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Richard Elliott Friedman
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Who Wrote the Bible? Paperback – March 21, 1997

4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 1,166 ratings
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The contemporary classic the New York Times Book Review called “a thought-provoking [and] perceptive guide,” Who Wrote the Bible? by Richard E. Friedman is a fascinating, intellectual, yet highly readable analysis and investigation into the authorship of the Old Testament. The author of Commentary on the Torah, Friedman delves deeply into the history of the Bible in a scholarly work that is as exciting and surprising as a good detective novel. Who Wrote the Bible? is enlightening, riveting, an important contribution to religious literature, and as the Los Angeles Times aptly observed in its rave review, “There is no other book like this one.”

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  1. Print length
    304 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    HarperOne
  4. Publication date
    March 21, 1997
  5. Dimensions
    5.31 x 0.68 x 8 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0060630353
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0060630355
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

"J," "P," "E," and "D" are the names scholars have given to some authors of the Bible, and, as such, they are very important letters to a lot of people. Churches have died and been born, and millions of people have lost faith or found it, because of the last two centuries of debate about who, exactly, wrote the canonical texts of Christianity and Judaism. Richard Elliott Friedman's survey of this debate, in Who Wrote the Bible?, may be the best written popular book about this question. Without condescension or high-flown academic language, Friedman carefully describes the history of textual criticism of the Bible--a subject on which his authority is unparalleled (Friedman has contributed voluminously to the authoritative Anchor Bible Dictionary). But this book is not just smart. Perhaps even more impressive than Friedman's erudition is his sensitivity to the power of textual criticism to influence faith. --Michael Joseph Gross

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"Brilliantly presented: There is no other book like this one. It may well be unique." -- --Los Angeles Times

A contemporary classic that is a "thought-provoking [and] perceptive guide [to the Bible's authorship]." -- --New York Times Book Review

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ HarperOne; Reprint edition (March 21, 1997)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 304 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0060630353
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0060630355
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 7.8 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.31 x 0.68 x 8 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 1,166 ratings

About the author

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Richard Elliott Friedman

Richard Elliott Friedman

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RICHARD ELLIOTT FRIEDMAN is one of the premier bible scholars in the country. He earned his doctorate at Harvard and was a visiting fellow at Oxford and Cambridge, a Senior Fellow of the American Schools of Oriental Research in Jerusalem, and a Visiting Professor at the University of Haifa. He is the Ann & Jay Davis Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Georgia and the Katzin Professor of Jewish Civilization Emeritus of the University of California, San Diego. He is the author of Commentary on the Torah, The Disappearance of God, The Hidden Book in the Bible, The Bible with Sources Revealed, The Bible Now, The Exile and Biblical Narrative, the bestselling Who Wrote the Bible?, and his newest book, The Exodus. He was an American Council of Learned Societies Fellow and was elected to membership in The Biblical Colloquium. His books have been translated into Hebrew, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Japanese, Polish, Hungarian, Dutch, Portuguese, Czech, Turkish, Korean, and French. He was a consultant for the Dreamworks film "The Prince of Egypt," for Alice Hoffman's The Dovekeepers, and for NBC, A&E, PBS, and Nova.

Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
1,166 global ratings
Blasphemous and Excellent!
5 Stars
Blasphemous and Excellent!
Brilliant! Well written and easy to read. Gives lots of examples in each chapter. If your planning on purchasing his book, The Bible with sources. Buy this book first. This book is written for critical study, not the traditional view. Does not claim that the author(s) were committing religious fraud and is not an attack on Judaism or Christianity. You must have an open mind if you plan to read this.
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Top reviews from the United States

John J. Kim
5.0 out of 5 stars Must read for all Jews and Christians.
Reviewed in the United States on March 26, 2024
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Mr. Friedman eloquently explains the first five books of the Bible. After reading this book, it opens your eyes and minds and helps you understand the hidden meaning behind many of the biblical stories. I highly recommend this book for anyone who was confused by some of the stories in the Bible.
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Dave_42
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Exploration Of Key Question
Reviewed in the United States on July 6, 2012
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For those who are interested in a scholarly discussion of a question which most people (at least most have wondered at some point or another) "Who Wrote The Bible?" by Richard Elliott Friedman is a book you should read. Friedman uses history as well as uses the contact to first build the case for multiple authors of the Books of Moses, and then put forward a plausible hypothesis for the authorship for the different sections. Of course, he is not attempting to name specific authors, but rather focused on where the authors were from, and what their position was in the society.

