Criticism of the Bible is an interdisciplinary field of study concerning the factual accuracy of the claims and the moral tenability of the commandments made in the

Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts ...

, the

holy book Religious texts, including scripture, are texts which various religions consider to be of central importance to their religious tradition. They differ from literature by being a compilation or discussion of beliefs, mythologies, ritual prac ...

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...

. Devout

Christians Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words '' Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρ ...

have long regarded their Bible as the perfect word of

God In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'', Oxford University Press, 1995. God is typically ...

(and devout

Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

have held the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
'' biblical texts to establish their origins (a related field of study known as biblical criticism) and validity. In addition to concerns about

ethics in the Bible Ethics in the Bible refers to the system(s) or theory(ies) produced by the study, interpretation, and evaluation of biblical morals (including the moral code, standards, principles, behaviors, conscience, values, rules of conduct, or beliefs conc ...

, about

biblical inerrancy Biblical inerrancy is the belief that the Bible "is without error or fault in all its teaching"; or, at least, that "Scripture in the original manuscripts does not affirm anything that is contrary to fact". Some equate inerrancy with biblical ...

, or about the

historicity of the Bible The historicity of the Bible is the question of the Bible's relationship to history—covering not just the Bible's acceptability as history but also the ability to understand the literary forms of biblical narrative. One can extend biblical his ...

, there remain some questions of biblical authorship and as to what material to include in the

biblical canon A biblical canon is a set of texts (also called "books") which a particular Jewish or Christian religious community regards as part of the Bible. The English word ''canon'' comes from the Greek , meaning " rule" or " measuring stick". The us ...

Authorship

At the end of the 17th century, only a few Bible scholars doubted that Moses wrote the

Torah The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the ...

(also known as the

Pentateuch The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the ...

, traditionally called the "Five Books of Moses"), such as

Thomas Hobbes Thomas Hobbes ( ; 5/15 April 1588 – 4/14 December 1679) was an English philosopher, considered to be one of the founders of modern political philosophy. Hobbes is best known for his 1651 book ''Leviathan'', in which he expounds an influ ...

Isaac La Peyrère Isaac La Peyrère (1596–1676), also known as Isaac de La Peyrère or Pererius, was a French-born theologian, writer, and lawyer. La Peyrère is best known as a 17th-century predecessor of the scientific racialist theory of polygenism in the form ...

and Baruch Spinoza, but in the late 18th century some scholars such as

Jean Astruc Jean Astruc (19 March 1684, in Sauve, France – 5 May 1766, in Paris) was a professor of medicine in France at Montpellier and Paris, who wrote the first great treatise on syphilis and venereal diseases, and also, with a small anonymously publi ...

(1753) began to systematically question his authorship. By the end of the 19th century, some such as Julius Wellhausen and

Abraham Kuenen Abraham Kuenen (16 September 1828 – 10 December 1891) was a Dutch Protestant theologian. Kuenen was born in Haarlem, the son of an apothecary. On his father's death it became necessary for him to leave school and take a humble place in the bus ...

went as far as to claim that as a whole the work was of many more authors over many centuries from 1000 BC (the time of

David David (; , "beloved one") (traditional spelling), , ''Dāwūd''; grc-koi, Δαυΐδ, Dauíd; la, Davidus, David; gez , ዳዊት, ''Dawit''; xcl, Դաւիթ, ''Dawitʿ''; cu, Давíдъ, ''Davidŭ''; possibly meaning "beloved one". w ...

) to 500 BC (the time of

Ezra Ezra (; he, עֶזְרָא, '; fl. 480–440 BCE), also called Ezra the Scribe (, ') and Ezra the Priest in the Book of Ezra, was a Jewish scribe ('' sofer'') and priest (''kohen''). In Greco-Latin Ezra is called Esdras ( grc-gre, Ἔσδρα ...

) and that the history it contained was often more

polemic Polemic () is contentious rhetoric intended to support a specific position by forthright claims and to undermine the opposing position. The practice of such argumentation is called ''polemics'', which are seen in arguments on controversial topic ...

al rather than strictly factual. By the first half of the 20th century,

Hermann Gunkel Hermann Gunkel (23 May 1862 – 11 March 1932), a German Old Testament scholar, founded form criticism. He also became a leading representative of the history of religions school. His major works cover Genesis and the Psalms, and his major in ...

had drawn attention to mythic aspects, and

Albrecht Alt Albrecht Alt (20 September 1883, in Stübach (Franconia) – 24 April 1956, in Leipzig), was a leading Germany, German Protestantism, Protestant theology, theologian. Eldest son of a Lutheran minister, he completed high school in Ansbach and stud ...

Martin Noth Martin Noth (3 August 1902 – 30 May 1968) was a German scholar of the Hebrew Bible who specialized in the pre-Exilic history of the Hebrews and promoted the hypothesis that the Israelite tribes in the immediate period after the settlement in Can ...

