Well, this discussion has gone on for quite some time, and it's plain we all agree that the God represented in the Old Testament is an evil bastard. The only difference is that those who believe in him want us all to call evil good.
Moving on to the next question, I ask:
Q: How much reliability does the Bible have as a historical document?
A: Almost none.
Here is a summary of the findings of an important book on biblical archaeology. The Bible Unearthed: archaeology's new vision of ancient Israel and the origin of its sacred texts. Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman. The Free Press (Simon & Shuster), 2001. 385 pp.
There was no historical basis for the legends of the patriarchs recorded in Genesis. Here are a few historical discrepancies in the patriarchal narratives of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. By the biblical chronology these patriarchs would have to be dated to the Bronze Age, ca 1800 - 1700 BC. Camels regularly appear in these stories, but in fact the camel was not domesticated until about 1000 BC, and camel caravans were not common until the 7th century BC when these stories were written down. Isaac is said to have met the Philistine King (Gen 26:1) but in fact the Philistines did not invade from the sea until ca. 1200 BC. The Moabites and Ammonites arrived on the scene even later, and the story of Lot incestuously fathering Moab and Ammon reflects the ethnic rivalries of the 9th - 7th centuries, as does the story of Esau as the supposed progenitor of the Edomites, who do not appear in history until the late 8th century.
Most shocking of all, the central narrative of the Old Testament never happened, that is, the bondage of the Israelites in Egypt, their deliverance, and wandering for 40 years in the wilderness, and the subsequent conquest of the promised land.
As for the sojourn in Egypt, a population of Israelites in the hundreds of thousands would necessarily leave archaeological traces, but they are nowhere to be found. In the opinion of the authors the Exodus story reflects the conflict in the 7th century between Judah and Egypt with Judah hoping to annex the lost territories of the northern kingdom (Israel) and the mighty nation of Egypt wanting to control the land route to Asia Minor. Likewise Exodus names some of the camp sites where the Israelites supposedly stopped in the Sinai desert (Kadesh and Ezion-geber). These have been identified and excavated, but again there is no evidence for this host.
The ancient cities of Jericho, Ai, Gibeon, Lachish, and Hador have been located and excavated, and the evidence for a conquest is very weak. Indeed it seems that those walls at Jericho never came tumbling down because most of these cities had no walls and were not sacked. It appears that the Israelites had no need to invade Canaan because they were already there. The evidence is that in this region there were cyclical fluctuations in the population. Three times over the centuries the settled agricultural populations vanished, and nearby pastoralists moved in and gradually became farmers. The third wave was comprised of the Israelites.
The great kingdom of David and Solomon? An earlier generation of biblical archaeologists thought they had uncovered the remains of Solomon's mighty buildings described in the Bible. However, these buildings were all in the north, and contemporary Jerusalem was by contrast a rustic one-donkey town of 1000 inhabitants with perhaps a total population of 45,000 for all of Judah. It is inconceivable that the southern tail was wagging the northern dog, and the palaces in the north were re-dated to a few centuries after the time of Solomon and attributed to the monarchs of Israel. It would appear that far from being rulers of a powerful united kingdom, David and Solomon were actually just hill country chieftains, perhaps along the lines of the Scottish clan chiefs in medieval times.
A similarly falsified story is told in the Bible about the religion. We are given the impression of an original adherence to a strictly monotheistic cult of YHWH from which the people (especially the northerners) lapsed into the polytheism of the neighboring nations. However, polytheism was there from the beginning. The archaeologists have unearthed hundreds of figurines of naked fertility goddesses, and a few inscriptions are found in both Israel and Judah referring to the goddess Asherah as the consort of YHWH, Of Judah too the authors say, "the idolatry of the people of Judah was not a departure from their earlier monotheism. It was, instead, the way they had worshiped for hundreds of years."
Judah finally rose to prominence after the Assyrians destroyed Israel in 720 BC. The influx of refugees from the north swelled the population, and by co-operating with the Assyrians the Judahite kings increased their power for a while. With an interest in claiming the old northern territory the scribes under Hezekiah began to re-write the history of the two kingdoms and to promote the YHWH-alone movement which had started earlier in the 8th century.
