Bible Possibly Written Centuries Earlier, Text Suggests

[Allhallowsday]

Bible Possibly Written Centuries Earlier, Text Suggests 
Scientists have discovered the earliest known Hebrew writing - an inscription dating from the 10th century B.C., during the period of King David's reign.

The breakthrough could mean that portions of the Bible were written centuries earlier than previously thought. (The Bible's Old Testament is thought to have been first written down in an ancient form of Hebrew.)

Until now, many scholars have held that the Hebrew Bible originated in the 6th century B.C., because Hebrew writing was thought to stretch back no further. But the newly deciphered Hebrew text is about four centuries older, scientists announced this month.

"It indicates that the Kingdom of Israel already existed in the 10th century BCE and that at least some of the biblical texts were written hundreds of years before the dates presented in current research," said Gershon Galil, a professor of Biblical Studies at the University of Haifa in Israel, who deciphered the ancient text... 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20100115/sc_livescience/biblepossiblywrittencenturiesearliertextsuggests

[indianasmith]

This comes as no surprise to conservative scholars, who have long held that the earliest books of the Old Testament date to around 1400 BC, with Job possibly being even older. Roughly 150 years ago the scholars at Tubingen decided that instead of being a unified work by Moses, the Pentateuch (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) were a patchwork composition by five different authors that was composed between 700 and 400 BC.  There was little historical basis for doing so, and 20th century archeology for years has pointed to the Old Testament texts as being much earlier.  However, once a theory gets going - especially a theory that denies traditional Christian assumptions like miracles being actual events rather than simple myths and legends - it is very hard to overturn it.
Score one for the traditionalists!

[Jim H]

From the looks of the text and the article, it appears they found a scrap of a proto-bible, something pre-dating and different from the current bible floating around today. 

Interesting regardless, particularly the possibility of an earlier existence of Israel than normally thought.