The Bible is not a reliable historical source
The Bible is not a reliable historical source because it does not meet the standard criteria of source reliability used by historians. The Bible is not, as many believers assume, eye witness testimony. Reliable sources are generally based on authors who were eye witnesses to an event (i.e. it is a primary source). Since any particular source my be fabricating their story, multiple independent sources are usually required for confidence. Establishing the lack of author biases, including religious motivations, is also necessary if a work is to be read at face value. The Bible satisfies none of these requirements.
Based on historical and archaeological research, there are known historical inaccuracies in the Bible. The Bible is considered mythological by most historians. Because of this, the Bible cannot itself be used as an argument that the events it describes actually occurred.
This disagrees with the view held by many apologists that the Bible is a reliable source:
- "The Old Testament affords us the same historical evidence of the miracles of Moses and of the prophets, as of the common civil history of Moses and the kings of Israel, or as of the affairs of the Jewish nation. [1]"
Authorship of the Bible
The authorship of the Old Testament has been studied by academics and is generally considered to be the work of multiple authors over many centuries, with many different stages of rewriting, censoring and editing. One popular theory is the documentary hypothesis which considers the Old Testament to be largely written by four anonymous authors, each with different agendas and priorities.
The New Testament was based on oral traditions and stories that were passed down in the early church and were written down several decades after Jesus's crucifixion. The gospels are not primary or even second hand accounts but more likely many times removed from the original events. [2]
While many of the books of the Bible are named or attributed to Moses or the Apostles, they were probably not the actual authors. The exception is Paul the Apostle who actually did write many (but not all) of letters attributed to him. However Paul was not an eye witness to the events described in the gospels. As part of a religion, the authors of the Bible had an obvious religious motivation to invent or enlarge stories that suited their purposes.
Lack of corroborating evidence
While lack of evidence does not automatically imply non-occurence. However, in cases where evidence would be expected to be found and a search for evidence is conducted, lack of evidence does imply non-occurence.
Old Testament
There is no reliable evidence of a global flood or an ark, apart from the Bible. There is no archaeological remains of the Tower of Babel and it fails to explain linguistic patterns. [3]
The story of the tribe of Joseph being held as slaves in Egypt and wandering in the Sinai for 40 years lead by Moses as told in Exodus [4] is false. There is also no evidence of the ten plagues. Archaeologists now consider the evidence to be overwhelming and further searches for evidence are "a fruitless pursuit". [5]
- "My own personal theory is that Joseph built the pyramids in order to store grain. [6]"
However, the ancient Egyptians made records about the purpose of the pyramids: they were tombs not grain stores. Also, the mummified bodies found in the pyramids seems to corroborate the written claims.
Some apologists have told the story of NASA discovering a "lost day" in astronomical observations, which would agree with Joshua 10:12-13
. However, this story is false. NASA released a statement saying these events never took place. This does not stop the tale being circulated among credulous believers. [7]
New Testament
There is hardly any independent evidence for the biographical details of Jesus. [8] If the events described really occurred, we would expect first hand accounts. Despite through searching, non have been found and it is likely first hand accounts do not exist. Therefore, the events described in the gospels did not occur or occurred very differently than described.
There is no record of a Roman tradition of releasing a prisoner at the Passover feast. [9] John 18:39
There is no evidence of Herod's slaughter of the innocent. Matthew 2:16–18
[10]
The Bible says that when Jesus died there was an earthquake Matthew 27:51
, a great darkness Matthew 27:45
, and the dead rose and wandered into Jerusalem Matthew 27:52-53
. We would expect first hand accounts of such extraordinary events. However, there is no evidence they occurred apart from the Bible.
Known inaccuracies
Apologists like to claim the Bible is no shortcomings:
- "there isn't a single archaeological discovery that disproves the Bible in any way. [11]"
However, there are many historical inaccuracies in the Bible. The Bible mentions the reason that Joseph returned to Bethlehem was for the census of Quirinius, directly before the birth of Jesus, as described in Luke 2:1–7
. The Bible says Jesus was born in the reign of Herod the Great, i.e. before Herod the Death's death in 4 BC. The census was conducted in 6/7 CE when Quirinius was governor of Syria. Therefore the census could not have been the reason for Joseph to return to Bethlehem since it occurred 10 years after the birth of Jesus! A more probable explanation is that the authors of the Bible wanted to find a pretext for Jesus to be born in Bethlehem and the census was a convenient fictional device.
"It seems to me that [the death of Judas] and [inclusion of some unhistorical narratives] rule out the view that every statement in Scripture must be historical truth."
Style
Because the texts do not discuss their sources or provide any critical analysis, they are more like ancient fiction rather than a history of their times:
- "These texts instead read like ancient prose novels. In all but Luke, we do not hear anything about the written sources that the authors consulted (and even the author of Luke does not name them, explain their contents, or discuss how they are relevant as sources), the authors of the Gospels do not discuss how they learned their stories or what their personal relations are to these events, and even when John claims to have an eyewitness disciple “whom Jesus loved,” the gospel does not even bother to name or identify this mysterious figure (most likely an invention of the author). Instead, the Gospels provide story-like narratives, where the authors omnisciently narrate everything that occurs rather than engage in any form of critical analysis. [13]"
Counter arguments
There were many accurate copies of the Bible
Apologists claim the Bible, and particularly the New Testament, was accurately preserved when compared to other ancient sources. [11] This is a red herring because the primary issue is with the reliability of the first complete copy. If that was a work of fiction, no amount of accurate copying would make it true.
