When Was the Bible Written?
Roughly fifteen centuries of composition, from Moses to John — the Bible's long timeline, briefly told.
The Bible was written across roughly 1,500 years: the Old Testament from the time of Moses (c. 1400s BC) to Malachi (c. 400 BC), and the New Testament within the first century AD — the letters and Gospels between about AD 45 and 95, closing with John’s Revelation. Across all those centuries it kept one claim: “The word of the Lord endureth for ever” (1 Peter 1:25).
The Old Testament's long arc
Moses stands at the head, shaping the Law in the wilderness years; Joshua through Kings chronicle the centuries of conquest, judges, and monarchy; David’s psalms and Solomon’s wisdom flow from Israel’s golden age around 1000 BC; and the prophets write through the kingdom’s decline, exile in Babylon, and return — Malachi falling silent about four centuries before Christ. The Old Testament is not one book’s afternoon but a millennium’s testimony.
And it came to pass, when Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in a book, until they were finished,
Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD:
The Old Testament ends leaning forward — awaiting the forerunner.
Four silent centuries, then ink everywhere
Between the testaments no Scripture was written — then the New Testament arrived in a single lifetime’s burst. Paul’s earliest letters date to within about fifteen years of the crucifixion; the Gospels were penned while eyewitnesses still lived to confirm or contradict; John’s Revelation, near AD 95, closes the canon. Luke opens his Gospel describing exactly this environment: accounts “delivered… unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses.”
Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us, Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word;
For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.
Old words, present tense
For all its antiquity, Scripture describes itself in the present tense: “quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword” — quick meaning alive. The grass withereth, Isaiah says, the flower fadeth, empires with them — “but the word of our God shall stand for ever.” The Bible’s age is part of its evidence: nothing else from Moses’ millennium is still read at breakfast tables.
For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.
Quick answers
- What is the oldest book in the Bible?
- Job is often considered the oldest by setting and style — a patriarchal world without Israel’s law — though Genesis reaches furthest back in subject. The earliest written portions trace to Moses (c. 15th–13th century BC).
- Which was written first, the Gospels or Paul's letters?
- Most of Paul’s letters came first — James and Galatians may date to the AD 40s, before the Gospels were set down (50s–90s). The gospel was preached and lived before it was bound.
- How close are our copies to the originals?
- Closer than any ancient text: thousands of Hebrew and Greek manuscripts, some New Testament fragments within decades of writing, and the Dead Sea Scrolls confirming the Old Testament’s careful transmission across a thousand years.
