Origins
Origin PeriodLate Bronze Age through the early Roman Imperial period.
Era of CompositionComposed across roughly 1200 BCE to 100 CE.
Place of OriginAncient Israel and Judah, Babylon, and the early Christian communities of the eastern Mediterranean (Judea, Asia Minor, Greece, Rome).
Attributed Author / CompilerMultiple traditional and historical authors across many centuries: Moses (Torah, traditional attribution), David and Asaph (Psalms, traditional), Solomon (traditional, Proverbs/Ecclesiastes/Song of Songs), the Hebrew prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and others), and, in the New Testament, Paul the Apostle and the evangelists Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John (traditional), plus numerous other named and anonymous authors, compilers and editors; no single author.
LanguageHebrew, Aramaic, and Koine Greek.
Origin of the NameFrom the Greek ta biblia ("the books"), via Latin biblia, ultimately connected to Byblos, the Phoenician port associated with papyrus.
Whose Classification This IsCanon boundaries set by rabbinic tradition for the Hebrew Bible, and by church councils and traditions for the Christian canon (the Catholic Council of Trent, 1546; the Protestant reformers' Old/New Testament canon; and the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox traditions, each with a somewhat different book list).