Recently I was involved in a conversation on Facebook between myself, a self-proclaimed agnostic, and a "hatetheist." Several statements and questions were posed to me during that conversation - here is statement #6: “Supposedly only a few guys wrote this book, their names are more American than any of the others that are in the Bible. How can that be? All the names are pretty much un-pronounceable throughout the book except for the main characters.”
Actually there are 33 known Biblical writers, and more that are as yet unknown (those who wrote to some of the Psalms). The reason some of the names sound “American” is because their names were recorded in the modern translations using anglicized versions of their original Hebrew, Greek and Latin names.
The original Hebrew (and Greek and Latin) names of the known Biblical writers are:
Old Testament:
Mosheh, Yehoshua, Shemu'el, Natan, Gad, Yirmiyahu, Azaryahu, Mordechai, Dwd, Shelomoh, Yesha'yahu, Yechezqel, Daniyyel, Hoshea, Yo'el, Amos, Obadyahu, Yonah, Micha, Nachum, Habacuc, Tzfanya, Chaggay, Zekharyah, and Mal'akhiy
New Testament:
Matityahu, Yochanan (known as Marcus, which was his latin name), Loukas (a Greek name), Yochanan, Sha'ul (also known as Paulus, his Latin name), Yaʻaqov, Cephas, and Yehudah. Possibly Joses, or Apollos (Greek) did some of the writing.
More important to this question is that although these people wrote down the words of the Bible, and they used their own intelligence, their own life experiences, etc to do this, everything they wrote down, every word, was given to them by inspiration of God, in fact, the term used in the Bible itself is theopneustos, which means “God breathed.” (2 Timothy 3:16) The Bible is the literal Word of God.
Actually there are 33 known Biblical writers, and more that are as yet unknown (those who wrote to some of the Psalms). The reason some of the names sound “American” is because their names were recorded in the modern translations using anglicized versions of their original Hebrew, Greek and Latin names.
The original Hebrew (and Greek and Latin) names of the known Biblical writers are:
Old Testament:
Mosheh, Yehoshua, Shemu'el, Natan, Gad, Yirmiyahu, Azaryahu, Mordechai, Dwd, Shelomoh, Yesha'yahu, Yechezqel, Daniyyel, Hoshea, Yo'el, Amos, Obadyahu, Yonah, Micha, Nachum, Habacuc, Tzfanya, Chaggay, Zekharyah, and Mal'akhiy
New Testament:
Matityahu, Yochanan (known as Marcus, which was his latin name), Loukas (a Greek name), Yochanan, Sha'ul (also known as Paulus, his Latin name), Yaʻaqov, Cephas, and Yehudah. Possibly Joses, or Apollos (Greek) did some of the writing.
More important to this question is that although these people wrote down the words of the Bible, and they used their own intelligence, their own life experiences, etc to do this, everything they wrote down, every word, was given to them by inspiration of God, in fact, the term used in the Bible itself is theopneustos, which means “God breathed.” (2 Timothy 3:16) The Bible is the literal Word of God.
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