Yes, but at the same time no imho.
Authors of later books absolutely had access to the works of earlier authors. It wasn’t “the Bible” as we know it today, but there is a direct lineage where new material has been added and existing material has been edited, to result in the book we have now. That’s why the character of Jesus was able to fulfill prophecies.
So I’d tend to define “the bible” as a collection of literary works and interpretations (I don’t think you can separate the two without losing significant meaning) that evolves over time. Evolutionary pressures can include how well a particular “species” serves the rulers at that time, and how well it fits with the general zeitgeist (eg apocalyptic or euphoric).
So, like Trump, they didn’t have “the bible” but they had “a bible.”
This is sort of true.
Yes, various groups had various texts which the literate rabbis/preisthood kept around. After making them up.
A problem comes in with quoting things not very elegantly (Matthew seems to take the two donkeys thing literally instead of realizing the quoted text was nearly certainly doing parallelism, essentially a form of poetically reinforcing an idea), or citing texts that … are now considered apocryphal, or non canon.
Then youve got all the different sects that just have different canon (Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox Bibles have or do not have different books in them) and/or use substantially different translations. Or something like the end of Mark which is slowly beginning to be noted as a forgery in many modern Bibles, though this is still divisive amongst many.
Try to get a Christian to explain why, exactly, something like the Gospel of Thomas or Judas is apocryphal, and they’ll basically have to admit that at some point, it just comes down to you or some past person or group’s personal interpretation.
But at the same time for many, the Bible is the unerring, non contradicting perfect word of God, written by the inspired.
And thus either an apologist is born, or maybe a proto atheist/agnostic.
Yeah my first reaction to this meme was “well they had the Torah though”.
I wonder what god they believed in.
They must have been crappy people if they didn’t even read the bible. Also not reading the bible will land you in the hot house. Serves all the people in the bible right.
What was their literacy rate? Bible or some precursor therein, wouldn’t have done the average person much good I’d think.
Anywho, you go back to the wandering Israelites, and I’d think those priests would’ve had some book or scroll with instructions for all the rituals they were into.
All this, of course, assuming there is any historical basis for any of it existing in the first place.
