Dean Anderson

Okay then,

I've read some of Peter Kirby's and Bernard Muller's pages about some of the New Testament books.

I've read all about the Documentary Hypothesis in Friedman's Who Wrote The Bible.

I've read all about Q.

It seems that the 'popular' books (the Pentateuch, the Gospels, the Epistles) get all the attention - and the other dozens of books get largely ignored.

Obviously, the ideal resource for me would be a nice list of all the OT and NT books, with 'best consensus estimate' dates - and each on being a link to the argument/evidence for the book having that particular date.

But I doubt something so useful exists...

Does anyone know of a nice summary of when modern Biblical Criticism dates the rest of the Bible books?

I would love to find a resource that had an overall summary, rather than having to try to find individual resources for each book.

Javaman

PHF, I've been looking about for something along the lines of what you're looking for and I came across this site. I post it only for your amusement while I continue to look... I thought it had promise but, with a typo in the first sentence, I was dissapointed early on. The page ends with the following gem:
I thought that throwing "liberals" in there was quite funny. The other links on the site may offer some diversion. Hopefully I'll find something that actually helps you.

The Midge

It sounds like what you would like is a decent 1 Volume Commentary or Bible Dictionary that has articles on each of the books. Most will at least discuss the various dates of the book and the pro's and cons of the current scholarly arguments before giving the athour's own opinion on the matter. Such debates are important because they affect how the subsequent interpretation is made. It is often a good idea to have one commentary written from a liberal/ critical (Oxford for example) perspective and another from a conservative/ evangelial (E.g. IVP) perspective to gain an insight into both sides of the argument and how they affect views of the text. There are also serveral one volume per book series of commantries such as the Tyndale or Word Biblical Commentaries but ones that are designed for devotion and application like the Bible Speaks Today Series are probably less academic and objective. You could probably find a set in most theological libraries or on Amazon.

Javaman

Ah, I've found a promising link... one that I had come across before but didn't read. See what you think (and I'll do the same). It is authored by "Walter Reinhold Warttig Mattfeld y de la Torre" and is:

www.bibleorigins.net

I have a couple more promising leads but... I wonder if Mr. Mattfeld y de la Torre posts here. If not, I like to think he'd enjoy the company based on his bio.

Edited to add:
Here is what appears to be a great site for OT research. Somewhat similar to Kirby's site with many links for each book of the OT. Looks very promising:

Old Testament Gateway

Dean Anderson

I've seen that site. It dwells on the 'popular' books, rather than giving ann overview of the other books.

I had a quick look at their papers on the Pentateuch. It doesn't look too good.

Half the links don't work, and those that do give a literalist 'it was written by the Historical Moses and describes a historical 6-day creation' view.

CX

There are some intro texts listed in the recommended reading for BC&H. For the NT I recommend Schnelle. He's a young German scholar and his dates fairly well represent the consensus of critical scholars.

Celsus

I've debated Mattfeld before and I'm not impressed. He argues for a single authorship in the exilic period I believe.

PHF, to answer your question, there is no consensus to be held on almost any of the books of the Hebrew Bible. The most firm consensus is Daniel (168/7-165/4 BCE), but that's an exception. A very long time ago, when I was first getting into the topic, I attempted to compile the books using two sources: Encyclopaedia Britannica and Gerald LaRue's Old Testament Life and Literature. It was a useful exercise, but almost as soon as I was done, I realised what a presumptuous exercise it had been. You can see the results here (and my debate with Mattfeld in that thread). Unfortunately or otherwise, I now disagree with just about everything I said in that thread, and find it very naive. But Mattfeld never demonstrated his case. I don't know what he's done since, however.

Joel

Magdlyn

So, if I read you right, the "unpopular" books would be the Prophets and the Writings (from Tanakh), and Revelation of John (Greek Scriptures)?

Much of Proverbs goes back to Egypt. To date it as one unit would be impossible. Song of Songs is borrowed from ancient Canaanite lit of the god and goddess partaking of the heiros gamos. Ruth is post-exilic protest lit.

I rec the essays at the begning of each section and book(let), in the New Oxford Annotated Bible. Very helpful, not just for dating, but in general.

Rescuing the Bible From Fundamentalism by Spong is another good overview of dates and intent.