The core of the book is less than 250 pages, but the appendices, bibliography and notes bring it closer to 300 pages. That being said, while Friedman does an excellent job of presenting his subject in a concise matter, it is his references that make "Who Wrote The Bible?" such a great work by itself, as well as be a tremendous reference to do further reading on the subject.

Friedman opens with a discussion of the traditional authors of the Bible and why those were clearly not accurate, and then moves into an overview of the world which produced the first books of the Bible. He then goes into the two different authors of the events and how their accounts are different, and how they are the same. The authors are given the names J and E based on the words they use to refer to God. Friedman then goes into more detail on who these writers were, i.e. where they were from, when did they live, and what were their roles in society. Note that Friedman doesn't rule out the possibility that J and E each have multiple writers, but rather than whether they do or not doesn't have an impact on the overall viewpoint of the texts.

Of course, the authorship doesn't end with J and E. Next up is D, the author of Deuteronomy and the next 6 books, and this is followed by a discussion of the author referred to as P. Friedman also discusses the importance of the redactor or editor who put all these works together and the obvious control this person had over the current work. While controversial in some respects, this book is certainly not a case of science and religion in conflict. The difficulties were not a scientific discovery, but rather this has been an area of religious debate and discussion. Certainly some of the evidence that Friedman presents is scientific, but this is not a book discussing the validity of the work, but rather the authorship, so unless one's faith is dependent on the specific author of these works, it should not be one which fans the flames between religion and reason.
11 people found this helpful
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Anthony D. Sueck
4.0 out of 5 stars Who Wrote the Bible? We don't know-- but it's a good read!
Reviewed in the United States on March 19, 2019
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I know that this is going to be a very self-indulgent “product review”, but I’m going to start with my personal point of view in reading this book.

I don’t consider myself to be a disbeliever, per say, but at this stage in my life I’m also not a religious person or a churchgoer. However, I find the topic of biblical history to be incredibly fascinating. It seems to me that, even for those that don’t believe in God, there is a wealth to be learned from studying what Christians regard as the “Old Testament”.

I find that disbelievers or anti-religious persons (I know many personally) are too quickly dismissive of the contents of the Bible. If you strip away the mysticism of it, the books of the Torah should still be regarded as the oldest historical document of its kind. We know with certainty that historical figures like King David, or Solomon, were definitely real people whom existed. So to instantly cast the Bible as fiction without learning about it is a mistake. And, while the story may have evolved into a myth as it was passed down from antiquity through oral tradition, there probably was a great flood in the Middle East at some point which inspired the flood myth in Genesis (and flood myths of other civilizations).

What I’m getting at is that there is great value in studying our shared history (much less can be gained from grousing it away dismissively). For many of us that shared history begins in the Middle East and in The Holy Bible.

I’ve been aware of the Richard Friedman book “Who Wrote the Bible?” for some time, and it finally made it to the top of my reading list. It first came to my attention when reading the excellent Straight Dope newspaper article of the same subject (“Who Wrote the Bible?”). As an aside, if you just want the short answer, simply Googling that newspaper column will be a good start. I read the column when I was younger, returned to it recently, and was inspired to add the book to my reading list. As I often do, I purchased both the Kindle version and a physical copy of the book (I prefer to make notes and highlights in my Kindle but to read paper).

I found the book to be extremely well-written. Often, it can become frustrating when someone writes too much about themselves (this product review is probably an example). In the case of Friedman’s writing in “Who Wrote the Bible?” I instead found the occasional reference to his life and his connection to theology to be very interesting.

After starting with a bit of history in the exploration of its base question, “Who Wrote the Bible?” explores what Friedman delicately discusses as the present “scholarly” view. This is, in short, that the early chapters of the Bible were written, primarily, by 4-5 individuals (or groups) and then compiled into one volume by at least one other individual. This is oversimplifying the scholarly view, but that is the basic concept in one sentence; read the book for details! Friedman gets into explaining what we know about each author, along with some exploration of whom they may have been.

I did feel like the book seemed to delve sometimes a little too much into conjecture or simple speculation in trying to identify the authors of the Bible. That’s not necessarily a complaint, or a thought that something else should have been done (after all, we don’t know who the authors were). My feedback is simply to state that some portions which were written as “big reveals” were left to feel a little anti-climactic.

In some cases, I found the writing itself to be overwhelming. This isn’t necessarily Richard Friedman’s fault. I felt that some portions of the book moved too quickly, with too many referenced names, events, etc. for someone that hasn’t read the Bible (confessedly, me). Obviously, my personal starting point of view isn’t Friedman’s fault. But, while I read most of the book very attentively, I also found myself skimming in a couple of portions.