, and the tradition history school argued that although its core traditions had genuinely ancient roots, the narratives were fictional framing devices and were not intended as history in the modern sense. The modern consensus amongst Bible scholars is that the vast majority of the authors of books of the Bible are unknown. Most of them are written anonymously, and only some of the 27 books of the

New Testament The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Chri ...

mention an author, some of which are probably or known to be

pseudepigrapha Pseudepigrapha (also anglicized as "pseudepigraph" or "pseudepigraphs") are falsely attributed works, texts whose claimed author is not the true author, or a work whose real author attributed it to a figure of the past.Bauckham, Richard; "Pse ...

, meaning they were written by someone other than whom the author said he was. The anonymous books have traditionally been attributed authors, though none of these, such as the "Five Books of Moses", or the four canonical gospels "according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John" have appeared to stand up under scrutiny. Only the 7 undisputed Pauline epistles appear to have most likely been written by Paul the Apostle, the

Book of Revelation The Book of Revelation is the final book of the New Testament (and consequently the final book of the Christian Bible). Its title is derived from the first word of the Koine Greek text: , meaning "unveiling" or "revelation". The Book of ...

John of Patmos John of Patmos (also called John the Revelator, John the Divine, John the Theologian) is the name traditionally given to the author of the Book of Revelation. The text of Revelation states that John was on Patmos, a Greek island where, accordin ...

(not by

John the Apostle John the Apostle ( grc, Ἰωάννης; la, Ioannes ; Ge'ez: ዮሐንስ;) or Saint John the Beloved was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus according to the New Testament. Generally listed as the youngest apostle, he was the son of Zebede ...

, nor by the author(s) of the other '

Johannine literature Johannine literature is the collection of New Testament works that are traditionally attributed to John the Apostle, John the Evangelist, or to the Johannine community. They are usually dated to the period , with a minority of scholars such as Joh ...

'). Scholars disagree whether Paul wrote the "Deutero-Pauline epistles" and whether

Simon Peter ) (Simeon, Simon) , birth_date = , birth_place = Bethsaida, Gaulanitis, Syria, Roman Empire , death_date = Between AD 64–68 , death_place = probably Vatican Hill, Rome, Italia, Roman Empire , parents = John (or Jonah; Jona) , occupation ...

wrote First Epistle of Peter; all other New Testament books that mention an author are most likely forgeries. Though, for the Pastorals, this can be a result of mainly a passing down the tradition of "scholarly consensus" vs. merited by the evidence. In the 2nd century, the gnostics often claimed that their form of Christianity was the first, and they regarded Jesus as a teacher or an allegorical figure.

Elaine Pagels Elaine Pagels, née Hiesey (born February 13, 1943), is an American historian of religion. She is the Harrington Spear Paine Professor of Religion at Princeton University. Pagels has conducted extensive research into early Christianity and Gnost ...

has proposed that there are several examples of gnostic attitudes in the Pauline epistles.

Bart D. Ehrman Bart Denton Ehrman (born 1955) is an American New Testament scholar focusing on textual criticism of the New Testament, the historical Jesus, and the origins and development of early Christianity. He has written and edited 30 books, including t ...

and

Raymond E. Brown Raymond Edward Brown (May 22, 1928 – August 8, 1998) was an American Sulpician priest and prominent biblical scholar. He was regarded as a specialist concerning the hypothetical "Johannine community", which he speculated contributed to the a ...

note that some of the Pauline epistles are widely regarded by scholars as

pseudonymous A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name ( orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individu ...

, and it is the view of

Timothy Freke ''The Jesus Mysteries: Was the "Original Jesus" a Pagan God?'' is a 1999 book by British authors Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy, which advances the argument that early Christianity originated as a Greco-Roman mystery cult and that Jesus was i ...

, and others, that this involved a forgery in an attempt by the Church to bring in Paul's gnostic supporters and turn the arguments in the other epistles on their head.

Canonicity

Specific collections of biblical writings, such as the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
'' Christian Bibles, are considered

sacred Sacred describes something that is dedicated or set apart for the service or worship of a deity; is considered worthy of spiritual respect or devotion; or inspires awe or reverence among believers. The property is often ascribed to objects ( ...

and

authoritative In the fields of sociology and political science, authority is the legitimate power of a person or group over other people. In a civil state, ''authority'' is practiced in ways such a judicial branch or an executive branch of government.''The Ne ...

by their respective faith groups."Bible." ''The Crystal Reference Encyclopedia.'' West Chiltington: Crystal Reference, 2005. Credo Reference. 29 July 2009 The limits of the canon were effectively set by the proto-orthodox churches from the 1st throughout the 4th century; however, the status of the scriptures has been a topic of scholarly discussion in the later churches. Increasingly, the biblical works have been subjected to literary and historical criticism in an effort to interpret the biblical texts, independent of churches and dogmatic influences. In the middle of the second century,

Marcion of Sinope Marcion of Sinope (; grc, Μαρκίων ; ) was an early Christian theologian in early Christianity. Marcion preached that God had sent Jesus Christ who was an entirely new, alien god, distinct from the vengeful God of Israel who had created ...

proposed rejecting the entire Jewish Bible. He considered the God portrayed therein to be a lesser deity, a

demiurge In the Platonic, Neopythagorean, Middle Platonic, and Neoplatonic schools of philosophy, the demiurge () is an artisan-like figure responsible for fashioning and maintaining the physical universe. The Gnostics adopted the term ''demiurge'' ...

