An Israeli algorithm sheds light on the Bible

Associated Press ^ | June 29, 2011 | MATTI FRIEDMAN

[decimon]

JERUSALEM (AP) — Software developed by an Israeli team is giving intriguing new hints about what researchers believe to be the multiple hands that wrote the Bible.

The new software analyzes style and word choices to distinguish parts of a single text written by different authors, and when applied to the Bible its algorithm teased out distinct writerly voices in the holy book.

The program, part of a sub-field of artificial intelligence studies known as authorship attribution, has a range of potential applications — from helping law enforcement to developing new computer programs for writers. But the Bible provided a tempting test case for the algorithm's creators.

For millions of Jews and Christians, it's a tenet of their faith that God is the author of the core text of the Hebrew Bible — the Torah, also known as the Pentateuch or the Five Books of Moses. But since the advent of modern biblical scholarship, academic researchers have believed the text was written by a number of different authors whose work could be identified by seemingly different ideological agendas and linguistic styles and the different names they used for God.

Today, scholars generally split the text into two main strands. One is believed to have been written by a figure or group known as the "priestly" author, because of apparent connections to the temple priests in Jerusalem. The rest is "non-priestly." Scholars have meticulously gone over the text to ascertain which parts belong to which strand.

[SunkenCiv]

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[Fresh Wind]

Interesting. I plugged in a sample from “Dreams From My Father”, and it says the author is female.

[Explorer89]

And your point?

[Fresh Wind]

Several possibilities...

1. Ayers didn’t ghost write “Dreams...”
2. Obama wrote it, but is only male in a biological sense.
1. Analysis tools like this are worthless.

Take your pick.

[Explorer89]

I was implying #2 :)

[worst-case scenario]

Moses is the supposed author of the Pentateuch. He couldn’t have written the portions of the Old Testament that are set in the time periods following his death.

[Pelham]

This sounds like the Wellhausen hypothesis, the JEPD theory.

[AdmSmith]

Autorship attribution is a very interesting field of research.

A good introduction http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.153.9654&rep=rep1&type=pdf

[AdmSmith]

Autorship => Authorship

[One Name]

I thought the same.... A hidden verification of the true Bible only revealed at the end of this age.

I’m neither a math or computer whiz, but thought it was worth checking out.

Revelation 22:19
King James Version (KJV)

And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.