Uploaded September 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Links Mentioned in this Episode:
- bartehrman.com/rise50 - All through September we have Joel's course on sale: The Rise and Fall of Biblical Israel. This is an eight lecture course on Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings. It’s 50% off, the entire month of September., via this link.
- bartehrman.com/askjoel - submit your questions to Joel about the Hebrew Bible, or anything else in the Misquoting Moses podcast!
*Episode Outline:*
0:00 The oldest words in the Bible are not in Genesis, so where are they?
2:04 Why scholars cannot simply date an entire biblical book to one moment in history
4:39 How historical references and changing Hebrew language help scholars date biblical texts
8:04 Could later writers intentionally imitate older Hebrew to make a text sound ancient?
11:12 How early alphabetic writing developed and what that means for dating the Hebrew Bible
16:53 What the Dead Sea Scrolls and other ancient Hebrew writings reveal about biblical language
22:26 The Song of Deborah: Joel’s pick for the oldest text in the Bible
25:00 Why the tribes named in Judges 5 suggest the poem predates the traditional twelve-tribe system
30:30 Why many of the Bible’s oldest surviving passages are poems and songs
33:14 Ancient Psalms, Canaanite religion, and other very early layers of biblical tradition
38:17 How scholars distinguish pre-exilic from post-exilic biblical texts
43:24 Digging for Truth: the controversial Mount Ebal “curse tablet” and claims of the oldest Hebrew inscription
48:06 Why most scholars reject the alleged writing on the Mount Ebal lead artifact
50:04 How ideology and apologetics can shape archaeological interpretations of biblical finds
*Episode Description*
Welcome back to *Misquoting Moses*, now a weekly podcast! In this episode, Hebrew Bible scholar Dr. Joel Baden and host Megan Kraege ask a deceptively simple question: What is the oldest writing in the Bible? Not the oldest event, manuscript, or book, but the oldest original composition.
As Dr. Baden explains, the Bible is not arranged chronologically. Many biblical books are layered texts that were edited and expanded over centuries, making it difficult to assign them a single date.
So how do scholars identify the oldest material? Dr. Baden highlights two main tools: historical clues and linguistic analysis.
*Historical Clues:* Some texts reveal their setting directly. Psalm 137, with its lament “By the waters of Babylon,” clearly belongs to the Babylonian Exile rather than the time of King David.
*Language Evolution:* Biblical Hebrew changed over time, just as English did from Chaucer to Shakespeare to today. Archaic vocabulary, grammar, and syntax can therefore help scholars identify older texts.
Dating is never exact. Later scribes could update language, add references, or imitate older styles, so scholars weigh the overall evidence rather than rely on a single clue.
The leading candidate for the Bible’s oldest composition is the *Song of Deborah* in Judges 5, a victory poem celebrating Israelite tribes defeating their Canaanite enemies and featuring Jael’s brutal killing of the general Sisera.
Several clues suggest its great age:
1. *Its Content:* The poem reflects a pre-monarchic society with no king or standing army. Deborah instead summons individual tribes to fight, fitting the era of the Judges.
2. *Its Language:* Judges 5 contains unusually archaic Hebrew, suggesting it is much older than the prose surrounding it.
3. *Its List of Tribes:* The poem includes obscure groups and omits major later tribes such as Judah. This may preserve a time before the familiar “12 Tribes of Israel” tradition was standardized.
The episode also considers other ancient biblical poems, including the Song of the Sea in Exodus 15 and Jacob’s blessing in Genesis 49.
Finally, in *Digging for Truth*, Dr. Baden examines the controversial Mount Ebal “curse tablet.” Its discoverers claimed the tiny lead object contained an extremely ancient Hebrew curse mentioning “Yahweh,” potentially rewriting Israelite history. But many scholars remain skeptical, questioning whether the marks are writing at all and warning how ideological expectations can shape interpretations of archaeological evidence.
Links Mentioned in this Episode:
- bartehrman.com/rise50 - All through September we have Joel's course on sale: The Rise and Fall of Biblical Israel. This is an eight lecture course on Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings. It’s 50% off, the entire month of September., via this link.
- bartehrman.com/askjoel - submit your questions to Joel about the Hebrew Bible, or anything else in the Misquoting Moses podcast!
*Episode Outline:*
0:00 The oldest words in the Bible are not in Genesis, so where are they?
2:04 Why scholars cannot simply date an entire biblical book to one moment in history
4:39 How historical references and changing Hebrew language help scholars date biblical texts
8:04 Could later writers intentionally imitate older Hebrew to make a text sound ancient?
11:12 How early alphabetic writing developed and what that means for dating the Hebrew Bible
16:53 What the Dead Sea Scrolls and other ancient Hebrew writings reveal about biblical language
22:26 The Song of Deborah: Joel’s pick for the oldest text in the Bible
25:00 Why the tribes named in Judges 5 suggest the poem predates the traditional twelve-tribe system
30:30 Why many of the Bible’s oldest surviving passages are poems and songs
33:14 Ancient Psalms, Canaanite religion, and other very early layers of biblical tradition
38:17 How scholars distinguish pre-exilic from post-exilic biblical texts
43:24 Digging for Truth: the controversial Mount Ebal “curse tablet” and claims of the oldest Hebrew inscription
48:06 Why most scholars reject the alleged writing on the Mount Ebal lead artifact
50:04 How ideology and apologetics can shape archaeological interpretations of biblical finds
*Episode Description*
Welcome back to *Misquoting Moses*, now a weekly podcast! In this episode, Hebrew Bible scholar Dr. Joel Baden and host Megan Kraege ask a deceptively simple question: What is the oldest writing in the Bible? Not the oldest event, manuscript, or book, but the oldest original composition.
As Dr. Baden explains, the Bible is not arranged chronologically. Many biblical books are layered texts that were edited and expanded over centuries, making it difficult to assign them a single date.
So how do scholars identify the oldest material? Dr. Baden highlights two main tools: historical clues and linguistic analysis.
*Historical Clues:* Some texts reveal their setting directly. Psalm 137, with its lament “By the waters of Babylon,” clearly belongs to the Babylonian Exile rather than the time of King David.
*Language Evolution:* Biblical Hebrew changed over time, just as English did from Chaucer to Shakespeare to today. Archaic vocabulary, grammar, and syntax can therefore help scholars identify older texts.
Dating is never exact. Later scribes could update language, add references, or imitate older styles, so scholars weigh the overall evidence rather than rely on a single clue.
The leading candidate for the Bible’s oldest composition is the *Song of Deborah* in Judges 5, a victory poem celebrating Israelite tribes defeating their Canaanite enemies and featuring Jael’s brutal killing of the general Sisera.
Several clues suggest its great age:
1. *Its Content:* The poem reflects a pre-monarchic society with no king or standing army. Deborah instead summons individual tribes to fight, fitting the era of the Judges.
2. *Its Language:* Judges 5 contains unusually archaic Hebrew, suggesting it is much older than the prose surrounding it.
3. *Its List of Tribes:* The poem includes obscure groups and omits major later tribes such as Judah. This may preserve a time before the familiar “12 Tribes of Israel” tradition was standardized.
The episode also considers other ancient biblical poems, including the Song of the Sea in Exodus 15 and Jacob’s blessing in Genesis 49.
Finally, in *Digging for Truth*, Dr. Baden examines the controversial Mount Ebal “curse tablet.” Its discoverers claimed the tiny lead object contained an extremely ancient Hebrew curse mentioning “Yahweh,” potentially rewriting Israelite history. But many scholars remain skeptical, questioning whether the marks are writing at all and warning how ideological expectations can shape interpretations of archaeological evidence.