, and that the law of Moses was contrived. Religious Jews discount the

and Old Testament deuterocanonicals. They, along with most Christians, also discredit the legitimacy of

New Testament apocrypha The New Testament apocrypha (singular apocryphon) are a number of writings by early Christians that give accounts of Jesus and his teachings, the nature of God, or the teachings of his apostles and of their lives. Some of these writings were cite ...

, and a view sometimes referred to as

Jesuism Jesuism is a belief system considering itself to be the true representation of the teachings of Jesus and contrasts itself from the teachings of mainstream Christianity.Owen J. Flanagan. ''The Really Hard Problem: Meaning in a Material World.'' ...

does not affirm the scriptural authority of any biblical text other than the teachings of Jesus in the Gospels.

Ethics

Elizabeth Anderson, a professor of philosophy and women's studies at the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

, Ann Arbor, states that "the Bible contains both good and evil teachings", and it is "morally inconsistent". Anderson criticizes commands God gave to men in the Old Testament, such as: kill adulterers, homosexuals, and "people who work on the Sabbath" (Leviticus 20:10; Leviticus 20:13; Exodus 35:2, respectively); to commit ethnic cleansing (Exodus 34:11–14, Leviticus 26:7–9); commit

genocide Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Lat ...

(Numbers 21: 2–3, Numbers 21:33–35, Deuteronomy 2:26–35, and Joshua 1–12); and other mass killings. Anderson considers the Bible to permit slavery, the beating of slaves, the rape of female captives in wartime,

polygamy Crimes Polygamy (from Late Greek (') "state of marriage to many spouses") is the practice of marriage, marrying multiple spouses. When a man is married to more than one wife at the same time, sociologists call this polygyny. When a woman is ...

(for men), the killing of prisoners, and

child sacrifice Child sacrifice is the ritualistic killing of children in order to please or appease a deity, supernatural beings, or sacred social order, tribal, group or national loyalties in order to achieve a desired result. As such, it is a form of human ...

. She also provides several examples to illustrate what she considers "God's moral character": "Routinely punishes people for the sins of others ... punishes all mothers by condemning them to painful childbirth", punishes four generations of descendants of those who worship other gods, kills 24,000 Israelites because some of them sinned (Numbers 25:1–9), kills 70,000 Israelites for the sin of David in 2 Samuel 24:10–15, and "sends two bears out of the woods to tear forty-two children to pieces" because they called someone names in 2 Kings 2:23–24. Anderson criticizes what she terms morally repugnant lessons of the New Testament. She claims that "Jesus tells us his mission is to make family members hate one another, so that they shall love him more than their kin" (Matt 10:35–37), that "Disciples must hate their parents, siblings, wives, and children (Luke 14:26)", and that Peter and Paul elevate men over their wives "who must obey their husbands as gods" (1 Corinthians 11:3, 14:34–35, Eph. 5:22–24, Col. 3:18, 1 Tim. 2: 11–12, 1 Pet. 3:1). Anderson states that the

Gospel of John The Gospel of John ( grc, Εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Ἰωάννην, translit=Euangélion katà Iōánnēn) is the fourth of the four canonical gospels. It contains a highly schematic account of the ministry of Jesus, with seven "sig ...

implies that "infants and anyone who never had the opportunity to hear about Christ are damned o hell through no fault of their own".

Simon Blackburn Simon Blackburn (born 12 July 1944) is an English academic philosopher known for his work in metaethics, where he defends quasi-realism, and in the philosophy of language; more recently, he has gained a large general audience from his effort ...

states that the "Bible can be read as giving us a carte blanche for harsh attitudes to children, the mentally handicapped, animals, the environment, the divorced, unbelievers, people with various sexual habits, and elderly women". Blackburn criticizes what he terms morally suspect themes of the New Testament. He notes some "moral quirks" of Jesus: that he could be "sectarian" (Matt 10:5–6), racist (Matt 15:26 and Mark 7:27), and placed no value on animal life (Luke 8: 27–33). Blackburn provides examples of Old Testament moral criticisms, such as the phrase in

Exodus Exodus or the Exodus may refer to: Religion * Book of Exodus, second book of the Hebrew Torah and the Christian Bible * The Exodus, the biblical story of the migration of the ancient Israelites from Egypt into Canaan Historical events * Ex ...

