Think you know the Bible?

Well, think again!

Although the Bible is a perennial best-seller, apparently a lot of Christians and Jews never actually read it, or they "cherry-pick" it, selecting only the verses they like and ignoring the unpalatable parts, meanwhile holding firmly to the untenable claim that the entire Bible is the inerrant, authoritative, inspired word of God. But is it really? The following is a list of ten irrefutable facts about the Bible that will help you realize that this supposedly sacred text is not the "Good Book" that so many people make it out to be, nor is it authentic. At the very least, we hope these points will inspire you to undertake your own unbiased critical study of a book that millions of people reverence without actually knowing very much about it.

1.) There is no single agreed-upon Bible.

The Bible (from the Greek "ta biblia" meaning books) is not a book in itself but rather a collection of books that comes in many forms and versions. The Jewish Bible (a.k.a. "Mikra" or "Tanakh") consists of 39 books originally written in Hebrew, the first five of which are known as the "Torah," the "Pentateuch," or the "Five Books of Moses," even though there is no evidence that Moses actually had anything to do with writing them. The Protestant Christian Bible consists of these same 39 books, called "The Old Testament," to which are added 27 books called "The New Testament," for a total of sixty-six books.

Other Christians use a slightly larger Bible. The Roman Catholic Bible has seventy-three books and the Eastern Orthodox Bible has seventy-six books. Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints have an additional holy text called The Book of Mormon.

There are also many translations. The Old Testament was translated from Hebrew to Greek to Latin before being translated into English and other modern languages. The New Testament went from Greek to Latin before being translated into modern languages. There are also many different "versions" of the Christian Bible, such as the King James Version, the American Standard Version, and so on. Even the Jews have more than one version.

The fact that there is no uniformity among either of the two oldest Abrahamic faiths begs this question: If the Bible is the authentic "Word of God," then why can't the people who reverence it agree on a single version?

2.) No one knows who wrote the Bible.

Even Christian and Jewish scholars agree that although the various books of the Bible-which were written over a period of about 1,500 years-are attributed to various supposed authors, the truth is that no one actually knows who wrote them, with the notable exception of the letters written by the Apostle Paul (who was not one of the disciples of Jesus nor did he know him personally).

3.) There are no extant original Bibles.

No "original" Bible exists; there are only some fragments and copies of copies that almost certainly contain all sorts of transcription errors. There have also been some notable later additions, such as the story of Jesus saying "He who is without sin, cast the first stone."

The oldest extant books of the Hebrew Bible, which record events that allegedly occurred many thousands of years earlier, are the Dead Sea Scrolls, which themselves date only from the first century C.E.* The oldest complete Hebrew Bible dates to the eighth century C.E.

The oldest nearly-complete Christian Bible in existence is the Codex Vaticanus, which is written in Greek and dates from the fourth century C.E. The Codex Sinaiticus (346 pages in Greek), which also dates from the fourth century is the second oldest.

The first complete Christian Bible was authorized by the Roman Emperor Constantine in 331 C.E., almost exactly three hundred years after Jesus is said to have been executed by the Romans. None still exist.

*C.E.="Common Era," now used in place of A.D.

4.) The Bible is wrong about science.

The Bible would have us believe that the earth is flat and has four corners (Isaiah 11:12 and Revelation 7:1), that it doesn't move (Psalm 104:5), that the stars are capable of falling to earth (Revelation 6:13) and that bats are birds (Leviticus 11:13-19).

These are just a few examples of where the Bible gets it all wrong in regard to science.

5.) The Bible can't possibly be accurate.

Ask yourself: If human beings were not created until the sixth day in the first of the two contradictory Creation accounts (see Genesis 1:2-31 and Genesis 2:1-3), then clearly no one could have witnessed the Creation. So how can we be sure that the Biblical report of it is accurate?

This might explain why the unknown writer of Genesis wrote that God created light as well as the day and the evening on the first day but didn't get around to creating the Sun, and the Moon, and the Stars, the things that actually emit or reflect light, until the fourth day.

Here's another one: In Luke 22:41-45 (there are similar accounts in Matthew and Mark but not John), Jesus withdrew "about a stone's cast" from his disciples "and kneeled down and prayed" while they slept. The Bible is very specific about what Jesus said and also remarks that an angel appeared "unto him from heaven, strengthening him." Well, if Jesus was apart from his disciples, who were all asleep, then how could the gospel-writers know what he said when he prayed or that an angel appeared "unto him?" Clearly there were no eyewitnesses to this private interlude except Jesus.

