posted
Does anybody know what the earliest, recorded, secular reference to the Bible is? I tried Google, but all I can find are secular references to events in the Bible, like Jesus, the flood, etc.
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I think Jon Boy has a membership to OED . . . that might actually be a better place to look, if I understand your question correctly.
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quote: Josephus - An Eyewitness to Christianity Josephus was a historian who lived from 37 A.D. to about 100 A.D. He was a member of the priestly aristocracy of the Jews, and was taken hostage by the Roman Empire in the great Jewish revolt of 66-70 A.D. Josephus spent the rest of his life in or around Rome as an advisor and historian to three emperors, Vespasian, Titus and Domitian. For centuries, the works of Josephus were more widely read in Europe than any book other than the Bible. They are invaluable sources of eyewitness testimony to the development of Western civilization, including the foundation and growth of Christianity in the 1st Century.
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I'd be willing to bet there's some historical documents pertaining to the ecumenical councils deciding the canon of scripture for Christians. Those are likely, definitionally, going to be the earliest recorded references to the Christian Bible (of which I assume you are speaking).
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Yes, that's true, but Da-Goat was asking for outside references to events/people of the Bible, and Josephus is the only one that I know of. He wrote of Jesus, from a spectator's point of view of seeing the events that happened.
The site I copied that paragraph from was not the best site -- you need to find a site that has Josephus's actual writings.
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Is that what the question was asking? Does it have to be the entire Bible to be a reference to the Bible? Especially from a secular point of view, Biblical reference could mean the same as Shakespearean reference, and you could break it up into smaller works. Counting books of the Bible that refer to earlier books is cheating I suppose. What about the thing that Protestants call the Apocrypha?
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posted
I got the opposite impression, FG. I thought he was looking for references to the whole thing and not to specific events. But maybe I misinterpreted.
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posted
The OED wouldn't be a good place to look. It only has quotes that were written in English, so the earliest references would date to about 800 A.D.
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on re-reading, I believe you are right (that's what I get for skim reading). He appears to be wanting a secular source that references the existance of the Bible scriptures themselves.
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To further narrow it down -- do you want a reference to the whole thing as a collected work, or would a reference to or documented quotation from just one book be enough?
And what do you mean by "secular"?
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posted
This comes from a Christian site, but the textual references haven't been altered. Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, Josephus, Lucian, and the Babylonian Talmud are all referenced. The Josephus is the oldest, I believe, but Tacitus and Pliny are within an acceptable time frame. All of them provide references to the existence of a Jewish man who was later worshipped by his followers. If I had my books with me at school I'd dig out some other stuff, but it's all at home, sorry.
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