Ideas for teaching about the origin of the bible, please

[LaBelleDameSansPatience]

Hi. I have a year 5 class learning about the Bible. They generated questions and most were of the 'who wrote the bible?', 'when was the bible invented?' type.
I want them to understand that the bible is a collection of writings from different sources. I have thought of splitting them into groups and giving them activities to help them actually experience this ...
Group 1: Discover cuneiform tablets (salt dough) in the sand pit
2: Retell the story of Noah's ark to each other
3: Copy out bible verses in the style of a hand-written illuminated bible
4: Discover letters written on 'parchment' in Greek (but hidden where?)
5: ?
6: ?
There are 30 children in the class.
Has anyone got any other ideas? I keep trying google but getting stuck in American sites discussing why the bible is Completely True, which is not the point I am trying to get over at all.

Oh dear. I thought I was making it interesting, possibly fun and memorable ...

Your ideas sound great.

What about a bit of an archaeological dig? Hiding important messages in jars or pots and using tools to dig them out of e.g sand.

Get them to copy their names in Hebrew and Greek alphabets.

Play Chinese Whispers!

I think they sound good too. Have you looked at the NATRE website?
www.natre.org.uk

They have lots of good ideas for teaching RE

The concept that the bible is actually a library of books written at different times and different places is pretty key to understanding it. Could you get them to go and look for a book of myths for the book of Genesis, a book of rules (I used computer manuals last time I did this) for Leviticus or Deuteronomy, four books telling the same story such as Robin Hood or King Arthur by different authors for the Gospels?

"What about a bit of an archaeological dig?"

What's the relevance of that? None of the canonical books of the bible, old or new testament, is the product of anything of the sort. The way those books have been transmitted from the original authors to the present day is fascinating in its own right, without throwing in a complete irrelevance. Given children have a tendency to remember things that are memorable, giving them the impression that any of the bible is the result of digging stuff up doesn't seem to be doing them any favours, as it simply isn't true.

I think it would be interesting for them to look at how many books there are in total and, from a selected number, look at how and when they were written and why.
I'm thinking for example, Genesis, Psalms, Prophets, Gospels and Letters.

For the most part, the official Bible was not about "found" texts, but collections of oral "stories" that were put into writing and copied from one source to another. So, that would be a more similar activity to the reality.

What a pity ... I loved the idea of the archaeological dig. And I have just made some saltdough clay tablets to hide at school ...
Might do a story chain of children telling each other the story of Noah's ark, before getting one or two to write it down, then others to copy what they have written ... idea is developing there ... .