Authorship of the Bible in Christian Tradition

Sources

1. Easton's Bible Dictionary “Easton's Bible Dictionary: Bible — Bible, the English form of the Greek name Biblia, meaning "books," the name which in the fifth century began to be given to the entire collection of sacred books, the "Library of Divine Revelation." The name Bible was adopted by Wickliffe, and came gradually into use in our English language. The Bible consists of sixty-six different books, composed by many different writers, in three different languages, under different circumstances; writers of almost every social rank, statesmen and peasants, kings, herdsmen, fishermen, priests, tax-gatherers, tentmakers; e”
2. Easton's Bible Dictionary “Easton's Bible Dictionary: Scripture — Invariably in the New Testament denotes that definite collection of sacred books, regarded as given by inspiration of God, which we usually call the Old Testament (2 Tim. 3:15, 16; John 20:9; Gal. 3:22; 2 Pet. 1:20). It was God's purpose thus to perpetuate his revealed will. From time to time he raised up men to commit to writing in an infallible record the revelation he gave. The "Scripture," or collection of sacred writings, was thus enlarged from time to time as God saw necessary. We have now a completed "Scripture," consisting of the Old and New Testa”
3. Smith's Bible Dictionary “Smith's Bible Dictionary: Canon Of Scripture, The — may be generally described as the "collection of books which form the original and authoritative written rule of the faith and practice of the Christian Church," i.e. the Old and New Testaments. The word canon, in classical Greek, is properly a straight rod, "a rule" in the widest sense, and especially in the phrases "the rule of the Church," "the rule of faith," "the rule of truth," The first direct application of the term canon to the Scriptures seems to be in the verses of Amphilochius (cir. 380 A.D.), where the word indicates the rule by ”
4. Smith's Bible Dictionary “Smith's Bible Dictionary: Bible — The Bible is the name given to the revelation of God to man contained in sixty-six books or pamphlets, bound together and forming one book and only one, for it has in reality one author and one purpose and plan, and is the development of one scheme of the redemption of man. I. ITS [301]Names.-- (1) The Bible, i.e. The Book, from the Greek "ta biblia," the books. The word is derived from a root designating the inner bark of the linden tree, on which the ancients wrote their books. It is the book as being superior to all other books. But the application of the w”
5. Easton's Bible Dictionary “Easton's Bible Dictionary: Word of God — (Heb. 4:12, etc.). The Bible so called because the writers of its several books were God's organs in communicating his will to men. It is his "word," because he speaks to us in its sacred pages. Whatever the inspired writers here declare to be true and binding upon us, God declares to be true and binding. This word is infallible, because written under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and therefore free from all error of fact or doctrine or precept. (See [670]INSPIRATION; [671]BIBLE.) All saving knowledge is obtained from the word of God. In the case of ”
6. CCEL/NPNF (Eastern Orthodox) “John Chrysostom, Homilies on John & Hebrews: that who really was the author, God only knows. 2652 2652 Eusebius ’ Eccl. Hist . vi. 25. Extended quotations from the various writers above referred to, and from many others, may be found in almost any of the innumerable treatises on the subject, and are given with especial fullness and clearness in Alford’s Prolegomena . Thus far the question of authorship was evidently an open one on which everyone was free to hold his own opinion, or uncertainty of opinion. Tertullian speaks of the authorship of Barnabas simply as a fact, without an allusion to ”
7. CCEL/NPNF (Eastern Orthodox) “John Chrysostom, Homilies on John & Hebrews: certain extent Delitzsch), Clement of Rome (Erasmus, Reithmaier, Bisping), Silas (Mynster, Böhme, Godet), Apollos (Luther, Semler, De Wette, Tholuck, Bunsen, Kurtz, Farrar, De Pressensé, Bleek, Hilgenfeld, Lünemann, Alford), and Barnabas (Ullmann, Wieseler, Ritschl, Grau, Thiersch, Weiss, Renan, Keil). Of the three first we have genuine writings with which to make a comparison; of the three last—assuming the spuriousness of the so-called Epistles of Barnabas—nothing remains. The supposition of the authorship of St. Paul, although so long carelessly ”
8. CCEL/NPNF (Eastern Orthodox) “John Chrysostom, Homilies on John & Hebrews: 341 Introduction. by the american reviser. ———————————— In the following Homilies St. Chrysostom assumes throughout St. Paul’s authorship of the Epistle, and in his opening Homily deals with considerable ingenuity with several of the most obvious objections to the Pauline authorship. The Epistle, however, is anonymous, and is not attributed to St. Paul by the most ancient historical testimony which has come down to us, nor is his authorship generally recognized by modern criticism. It is interesting, therefore, to enquire whether St. Chrysostom, in ”
9. CCEL/NPNF (Eastern Orthodox) “John Chrysostom, Homilies on John & Hebrews: style, as well as intellectual power, is so unlike as to make the supposition of a common authorship scarcely conceivable. The early suggestion that the Epistle may have been written in Hebrew by St. Paul, more or less fully, and translated by St. Luke or St. Clement, or some other of his companions more or less paraphrastically, can find no favor with the modern scholar. If such a supposition is meant to leave the work essentially a translation, it encounters all the difficulties already mentioned against the Pauline authorship, and besides is oppo”
10. CCEL/NPNF (Eastern Orthodox) “John Chrysostom, Homilies on John & Hebrews: particular words and constructions, as of the general cast, both of the phraseology and the structure of the sentences; but that this similarity arises, not from the identity of the writers, but from the fact that both wrote in somewhat better Greek than is found in the rest of the New Testament. The grammars of the New Testament Greek continually refer to the fact, that certain classical constructions are found only, or at least more frequently, in these writers than elsewhere. But this does not prove more than that the author of this Epistle, as m”
11. CCEL/NPNF (Eastern Orthodox) “John Chrysostom, Homilies on John & Hebrews: regard to which there is any considerable difference of usage; yet so many words are used by every writer accidentally, as it were, and not because they are characteristic, that much allowance is to be made. Still, the investigation seems to me to afford a sufficient basis for some probable conclusions. The Epistle contains both style-words and thought-words, characteristic alike of St. Luke and St. Paul, sometimes of one, sometimes of the other, sometimes of both; and these must be taken into account in any theory of the authorship. But they are no”
12. CCEL/NPNF (Eastern Orthodox) “John Chrysostom, Homilies on John & Hebrews: writer of the present urgency of St. Paul, and are relatively most common in St. Luke and Hebrews, but most so in the last. In proportion the numbers are: Hebrews, 278; St. Luke, 207; St. Paul, 100; all others, 153. That is, Hebrews uses them nearly three times as often as St. Paul. The names for God and for our Lord are used by the various writers with much difference, and with an evident preference in each of them for his own accustomed word. The proportionate numbers (which can take no note of periphrases) are as follows:— Hebrews. St. Luke. St. ”
13. CCEL/NPNF (Eastern Orthodox) “John Chrysostom, Homilies on John & Hebrews: of authorship. It has often been noticed that the number of words peculiar to any New Testament writer is an index of the number freely at his command. Peculiar words, it is true, are often required by peculiarity of subject, and may sometimes be what is called accidental. Still, when the number of them in any writer is unusually large, the fact has its value, and such words do abound in the writings of St. Luke and in the Epistle to the Hebrews above all others. 2656 2656 See Thayer ’s Grimm’s N.T. Lexicon , Appendix iv. pp. 698–710, for lists of w”