Under the rule of Josiah there was a concerted effort to stamp out polytheism. IN 622 BC it was claimed that a hitherto unknown book of the law had been found during the temple restoration, and shockingly the traditional practice of the cult of YHWH in Judah had been all wrong, and even the passover had not been kept properly since the long ago days of the Judges. This newly minted ancient document was surely the book of Deuteronomy, in which the literary form of the covenant is strikingly similar to Assyrian vassal treaties of the early 7th century.
It was only at this point that the monotheistic religion of YHWH became a reality a scant 35 years before the southern kingdom was destroyed by the Babylonians in 587 BC.
There is much dispute about the central figure of the New Testament. Some scholars, known as mythicists, believe that Jesus never existed, that the gospels are just a retelling of the myths around pagan deities like Osiris. I believe the weight of evidence supports the historicist position, that there really was a 1st century teacher known as Yeshua, who was probably crucified by the Romans. Moreover, the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) preserve much of his authentic teaching in the parables, the sermon on the mount and the apocalyptic prophecies of the end of the world. Of course that does not mean that everything in the gospels is "gospel truth." Myths and legends are attached to Jesus as they were to other ancient figures such as Apollonius of Tyana, who was also said to have been born of a virgin mother impregnated by a god, to have worked miracles and healed people and finally ascended into heaven.
As for the historical unreliability we may take one example from Luke. There is another thread about Mary's 10-year pregnancy, the point being that Luke first places the conception of both John the Baptist and Jesus in the reign of King Herod who died in 4 BC but then puts Jesus' birth in the time of Quirinius as governor, 6 or 7 AD. Moreover, he states that there was a census of the entire Roman Empire, but we have no other knowledge of that. It is quite inconceivable that there would be no surviving records from the Romans of such a massive undertaking. Neither is it very plausible that Augustus would have ordered such a clumsy procedure as having everyone travel back to the town where his distant ancestors came from. It is simply a device to get Jesus' parents from Nazareth to Bethlehem where the Messiah was supposed to be born.
So the facts suggest that for the most part both the Old Testament and the New Testament are on very shaky ground historically.
Moving on to the next question, I ask:
Q: How much reliability does the Bible have as a historical document?
A: Almost none.
Here is a summary of the findings of an important book on biblical archaeology. The Bible Unearthed: archaeology's new vision of ancient Israel and the origin of its sacred texts. Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman. The Free Press (Simon & Shuster), 2001. 385 pp.
There was no historical basis for the legends of the patriarchs recorded in Genesis. Here are a few historical discrepancies in the patriarchal narratives of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. By the biblical chronology these patriarchs would have to be dated to the Bronze Age, ca 1800 - 1700 BC. Camels regularly appear in these stories, but in fact the camel was not domesticated until about 1000 BC, and camel caravans were not common until the 7th century BC when these stories were written down. Isaac is said to have met the Philistine King (Gen 26:1) but in fact the Philistines did not invade from the sea until ca. 1200 BC. The Moabites and Ammonites arrived on the scene even later, and the story of Lot incestuously fathering Moab and Ammon reflects the ethnic rivalries of the 9th - 7th centuries, as does the story of Esau as the supposed progenitor of the Edomites, who do not appear in history until the late 8th century.
Most shocking of all, the central narrative of the Old Testament never happened, that is, the bondage of the Israelites in Egypt, their deliverance, and wandering for 40 years in the wilderness, and the subsequent conquest of the promised land.
As for the sojourn in Egypt, a population of Israelites in the hundreds of thousands would necessarily leave archaeological traces, but they are nowhere to be found. In the opinion of the authors the Exodus story reflects the conflict in the 7th century between Judah and Egypt with Judah hoping to annex the lost territories of the northern kingdom (Israel) and the mighty nation of Egypt wanting to control the land route to Asia Minor. Likewise Exodus names some of the camp sites where the Israelites supposedly stopped in the Sinai desert (Kadesh and Ezion-geber). These have been identified and excavated, but again there is no evidence for this host.
The ancient cities of Jericho, Ai, Gibeon, Lachish, and Hador have been located and excavated, and the evidence for a conquest is very weak. Indeed it seems that those walls at Jericho never came tumbling down because most of these cities had no walls and were not sacked. It appears that the Israelites had no need to invade Canaan because they were already there. The evidence is that in this region there were cyclical fluctuations in the population. Three times over the centuries the settled agricultural populations vanished, and nearby pastoralists moved in and gradually became farmers. The third wave was comprised of the Israelites.
The great kingdom of David and Solomon? An earlier generation of biblical archaeologists thought they had uncovered the remains of Solomon's mighty buildings described in the Bible. However, these buildings were all in the north, and contemporary Jerusalem was by contrast a rustic one-donkey town of 1000 inhabitants with perhaps a total population of 45,000 for all of Judah. It is inconceivable that the southern tail was wagging the northern dog, and the palaces in the north were re-dated to a few centuries after the time of Solomon and attributed to the monarchs of Israel. It would appear that far from being rulers of a powerful united kingdom, David and Solomon were actually just hill country chieftains, perhaps along the lines of the Scottish clan chiefs in medieval times.
A similarly falsified story is told in the Bible about the religion. We are given the impression of an original adherence to a strictly monotheistic cult of YHWH from which the people (especially the northerners) lapsed into the polytheism of the neighboring nations. However, polytheism was there from the beginning. The archaeologists have unearthed hundreds of figurines of naked fertility goddesses, and a few inscriptions are found in both Israel and Judah referring to the goddess Asherah as the consort of YHWH, Of Judah too the authors say, "the idolatry of the people of Judah was not a departure from their earlier monotheism. It was, instead, the way they had worshiped for hundreds of years."
Judah finally rose to prominence after the Assyrians destroyed Israel in 720 BC. The influx of refugees from the north swelled the population, and by co-operating with the Assyrians the Judahite kings increased their power for a while. With an interest in claiming the old northern territory the scribes under Hezekiah began to re-write the history of the two kingdoms and to promote the YHWH-alone movement which had started earlier in the 8th century.
Under the rule of Josiah there was a concerted effort to stamp out polytheism. IN 622 BC it was claimed that a hitherto unknown book of the law had been found during the temple restoration, and shockingly the traditional practice of the cult of YHWH in Judah had been all wrong, and even the passover had not been kept properly since the long ago days of the Judges. This newly minted ancient document was surely the book of Deuteronomy, in which the literary form of the covenant is strikingly similar to Assyrian vassal treaties of the early 7th century.
It was only at this point that the monotheistic religion of YHWH became a reality a scant 35 years before the southern kingdom was destroyed by the Babylonians in 587 BC.
There is much dispute about the central figure of the New Testament. Some scholars, known as mythicists, believe that Jesus never existed, that the gospels are just a retelling of the myths around pagan deities like Osiris. I believe the weight of evidence supports the historicist position, that there really was a 1st century teacher known as Yeshua, who was probably crucified by the Romans. Moreover, the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) preserve much of his authentic teaching in the parables, the sermon on the mount and the apocalyptic prophecies of the end of the world. Of course that does not mean that everything in the gospels is "gospel truth." Myths and legends are attached to Jesus as they were to other ancient figures such as Apollonius of Tyana, who was also said to have been born of a virgin mother impregnated by a god, to have worked miracles and healed people and finally ascended into heaven.
As for the historical unreliability we may take one example from Luke. There is another thread about Mary's 10-year pregnancy, the point being that Luke first places the conception of both John the Baptist and Jesus in the reign of King Herod who died in 4 BC but then puts Jesus' birth in the time of Quirinius as governor, 6 or 7 AD. Moreover, he states that there was a census of the entire Roman Empire, but we have no other knowledge of that. It is quite inconceivable that there would be no surviving records from the Romans of such a massive undertaking. Neither is it very plausible that Augustus would have ordered such a clumsy procedure as having everyone travel back to the town where his distant ancestors came from. It is simply a device to get Jesus' parents from Nazareth to Bethlehem where the Messiah was supposed to be born.
So the facts suggest that for the most part both the Old Testament and the New Testament are on very shaky ground historically.
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people — House