22:18, ("Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.") which he says has "helped to burn alive tens or hundreds of thousands of women in Europe and America". He states that the Old Testament God apparently has "no problems with a slave-owning society", considers birth control a crime punishable by death, and "is keen on child abuse". Additional examples that are questioned today are the prohibition on touching women during their "period of menstrual uncleanliness (Lev. 15:19–24)", the apparent approval of selling daughters into slavery (Exodus 21:7), and the obligation to put to death someone working on the Sabbath (Exodus 35:2).

Historicity

The

is the question of the Bible's "acceptability as a history". This can be extended to the question of the Christian

as an accurate record of the

historical Jesus The term "historical Jesus" refers to the reconstruction of the life and teachings of Jesus by critical historical methods, in contrast to religious interpretations. It also considers the historical and cultural contexts in which Jesus lived. ...

and the

Apostolic Age Christianity in the 1st century covers the formative history of Christianity from the start of the ministry of Jesus (–29 AD) to the death of the last of the Twelve Apostles () and is thus also known as the Apostolic Age. Early Christianity ...

. Scholars examine the historical context of the Bible passages, the importance ascribed to events by the authors, and the contrast between the descriptions of these events and other historical evidence. Archaeological discoveries since the 19th century are open to interpretation, but broadly speaking they lend support to few of the Old Testament's narratives as history and offer evidence to challenge others.{{efn, 1="Biblical archaeology has helped us understand a lot about the world of the Bible and clarified a considerable amount of what we find in the Bible. But the archaeological record has not been friendly for one vital issue, Israel's origins: the period of slavery in Egypt, the mass departure of Israelite slaves from Egypt, and the violent conquest of the land of Canaan by the Israelites. The strong consensus is that there is at best sparse indirect evidence for these biblical episodes, and for the conquest there is considerable evidence against it.", Peter Enns{{sfn, Enns, 2013, p=unpaginated{{efn, 1="So although much of the archaeological evidence demonstrates that the Hebrew Bible cannot in most cases be taken literally, many of the people, places and things probably did exist at some time or another." Jonathan Michael Golden and Joseph Golden{{sfn, Golden, Golden, 2004, p=275 {{sfn, Grabbe, 2007 However, some scholars still hold that the overall Old Testament narrative is historically reliable. Biblical minimalism is a label applied to a loosely knit group of scholars who hold that the Bible's version of history is not supported by any archaeological evidence so far unearthed, thus the Bible cannot be trusted as a history source. Author Richard I. Pervo details the non-historical sources of the Book of Acts.

Historicity of Jesus

{{Main, Historicity of Jesus {{See also, Historical Jesus, Christ myth theory, Jesus in comparative mythology The validity of the Gospels is challenged by writers such as

Kersey Graves Kersey Graves (November 21, 1813 – September 4, 1883) was a skeptic, atheist, rationalist, spiritualist, reformist writer, who was popular on the American freethought circuit of the late 19th century. Life Graves was born in Brownsville, P ...

who claimed that mythic stories, that have parallels in the life of Jesus, support the conclusion that the gospel writers incorporated them into the story of Jesus and

Gerald Massey Gerald Massey (; 29 May 1828 – 29 October 1907) was an English poet and writer on Spiritualism and Ancient Egypt. Early life Massey was born near Tring, Hertfordshire in England to poor parents. When little more than a child, he was made t ...

, who specifically claimed that the life story of the Egyptian god Horus was copied by Christian Gnostics. Parallels have also been drawn between

Greek myth A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the origin and nature of the world, the lives and activities of d ...

s and the life of Jesus. The comparative mythology of Jesus Christ examines the parallels that have been proposed for the Biblical portrayal of Jesus in comparison to other religious or mythical domains. Some critics have alleged that Christianity is not founded on a historical figure, but rather on a mythical creation. One of these views proposes that Jesus was the Jewish manifestation of a pan-Hellenic cult, known as

Osiris-Dionysus Dionysus-Osiris, or alternatively, Osiris-Dionysus, is a deity that arises from the syncretism of the Egyptian god Osiris and the Greek god Dionysus. As early as the 5th century BC, the two deities had been identified with each other, seen most not ...

Christ myth theory The Christ myth theory, also known as the Jesus myth theory, Jesus mythicism, or the Jesus ahistoricity theory, is the view that "the story of Jesus is a piece of mythology", possessing no "substantial claims to historical fact". Alternative ...

proponents claim that the age, authorship, and authenticity of the Gospels can not be verified, thus the Gospels can not bear witness to the

historicity of Jesus The question of the historicity of Jesus is part of the study of the historical Jesus as undertaken in the quest for the historical Jesus and the scholarly reconstructions of the life of Jesus. Virtually all scholars of antiquity accept that Je ...

