The Bible was written way earlier than we thought, mathematicians suggest

Even if you’re not religious, there’s no denying the enormous – and sometimes devastating – influence that the Bible as an historic text has had on the world over the past 3,000 years. And yet, when it comes to the most widely distributed book on the planet, we still can’t agree on who wrote it, and when.

So a bunch of mathematicians teamed up with archaeologists to shed a bit of light on the origins of the Bible, by using artificial intelligence to come up with an estimate of how many people could read and write during certain periods in ancient history. 

This could push the origin of the earliest Biblical texts back at least 200 years, archaeologist Christopher Rollston from George Washington University, who wasn’t involved in this study, told Gizmodo, adding that we have good amount of archaeological evidence that suggests that parts of the Bible were written as early as 800 BCE.

The researchers are now working on developing even more tools to glean what they can from ancient texts, and it’s hoped that with more evidence, we can piece together the beginnings of the best-selling book on Earth.

“We’re bringing new evidence to the game,” says Shaus. “Now, we’ll see what else comes out.”

The results have been published in Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences.