It is a bit frustrating reading through Ecclesiastes

[emjay]

@GrandizerII

Hi there. Since you seem to be quite interested in the study of the accuracy of the Bible, I was wondering if you could recommend any books that you'd consider essential reads on the inaccuracy of the Bible. Asking Chatgpt about it the top name that seems to come up is Bart D. Ehrman, so I was wondering if you'd agree with that recommendation and/or have any others? I've never really paid that much attention to these sorts of books before, considering them too technical sounding etc, but I'm now at a point where I think that if there is any convincing evidence against the accuracy of the Bible through historical or archaeological study etc, I need to know about it. Thanks if you can help

I wouldn’t say it’s the accuracy of the Bible that I’m interested in, but more about what the texts themselves are saying. And sometimes that means I have to presume/conclude redactions and such in order to make the most sense out of these texts.

As for who to read on the inaccuracy of the Bible, then pretty much every work of Ehrman’s that I know of is a good starting point. His works are very accessible to the layperson.

Of course, this is assuming by inaccuracy, you mean in the literal/historical sense.

Personally, I take it for granted at this point that the Bible is inaccurate in this sense, but it’s not something I am invested in nor is it something that many Christians or Jews think is a problem either.

Thanks for your reply.

That's kind of what I expected, and why I haven't put much stock in these sorts of books so far... the thought that whatever they talk about is going to be too subtle, technical, or perhaps even irrelevant that it's not going to affects people's beliefs on the Bible much on either side... but thanks for saying Ehrman was worth reading.

Sadly after recent events in my life, I've lost a lot of confidence in my atheist position, and need to recover it, just to get my peace of mind back if nothing else, but this isn't looking like it's going to help very much, but thanks anyway for your thoughts.