.{{cite book, last=Evans, first=Elizabeth E., author-link=Edward Payson Evans#Elizabeth Evans, title=The Christ Myth: A Study, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OxU3AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA17, year=1900, publisher=Truth Seeker Company, page=17, quote=There is evidence that all the Gospels were borrowed from an earlier source, but whether that source was history or romance, and whether the author or the later compilers dressed up foreign and ancient materials in local and contemporary attire, cannot be known. The earliest "Fathers" of the Christian church do not mention nor allude to any one of the Gospels, but they do quote from some other work or works in language similar to and in substance sometimes agreeing with sometimes differing from, the canonical Gospels. This is in contrast with writers such as

David Strauss David Friedrich Strauss (german: link=no, Strauß ; 27 January 1808 – 8 February 1874) was a German liberal Protestant theologian and writer, who influenced Christian Europe with his portrayal of the "historical Jesus", whose divine nature he ...

, who regarded only the supernatural elements of the gospels as myth, but whereas these supernatural myths were a point of contention, there was no refutation of the gospels' authenticity as a witness to the historicity of Jesus. Critics of the Gospels such as Richard Dawkins and

Thomas Henry Huxley Thomas Henry Huxley (4 May 1825 – 29 June 1895) was an English biologist and anthropologist specialising in comparative anatomy. He has become known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his advocacy of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. The stori ...

note that they were written long after the death of Jesus and that we have no real knowledge of the date of composition of the Gospels. Annie Besant and

Thomas Paine Thomas Paine (born Thomas Pain; – In the contemporary record as noted by Conway, Paine's birth date is given as January 29, 1736–37. Common practice was to use a dash or a slash to separate the old-style year from the new-style year. In th ...

note that the authors of the Gospels are not known.

Internal consistency

{{Main, Internal consistency of the Bible There are many places in the Bible in which inconsistencies—such as different numbers and names for the same feature, and different sequences for the same events—have been alleged and presented by critics as difficulties. Responses to these criticisms include the modern documentary hypothesis, the

two-source hypothesis The two-source hypothesis (or 2SH) is an explanation for the synoptic problem, the pattern of similarities and differences between the three Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. It posits that the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke were ba ...

, and theories that the pastoral epistles are pseudonymous.{{rp, p.47 However, authors such as Raymond Brown have presented arguments that the Gospels contradict each other in various important respects and on various important details.

W. D. Davies William David Davies (1911–2001), often cited as W. D. Davies, was a Welsh Congregationalist minister, theologian, author and professor of religion in England and the United States. Life Davies was born in 1911 in Glanamman, Carmarth ...

and

E. P. Sanders Ed Parish Sanders (April 18, 1937 – November 21, 2022) was an American New Testament scholar and a principal proponent of the "New Perspective on Paul". He was a major scholar in the scholarship on the historical Jesus and contributed to the v ...

state that: "on many points, especially about Jesus' early life, the evangelists were ignorant ... they simply did not know, and, guided by rumour, hope or supposition, did the best they could". Yet, E.P. Sanders has also opined, "The dominant view today seems to be that we can know pretty well what Jesus was out to accomplish, that we can know a lot about what he said, and that those two things make sense within the world of first-century Judaism." More critical scholars see the nativity stories either as completely fictional accounts, or at least constructed from traditions that predate the Gospels. For example, many versions of the Bible specifically point out that the most reliable early manuscripts and other ancient witnesses did not include {{Bibleref2, Mark, 16:9–20, i.e., the Gospel of Mark originally ended at Mark 16:8, and additional verses were added a few hundred years later. This is known as the "Markan Appendix".{{cite book, author=Guy D. Nave, title=The Role and Function of Repentance in Luke-Acts, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4CGScYTomYsC&q=%2B%22markan+appendix%22&pg=PA194, date=1 January 2002, publisher=BRILL, isbn=90-04-12694-5, page=194{{cite book, author1=Amy-Jill Levine, author2=Marianne Blickenstaff, title=Feminist Companion to the New Testament and Early Christian Writings, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=B2lfhy5lvlkC&q=%2B%22markan+appendix%22&pg=PA175, year=2001, publisher=A&C Black, isbn=978-0-8264-6333-3, page=175

Translation issues

{{Main, Biblical manuscript, Textual criticism, Biblical inerrancy Translation of scripture into the vernacular (such as English and hundreds of other languages), though a common phenomenon, is also a subject of debate and criticism. For readability, clarity, or other reasons, translators may choose different wording or sentence structure, and some translations may choose to

paraphrase A paraphrase () is a restatement of the meaning of a text or passage using other words. The term itself is derived via Latin ', . The act of paraphrasing is also called ''paraphrasis''. History Although paraphrases likely abounded in oral tra ...

passages. Because many of the words in the original language have ambiguous or difficult to translate meanings, debates over correct interpretation occur. For instance, at creation ({{Bibleref, Gen, 1:2), is רוח אלהים (''ruach 'elohiym'') the "wind of god", "spirit of god"(i.e., the Holy Spirit in Christianity), or a "mighty wind" over the primordial deep? In Hebrew, רוח (''ruach'') can mean "wind", "breath" or "spirit". Both ancient and modern translators are divided over this and many other such ambiguities. Another example is the word used in the

Masoretic Text The Masoretic Text (MT or 𝕸; he, נֻסָּח הַמָּסוֹרָה, Nūssāḥ Hammāsōrā, lit. 'Text of the Tradition') is the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) in Rabbinic Judaism. ...

