Researchers led by mathematician Shira Faigenbaum-Golovin of Duke University have used a new AI tool to analyze Biblical authors with surprising results. The researchers analyzed the writing styles of the first nine books of the Hebrew Bible, known as the Enneateuch. The AI model uncovered three styles present in the Enneateuch: the Priestly source, the Deuteronomistic History, and the Book of Deuteronomy.

Professor Thomas Römer of the Collège de France discussed the accuracy of the model to the Daily Post, saying, “We found that each group of authors has a different style, surprisingly, even regarding simple and common words such as ‘no,’ ‘which,’ or ‘king.’ Our method accurately identifies these differences.” Faigenbaum-Golovin described the importance of the work. “We concluded that the findings in those inscriptions could offer valuable clues for dating texts from the Old Testament. That’s when we started putting together our current team, who could help us analyse these biblical texts.” Parts of the story of Noah didn’t match the identified styles, indicating the possibility of an unknown author. In 2 Samuel, one chapter aligned with Deuteronomistic writing, but a similar chapter in 1 Samuel did not match any of the identified styles.

Faigenbaum-Golovin and her team aren’t the only ones using AI tools to identify Biblical authors. Researchers from the University of Groningen developed an AI tool named Enoch which analyzed the famous Dead Sea Scrolls. The scrolls include some of the oldest-written biblical accounts of the Old Testament. Researchers used Enoch to determine the ages of the documents in the scrolls and found that some of them might be even older than previously though. “Instead of what we thought before, where we only had a few scrolls dated to the third century BCE, now we have more dated to this time period plus one or two that even go to the late fourth century BCE,” said study author Dr Mladen Popović. “In some cases we see dates that are 50 years older or maybe even a century older [than previously assumed]… Scholars in the field will now have to rethink historical reconstructions and models they have made of the people behind the Dead Sea Scrolls, and also broader historical developments in the ancient Mediterranean when it comes to empires like the Seleucids in Syria or the Ptolemies in Egypt, and then Judea with the Hasmoneans and things like that,” he added.

Two fragments from the book of Daniel and Ecclesiastes were especially intriguing. Enoch dated the fragments to around the second and third centuries BC, meaning they were written at the time when Daniel and Solomon, the presumed authors of the books, were living. This could mean they are actual first-hand accounts of the events, according to Popocvíc. “We have two biblical scrolls that are now dated contemporaneously with when we think that the author was actually writing, and that’s very exciting, because then you really are in the same vicinity temporarily with the hands that wrote the Bible.”