And let's face it: No one followed Moses or Jesus or any other biblical figure around with a voice recorder nor did shorthand, a method of taking notes quickly, exist in Biblical times. It's also a fact that most people who lived in Biblical times were illiterate. Jesus himself was almost certainly illiterate. Certainly, he never actually wrote anything himself. So how can anyone be sure that the words that he and other Biblical figures are said to have spoken are actually what they said?

Even if some New Testament events were recorded by eye-witnesses or people who interviewed them, these accounts were written down decades after the fact. How many people can accurately remember what anyone said, word-for-word, some forty or fifty or sixty years later? So think about it: When you say something like "and Jesus said," how can you be sure he actually said it? The truth is that you can't.

It is also a fact that there are no contemporary Jewish or Roman records to corroborate the gospels, as well as no historical evidence that some of the events in the Old Testament, such as the Jewish Exodus from Egypt, actually occurred.

6.) The Bible is a deplorable moral guide.

As a moral guide, the Bible is sorely lacking. The first four items in the first version of the Ten Commandments (Yes, there are two of those as well!) have nothing whatsoever to do with morality and the list is also woefully incomplete, making no mention of rape, incest, child abuse, and many other abhorrent practices. Ironically, the Bible condones or encourages several immoral and unethical practices or behaviors, some of which are downright disgusting. Here are a few examples:

CANNIBALISM

"And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat." (Leviticus 26:29)

"And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they shall eat every one the flesh of his friend." (Jeremiah 19:9)

INCEST

Abraham and Sarah)
"And yet indeed she is my sister; she is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife." (Genesis 20:12)

(Lot and his daughters)
"And the elder said to the younger, our father is old, and there is no man left on the earth, to come in unto us after the manner of the whole earth. Come, let us make him drunk with wine, and let us lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father. And they made their father drink wine that night: and the elder went in and lay with her father: but he perceived not neither when his daughter lay down, nor when she rose up. And the next day the elder said to the younger: Behold I lay last night with my father, let us make him drink wine also to night, and thou shalt lie with him, that we may save seed of our father. They made their father drink wine that night also, and the younger daughter went in, and lay with him: and neither then did he perceive when she lay down, nor when she rose up. So the two daughters of Lot were with child by their father." (Genesis 1

INFANTICIDE and SLAUGHTER

"How blessed will be the one who seizes and dashes your little ones against the rock." (Psalms 137:9)

"I heard the LORD say to the other men, "Follow him through the city and kill everyone whose forehead is not marked. Show no mercy; have no pity! Kill them all; old and young, girls and women and little children. But do not touch anyone with the mark. Begin your task right here at the Temple." So they began by killing the seventy leaders. "Defile the Temple!" the LORD commanded. "Fill its courtyards with the bodies of those you kill! Go!" So they went throughout the city and did as they were told." (Ezekiel 9:5-7)

SLAVERY

"Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves." (Leviticus 25:44)

"Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh." (1 Peter 2:18)

FAMILY VALUES?

"If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." (Jesus quoted in Luke 14:26)

THE PRINCE OF PEACE?

"Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword." (Jesus quoted in Matthew 10:34)

"But those mine enemies which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me." (Jesus quoted in Luke 19:27)

7.) In the Bible, God is neither merciful nor just.

One Bible story that supposedly demonstrates God's love and mercy is found in Genesis 22, where God instructs Abraham to kill his son Isaac as a test of his faith and love for God, but then sends an angel to stop him at the last minute. Even if God's commanding Abraham to do such a sick, twisted thing can be overlooked, where was his mercy in Judges 11? This tragic story has Jephthah the Gileadite, about to go into battle with the Ammonites, promising God that if he helps him win a victory, then when he [Jephthah] returns home, "whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me…shall surely be the Lord's, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering." (Judges 11:30-31) But then, after "the Lord delivered [the Ammonites]

into his hands" Jephthah "came unto his house…[and] behold his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and dances." (Judges 11:34) After Jephtah allowed his daughter two months to "bewail her virginity," she returned "unto her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed." (Judges 11:38-39) You have to wonder: Where was God's mercy when Jephtah killed his daughter and then burned her body as an offering? The Bible shows God himself is a murderer. Why did he kill all the first-born in the land of Egypt, children and others who had no power to enslave or free the Hebrews? What sort of justice or mercy is that? Why didn't he just kill Pharaoh? And why did he send a plague to kill 70,000 Israelites just because King David ordered a census to be taken? (2 Samuel 24:1-17)

8.) The Bible is full of contradictions

There are two creation accounts in Genesis 1 & 2. In one of them, man and woman are made on the same day. In the other, man is made first (from dust) and then woman is made from his rib. In one version the animals are made first; in the other the animals are made after man is made. They can't both be right. In truth, neither is. All people and animals evolved from a single ancient ancestor.