{{bibleref2c, Isa, 7:14 to indicate the woman who would bear

Immanuel Immanuel ( he, עִמָּנוּאֵל, 'Īmmānū'ēl, meaning, "God is with us"; also romanized: , ; and or in Koine Greek of the New Testament) is a Hebrew name that appears in the Book of Isaiah (7:14) as a sign that God will protect the H ...

is alleged to mean a ''young, unmarried woman'' in

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

, while {{bibleref2, Matthew, 1:23 follows the

Septuagint The Greek Old Testament, or Septuagint (, ; from the la, septuaginta, lit=seventy; often abbreviated ''70''; in Roman numerals, LXX), is the earliest extant Greek translation of books from the Hebrew Bible. It includes several books beyond ...

version of the passage that uses the

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

word ''parthenos'', translated ''virgin'', and is used to support the Christian idea of virgin birth. Those who view the Masoretic Text, which forms the basis of most English translations of the Old Testament, as being more accurate than the Septuagint, and trust its usual translation, may see this as an inconsistency, whereas those who take the Septuagint to be accurate may not. More recently, several discoveries of ancient manuscripts such as the

Dead Sea Scrolls The Dead Sea Scrolls (also the Qumran Caves Scrolls) are ancient Jewish and Hebrew religious manuscripts discovered between 1946 and 1956 at the Qumran Caves in what was then Mandatory Palestine, near Ein Feshkha in the West Bank, on the ...

, and

Codex Sinaiticus The Codex Sinaiticus ( Shelfmark: London, British Library, Add MS 43725), designated by siglum [Aleph] or 01 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering of New Testament manuscripts), δ 2 (in the von Soden numbering of New Testament manuscript ...

, have led to modern translations like the '' New International Version'' differing somewhat from the older ones such as the 17th century

King James Version The King James Version (KJV), also the King James Bible (KJB) and the Authorized Version, is an Bible translations into English, English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England, which was commissioned in 1604 and publis ...

, removing verses not present in the earliest manuscripts (see

List of omitted Bible verses These New Testament verses not included in modern English translations are verses of the New Testament that exist in older English translations (primarily the King James Version), but do not appear or have been relegated to footnotes in later v ...

), some of which are acknowledged as interpolations, such as the

Comma Johanneum The Johannine Comma ( la, Comma Johanneum) is an interpolated phrase ( comma) in verses of the First Epistle of John. The text (with the comma in italics and enclosed by square brackets) in the King James Bible reads: It became a touchpoint f ...

, others having several highly variant versions in very important places, such as the resurrection scene in

Mark 16 Mark 16 is the final chapter of the Gospel of Mark in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. It begins after the sabbath, with Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bringing spices to the tomb to anoint Jesus' body. There the ...

. The

King-James-Only Movement The King James Only movement asserts the belief that the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible is superior to all other translations of the Bible. Adherents of the King James Only movement, mostly members of Conservative Anabaptist, Conservativ ...

rejects these changes and upholds the King James Version as the most accurate. In a 1973 ''

Journal of Biblical Literature The ''Journal of Biblical Literature'' (''JBL'') is one of three academic journals published by the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL). First published in 1881, ''JBL'' is the flagship journal of the field. ''JBL'' is published quarterly and incl ...

'' article, Philip B. Harner,

Professor Emeritus ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

of Religion at

Heidelberg College Heidelberg University is a private university in Tiffin, Ohio. Founded in 1850, it was known as Heidelberg College until 1889 and from 1926 to 2009. It is affiliated with the United Church of Christ. History Heidelberg University was founded b ...

, claimed that the traditional translation of John 1:1c (“and the Word was God” and one of the most frequently cited verses to support the doctrine of the Trinity) is incorrect. He endorses the

New English Bible The New English Bible (NEB) is an English translation of the Bible. The New Testament was published in 1961 and the Old Testament (with the Apocrypha) was published on 16 March 1970. In 1989, it was significantly revised and republished as the R ...

translation of John 1:1c, “and what God was, the Word was.”

The Bible and science

{{Main, Christianity and science {{See also, Biblical archaeology Common points of criticism against the Bible are targeted at the Genesis creation narrative, Genesis flood myth, and the

Tower of Babel The Tower of Babel ( he, , ''Mīgdal Bāḇel'') narrative in Genesis 11:1–9 is an origin myth meant to explain why the world's peoples speak different languages. According to the story, a united human race speaking a single language and mi ...

. According to

young Earth creationism Young Earth creationism (YEC) is a form of creationism which holds as a central tenet that the Earth and its lifeforms were created by supernatural acts of the Abrahamic God between approximately 6,000 and 10,000 years ago. In its most widespre ...

, flat earth theory, and

geocentrism In astronomy, the geocentric model (also known as geocentrism, often exemplified specifically by the Ptolemaic system) is a superseded description of the Universe with Earth at the center. Under most geocentric models, the Sun, Moon, stars, a ...

