actively studied throughout the world, but despite this, no scientist can definitely call the age of this book.

The Bible and world religions

Some of the texts that make up the Bible are sacred not only for Christianity, but for many other Abrahamic religions, for example, Islam, Judaism and lesser known confessions such as Rastafarianism and Karaism. Adherents of these religions make up just over half of the world's population.

Of course, every religion has its own Scripture and believes in it in its own way, but the oldest stories of the Old Testament are the backbone of all Abrahamic religions.

The influence of the Bible

It is worth noting separately that no other book has been able to achieve such popularity and to exert such an influence on the social development of mankind for generations and millennia, like the Bible. In fact, most of the history of our era was determined by the Bible (Tanach, Koran) and the attitude of a person to it.

There is much debate about where the first Bible writings and various books originated, but what can science tell us about their age?

Different options

First, it is important to remember that today there is no single Bible as such. Throughout history, there have been a huge number of copies, publications and translations. Secondly, different religions use different scriptures for their own purposes and can interpret them ambiguously by adding or shortening texts.

The basis for Christian Scripture was the Vulgate Bible, translated from Greek into Latin in the fourth century. For the first time the Bible was printed in 1450 by Johann Gutenberg, the famous inventor of the printing press. However, the oldest are considered to be the writings of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh.

The first manuscripts

The oldest manuscripts containing biblical texts are the Silver Scrolls found in Jerusalem in 1979. They date from the seventh century BC and contain the oldest known quotations from the Pentateuch.

The second place is the place of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which were dated from the fourth century BC to the third century AD. Thus, the age of the first sources of biblical texts known to us is 2700 years. But this does not mean that their age coincides with the age of Scripture itself. The first stories of the Old Testament were passed from mouth to mouth, and the Book of Genesis was first recorded around 1450 BC. It turns out that the biblical records are about three and a half thousand years old.