“Who Wrote the Bible?” was well worth the read. It has inspired me to add several other books on early religion to my reading list. I’ve also started reading the first two books of The Bible itself (Genesis and Exodus), with the intention of then moving into one of Richard Friedman’s other works, “The Exodus”. That, in itself, should be a testimony that “Who Wrote the Bible?” is a very good gateway for the layperson.
17 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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Nathan Ward
5.0 out of 5 stars A liberating read
Reviewed in Canada on February 10, 2018
Verified Purchase
I grew up in a very conservative Christian home. Bible stories were more familiar to me than even Saturday morning cartoons. Friedman’s book rekindled my interest and dare I say love for the Bible. He in no way denigrates it.

Friedman shows that the writing of the Bible was very human with all of humanity’s glories and blemishes. There was nothing magical or inerrant in the writing of the Bible. Instead it’s a story of people seeking to be in relationship with God. It’s a story that has shaped us more than any other.

Friedman has enriched my belief in the Incarnation. The Word revealed in flesh. And what intriguing and messy flesh it is.

A must read for anyone wanting more than what they were taught in Sunday school or Bible College.
2 people found this helpful
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Joseph M
5.0 out of 5 stars Great presentation of the Importance of bible authourship
Reviewed in India on August 2, 2018
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the complete analysis, he tore it done and put it back beautifully
One person found this helpful
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Ricardo Meneghelli
4.0 out of 5 stars Coerente e compreensível
Reviewed in Brazil on December 22, 2016
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O livro apresenta uma abordagem coerente e compreensível quanto ao processo de formação da Bíblia Hebraica (Antigo Testamento), ajustando a tradicional e antiga Hipótese Documentária. O problema é que, atualmente, quase nenhum estudioso do tema considera a hipótese documentária um solução adequada para explicar a composição do pentateuco.
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678551742
5.0 out of 5 stars Claridad y solidez académica
Reviewed in Spain on February 5, 2017
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Una obra seria desde el punto de vista académico, pero lo suficientemente clara para que pueda seguirlo cualquier persona con una base de cultura general. Explica la complicada historia del origen de los 11 primeros libros de la Biblia Hebrea -no toda la Biblia, como da a entender el título-. Por supuesto, como cualquier otra teoría sobre el origen de los textos bíblicos, está basada en una serie de hipótesis, pero lo que propone no sólo resulta creíble, es una de las mejores aproximaciones a uno de los grandes enigmas de la historia. Muy recomendable para cualquiera que quiera conocer la Biblia desde las investigaciones de la historia
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一領具足
5.0 out of 5 stars このヤハウェの姿は、エホバにも、アッラーにも、共通して窺える姿
Reviewed in Japan on March 27, 2020
Verified Purchase
　20世紀まで積み上げられた、聖書学の成果が切り拓いた「知的な旅路」をワクワクしながら、辿っていました。
　古代ユダヤ教を、宗教社会学を学ぶ題材とした、約半世紀前から、旧約聖書の読み難さの理由や、背景を知りたい、と思い続けてきました。
　この本のおかげで、その読み難さの由来を理解する様々な科学的方法論や、その研究成果に交わることが出来、序章から第14章まで、次々と疑問が解き明かされていく過程に、惹き込まれ、腑に落ちてくるものを味わい続けていました。
　信仰内容を一旦脇に置いて、聖書を、科学的な研究の対象に置き、理性や知性の問いかけてくる疑問に、科学的に答えていく作業には、中世の神学者たちの成果にまで遡る、長い先行研究の道程があることも、更に明らかになりました。
　第14章では、この旅路の末に辿り着いた高みから、ユダヤ教とキリスト教に共通するものを概観します。近寄ることを俊絶する絶対的な姿と、赦し慈しみ身近にいる姿と、相矛盾するヤハウェの姿が、浮かび上がって、改めてまた信仰内容の中身に戻る路が、啓けてくるかのようです。
　このヤハウェの姿は、エホバにも、アッラーにも、共通して窺える姿でもあり、一神教の生成過程に理解を進めることにもなります。
　21世紀に入って、仏教学の成果も一般に広く知られるようになり、例えば、NHKのEテレの「100分de名著」で、佐々木閑さんの「大乗仏教」の解説が聞かれるようになりました。（中村元先生に私淑するものとしても、嬉しく思います。）
　聖書学も仏教学も、その信仰内容を豊かにし、点検し、味わい直すうえで、疎かには出来ないなぁ、と再認識しています。
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