Evidence of Jesus was suppressed
- "In the early days of Christianity Christians were persecuted and many Christians were martyred so the Romans tried to destroy any record of Jesus [14]"
The Bible says the Bible is true
Claiming the Bible is true based on any verse or section of the Bible is a circular argument.
The gospels are independent sources
- "He noted that the type of eyewitness accounts given in the four Gospels—accounts which agree, but with each writer choosing to omit or add details different from the others—is typical of reliable, independent sources that would be accepted in a court of law as strong evidence. [...] Thus, the independent nature of the four Gospel accounts, agreeing in their information but differing in perspective, amount of detail, and which events were recorded, indicate that the record that we have of Christ's life and ministry as presented in the Gospels is factual and reliable [15]"
None of the New Testament is eye witness testimony (and probably none of the Old Testament too). There are many obvious borrowings between the gospels, particularly the synoptic gospels, and they are therefore not independent sources. Differences in style and content are based on different editing decisions rather than on different recollection.
The Bible is either entirely true or entirely false
This is a false dichotomy and contrary to historical evidence. Of course there is some truth in the Bible. For instance, Jerusalem is a real place. However, there are also some historical inaccuracies. The Bible is therefore not entirely true or entirely false.
The Bible gets some details right
Apologists claim that many archaeological finds or present day locations confirm the Bible.
- "If you open to almost any page in the Bible you will find a name of a place and/or a person. Much of this can be verified from archaeology [11]"
However, most of the findings are of nobles or locations that featured in the Bible are fairly trivial. The tomb of a person may establish that person's existence. Ruins indicate a location may have existed. However, it does not validate the specific events that are described, which have no corroboration. A similar fallacious argument could be made:
- Homer's Iliad mentions Greece and Zeus.
- Based on archaeological finds, the ancient Greek civilisation existed.
- Therefore Zeus exists.
No amount of correct trivia validates the narrative of the Bible. Independent sources of the events described would validate it. Apologists ignore the lack of evidence in several important areas and are cherry picking archaeology.
Objections to the Bible are an excuse to ignore it
- "Faced with demand for an ethical commitment (and having a natural aversion to authority), some people feign intellectual objections, claiming alleged contradictions in the Bible, and generally questioning its reliability. [16]"
This is an ad hominem and therefore irrelevant. The reliability of the Bible must be established by evidence.
Innocent until proven guilty
- "Many evangelical Christians would try to sidestep this entire discussion by arguing that historical texts, like their authors, should be presumed 'innocent until proven guilty'; thus until someone can prove that the New Testament is unreliable, we should a priori accept its claims. [17]"
This is shifting the burden of proof without justification; a positive claim that the Bible is reliable requires evidence. It is also a broken compass argument since many wild hypotheses could be accepted as true on this basis.
Minimal facts argument
The minimal facts approach recognises the difficulty in justifying all the claims in the New Testament as historical fact. Instead, it focuses on a few instances that are useful for converting non-believers, such as the resurrection of Jesus. [18]
- "So I would favor taking a number of historical facts that are recognized and accepted by virtually all scholars, building up these data and showing how we can make our case, based on these few facts alone, rather than holding out for all of the New Testament.[19]"
The problem with the minimal facts approach is it relies on an appeal to majority of Biblical scholars (appeal to authority) but these scholars still don't entirely agree. This argument is not particularly reliable because their historical methods are not particularly sound. For instance, they accept claims of miracles in Christian texts at face value but ignore the same claim in non-Christians contexts. They also accept religions texts by a small group as credible without any independent sources to corroborate them.
See also
- Biblical contradictions
- Scientific inaccuracies in the Bible
- Biblical inerrancy
- Outsider test
- Biblical genealogies
- The Bible was written by eyewitnesses
References
- ↑ Joseph Butler, The Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, 1736
- ↑ Chris Hallquist, Why atheists don’t think the Bible is historically reliable, July 12, 2012
- ↑ [1]
- ↑ [2]
- ↑ William G. Dever, What Did the Biblical Writers Know, and When Did They Know It?, 2001
- ↑ [3]
- ↑ [4]
- ↑ [Scott Oser, Historicity Of Jesus FAQ, 1994]
- ↑ Charles B. Chavel, The Releasing of a Prisoner on the Eve of Passover in Ancient Jerusalem, Journal of Biblical Literature Vol. 60, No. 3 (Sep., 1941), pp. 273-278]
- ↑ [5]
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 Matt Slick, Can We Trust the New Testament as a Historical Document?
- ↑ Quoted in Michael J. Christensen, C. S. Lewis on Scripture, Abingdon, 1979, Appendix A.
- ↑ [6]
- ↑ [7]
- ↑ [8]
- ↑ [9]
- ↑ Jeffery Jay Lowder, Independent Confirmation and the Historicity of Jesus, 2007
- ↑ [10]
- ↑ [11]
External links
- Vati Leaks, The Bible is fiction; PART 1 , August 10, 2012