, which all take a literal view of the book of Genesis, the universe and all forms of life on Earth were created directly by God roughly 6,000 years ago, a global flood killed almost all life on Earth, and the diversity of languages originated from God confusing his people, who were in the process of constructing a large tower. These assertions, however, are contradicted by contemporary research in disciplines, such as

archaeology Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landsca ...

anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of be ...

astronomy Astronomy () is a natural science that studies celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and evolution. Objects of interest include planets, moons, stars, nebulae, g ...

biology Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary i ...

, chemistry,

geoscience Earth science or geoscience includes all fields of natural science related to the planet Earth. This is a branch of science dealing with the physical, chemical, and biological complex constitutions and synergistic linkages of Earth's four sphere ...

, and

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

. For instance, cosmological evidence suggests that the universe is approximately age of the universe, 13.8 billion years old. Analyses of the geological time scale date the Earth to be 4.5 billion years old. Developments in astronomy show the Solar System nebular hypothesis, formed in a protoplanetary disk roughly 4.6 billion years ago. Physics and cosmology show that the Universe expanded, at a rapid rate, from quantum fluctuations in a process known as the Big Bang; contemporary research and models postulate that the universe may even be infinite in terms of eternal inflation, size and cyclic model, age. Research within biology, chemistry, physics, astronomy, and geology has provided sufficient evidence to show life originated over 4 billion years ago through abiogenesis, chemical processes. Countless fossils present throughout the fossil record, as well as research in molecular biology, genetics, anatomy, physiology, zoology, and other life sciences show all living organisms evolution, evolved over billions of years and share a common ancestry. Archaeological excavations have expanded human history, with material evidence of prehistory, ancient cultures older than 6,000 years old. Moreover, 10,000 years is not enough time to account for the current amount of genetic variation in human evolution, humans. If all humans were descended from Adam and Eve, two individuals that lived less than 10,000 years ago, it would require an impossibly high rate of mutation to reach humanity's current level of genetic diversity.{{cite web , title=Evangelicals Question The Existence Of Adam And Eve , author=Barbara Bradley Hagerty , work=All Things Considered , date=August 9, 2011 , url=https://www.npr.org/2011/08/09/138957812/evangelicals-question-the-existence-of-adam-and-eve {{Blockquote, The argument that the literal story of Genesis can qualify as science collapses on three major grounds: the creationists' need to invoke miracles in order to compress the events of the earth's history into the biblical span of a few thousand years; their unwillingness to abandon claims clearly disproved, including the assertion that all fossils are products of Noah's flood; and their reliance upon distortion, misquote, half-quote, and citation out of context to characterize the ideas of their opponents., ''Bully for Brontosaurus'' by Stephen Jay Gould Evolutionary creation, the religious belief that God created the world through the processes of evolution, seeks to reconcile some of these scientific challenges with the Christian faith. According to one of the world's leading biblical archaeologists, William G. Dever,

Archaeology certainly doesn't prove literal readings of the Bible...It calls them into question, and that's what bothers some people. Most people really think that archaeology is out there to prove the Bible. No archaeologist thinks so. ... From the beginnings of what we call biblical archeology, perhaps 150 years ago, scholars, mostly western scholars, have attempted to use archeological data to prove the Bible. And for a long time it was thought to work. William F. AlbWilliam Albright, the great father of our discipline, often spoke of the "archeological revolution." Well, the revolution has come but not in the way that Albright thought. The truth of the matter today is that archeology raises more questions about the historicity of the Hebrew Bible and even the New Testament than it provides answers, and that's very disturbing to some people.

