Today, technology on the Internet has given us ways to spot plagiarism from a distance. Magazine editors and English professors regularly use Copyscape from the comfort of their apartments to check if a writer or student has come up with an award-winning essay, or slacking off to play Halo 3.
But what about software that can answer one of the most intriguing questions of all time: “Who wrote the Bible?”
This is the kind of question that, once asked, can catch the attention of both Christians and non-Christians. Answering this age-old query means being between the line of controversy and fear – fear because it will challenge the world’s predominant religion, and controversy because it’s headline-worthy news for people from every religion.
To shed some light on who the Bible’s intellects are, an Israeli team of geniuses recently crafted a program to determine who are the minds and hands behind the Holy Scripture.
The newly developed software, known as authorship attribution, works by analyzing word choice and structure.
Theological experts tried using the software on the Bible. Results of the step-by-step procedure showed that the sacred book was written by different authors.
In some text of the Bible, the program was able to identify two different words referring to just one object. For example, the words “makel” and “mateh” pertain to the same object. From this, theological scholars came to a realization that the book was written by various people.
In addition, uses of certain word selections were distinguished by the program. Examples are the uses of “if”, “and” and but in the Hebrew language.
The text was divided two-ways. According to the result, the first part revealed relevance to the priests from a temple in Jerusalem. Because of this, this strand was said to be written was “priestly” wordsmiths. The remaining parts were called otherwise – “non-priestly”.
The same program was run to test The Five Books of Moses and bared the same conclusion, splitting “priestly” from “non-priestly” categories.
The brainchild software was run on the book of Isaiah, too. For thousands of years, this book has been believed to be written by two authors. The first holy scribbler was believed to have left off on the 39th Chapter of the book where the latter author commenced. The same finding was disclosed after the test but stated that the second writer had began at Chapter 33. Thus, this finding sparked controversy that challenged long-standing Christian beliefs.
Another finding that came as a protest to Christian’s take on the Bible was the “non-priestly” writer of the first chapter of Genesis. Conservatives believe that the first chapter was written by Noah on a tablet that was handed down from generation to generation.
The software is a subfield of artificial intelligence, and how the software interprets is basically a man’s endeavor. Skeptics surely find this boggling. Perhaps, there’s really no way to find out who wrote the Bible. Perhaps there is, but will take years and years of study.
Bible scholar Moshe Koppel told the Washington Times, “No amount of research is going to resolve that issue.”