There are also two accounts of Noah and the Flood. In one he takes a pair of each kind of animal into the ark. In the other he takes seven. Neither story is original. The Hebrews borrowed it from the Mesopotamians!

As every Christian knows, there are four accounts of Jesus' life in the New Testament. None of those are completely in agreement either. There are literally hundreds, if not thousands of puzzling contradictions in the Bible.

9.) The U.S. government is not Bible-based.

Unlike the states, the U.S. Constitution makes no mention of God, or Jesus, or the Bible, or Christianity. Furthermore, Article VI, Clause 4, which was unanimously adopted by the Constitutional Convention, states quite plainly that "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States." In addition to the First Amendment, which states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion," the Treaty with Tripoli, unanimously ratified by the Senate in 1797, states unequivocally that "the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion."

10.) Intelligent people have questioned the Bible.

Thomas Paine, one of the most thoughtful and intelligent of America's founding fathers, subjected the Bible to critical examination in his book The Age of Reason, pointing out the Bible's many contradictions and puzzling verses.

While President, Thomas Jefferson assembled his own personal "Jefferson Bible" by removing all the supernatural parts of four Bibles (one each in Greek, Latin, French and English), leaving only the moral teachings of Jesus, which he held had "been…disfigured by the corruptions of schismatizing followers, who have found an interest in sophisticating and perverting the simple doctrines he taught, by engrafting on them the mysticisms of a Grecian sophist, frittering them into subtleties, and obscuring them with jargon, until they have caused good men to reject the whole in disgust, and to view Jesus himself as an impostor." (Letter to Benjamin Rush, April 21, 1803)

Paine and Jefferson are but two of a whole host of intelligent people throughout the western world that have critically examined the Bible and found it wanting. Perhaps you should also take a closer look!

Recommended Reading:

• Allen, Steve. Steve Allen on the Bible, Religion and Morality (Buffalo, New York: Prometheus Books, 1990).
• Allen, Steve. More Steve Allen on the Bible, Religion and Morality (Buffalo, New York: Prometheus Books, 1993).
• Barker, Dan. God: The Most Unpleasant Character in All Fiction (New York: Sterling Publishing Co., 2016).
• Finklestein, Israel and Silberman, Neil Asher. The Bible Unearthed (New York: The Free Press, 2001).
• Ehrman, Bart D. Forged: Writing in the Name of God…(San Francisco: HarperOne, 2011).
• Graham, Lloyd. Deceptions and Myths of the Bible (Secaucus, NJ: A Citadel Press Book, Carol Publishing Group, 1999).
• Greenberg, Gary. 101 Myths of the Bible: How Ancient Scribes Invented Biblical History (New York, NY: Bristol Parks Books, 2014).
• Ingersoll, Robert G. About the Bible: A Lecture (New York: C. P. Farrell, Publisher, 1894).
• Paine, Thomas. The Age of Reason (New York: Barnes & Noble, 2006). [Originally published in 1794.]
• Pickett, Lynn and Prince, Clive. The Masks of Christ: Behind the Lies and Cover-ups About the Man Believed to be God (London, England: Sphere, 2008).
• Wells, Steve. The Skeptic's Annotated Bible (S.A.B. Books, 2013).

10 Irrefutable Facts About

"The Holy Bible"

That everyone should know!

"…that the Bible is the Word of God; that whatever it contains was given by Divine inspiration; and that it is the only rule of faith and practice; is self-evidently absurd, exceedingly injurious to both the intellect and soul, highly pernicious in its application, and a stumbling block in the way of human redemption…That this doctrine has too long been held as a potent weapon in the hands of time-serving commentators and designing priests, to beat down the rising spirit of religious liberty, and to discourage scientific development, to subserve the interests of blind guides and false teachers, and to fill all christendom with contention and strife, and therefore the time has come to declare its untruthfulness and to unmask those are guilty of this imposture."

-William Lloyd Garrison (1854)

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