Dever also wrote: {{Blockquote, Archaeology as it is practiced today must be able to challenge, as well as confirm, the Bible stories. Some things described there really did happen, but others did not. The biblical narratives about Abraham, Moses, Joshua and Solomon probably reflect some historical memories of people and places, but the 'larger than life' portraits of the Bible are unrealistic and contradicted by the archaeological evidence.... {{Blockquote, I am not reading the Bible as Scripture… I am in fact not even a theist. My view all along—and especially in the recent books—is first that the biblical narratives are indeed 'stories', often fictional and almost always propagandistic, but that here and there they contain some valid historical information... According to Dever, the scholarly consensus is that the figure of Moses is legendary, and not Historicity, historical.William G. Dever "What Remains of the House That Albright Built?", in George Ernest Wright, Frank Moore Cross, Edward Fay Campbell, Floyd Vivian Filson (eds.) ''The Biblical Archaeologist'', American Schools of Oriental Research, Scholars Press, Vol. 56, No. 1, 2 March 1993, pp. 25–35, p. 33: "the overwhelming scholarly consensus today is that Moses is a mythical figure." However, he states that a "Moses-like figure" may have existed somewhere in the southern Transjordan (Bible), Transjordan in the mid-13th century BC.{{cite book, last1=Dever, first1=William G., title=What Did the Biblical Writers Know and When Did They Know It?, date=2002, publisher=Eerdmans, location=Grand Rapids, Mich. [u.a.], isbn=9780802821263, pages=98–99, edition=Paperback, title-link=What Did the Biblical Writers Know and When Did They Know It? Tel Aviv University archaeologist Ze'ev Herzog wrote in the ''Haaretz'' newspaper: {{Blockquote, This is what archaeologists have learned from their excavations in the Land of Israel: the Israelites were never in Egypt, did not wander in the desert, did not conquer the land in a military campaign and did not pass it on to the 12 tribes of Israel. Perhaps even harder to swallow is that the united monarchy of David and Solomon, which is described by the Bible as a regional power, was at most a small tribal kingdom. And it will come as an unpleasant shock to many that the God of Israel, YHWH, had a female consort and that the early Israelite religion adopted monotheism only in the waning period of the monarchy and not at Mount Sinai. Israel Finkelstein told ''The Jerusalem Post'' that Jewish archaeologists have found no historical or archaeological evidence to back the biblical narrative of the Exodus, the Jews' wandering in Sinai or Book of Joshua, Joshua's conquest of Canaan. On the alleged Temple of Solomon, Finkelstein said that there is no archaeological evidence to prove it really existed.{{cite web, url=http://www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk/news/middle-east/2705-senior-israeli-archaeologist-casts-doubt-on-jewish-heritage-of-jerusalem, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110929142605/http://www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk/news/middle-east/2705-senior-israeli-archaeologist-casts-doubt-on-jewish-heritage-of-jerusalem, archive-date=2011-09-29, title=Senior Israeli archaeologist casts doubt on Jewish heritage of Jerusalem, website=Middle East Monitor, date=9 August 2011 Professor Yoni Mizrahi, an independent archaeologist who has worked with the International Atomic Energy Agency, agreed with Finkelstein. Regarding the Exodus of Israelites from Egypt, Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass said: {{Blockquote, Really, it's a myth ... This is my career as an archaeologist. I should tell them the truth. If the people are upset, that is not my problem.

Notable critics

* Richard Dawkins * Matt Dillahunty * Albert Einstein * Sam Harris * Christopher Hitchens * Robert G. Ingersoll * Thomas Jefferson''Thomas Jefferson's Abridgement of the Words of Jesus of Nazareth'' (Charlottesville: Mark Beliles, 1993), 14. *

* Bertrand Russell * Mark Twain * Voltaire

Notes

{{Notelist

References

{{Reflist

Sources

*{{cite book, last=Anderson, first=Elizabeth, author-link=Elizabeth S. Anderson, chapter=If God is Dead, Is Everything Permitted?, title=The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever, title-link=The Portable Atheist, editor-last=Hitchens, editor-first=Christopher, editor-link=Christopher Hitchens, year=2007, publisher=Da Capo Press, location=Philadelphia, isbn=978-0-306-81608-6 *{{cite book, last=Blackburn, first=Simon, author-link=Simon Blackburn, title=Ethics: A Very Short Introduction, year=2001, publisher=Oxford University Press, location=Oxford, isbn=978-0-19-280442-6 *{{cite book, last=Blackburn, first=Simon, author-link=Simon Blackburn, title=Ethics: A Very Short Introduction, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tKBnw7BKe-UC, series=Very Short Introductions, publisher=OUP, year=2003, isbn=9780191577925, author-mask=1 *{{cite web , last=Enns , first=Peter , title=3 Things I Would Like to See Evangelical Leaders Stop Saying about Biblical Scholarship , website=Peter Enns , date=10 January 2013 , url=https://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2013/01/3-things-i-would-like-to-see-evangelical-leaders-stop-saying-about-biblical-scholarship/ , access-date=10 December 2020 *{{cite book, first1=Jonathan Michael, last1=Golden, first2=Joseph, last2=Golden, title=Ancient Canaan and Israel: New Perspectives, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yTMzJAKowyEC&pg=PA275, year=2004, publisher=ABC-CLIO, isbn=978-1-57607-897-6, page=275 *{{cite book , last=Grabbe , first=Lester L. , title=Understanding the History of Ancient Israel , chapter=Some Recent Issues in the Study of the History of Israel , publisher=British Academy , date=25 October 2007 , isbn=978-0-19-726401-0 , doi=10.5871/bacad/9780197264010.003.0005 * {{cite book , last=Thompson , first=Thomas L., year=2014 , title = Biblical Narrative and Palestine's History: Changing Perspectives 2 , publisher=Routledge , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NVt_BAAAQBAJ&q=%22the+bible%27s+acceptability+as+history%22&pg=PA164 , isbn=978-1317543428

External links

{{Wikiquote
Bible Research
��The Gender-Neutral Bible Controversy

Internet Infidels website {{The Bible {{Criticism of religion {{The Bible and history {{Authority control {{DEFAULTSORT:Criticism Of The Bible Criticism of the Bible,