Criticism of the Bible, the collection of religious texts held to be sacred by Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and other Abrahamic religions, often concerns the text’s factual accuracy, moral tenability, and supposed inerrancy claimed by biblical literalists. There remain questions of biblical authorship and what material to include in the biblical canon. Christian fundamentalists regard the Bible as the perfect word of God; fundamentalist Jews hold the Hebrew Bible in similar high regard.
Modern scholarship holds that most biblical books are of unknown or multiple authorship and combine tradition, myth, and polemic rather than strict history. Critics note biblical inconsistencies and textual issues. Bible translation involves interpretive choices and manuscript differences, leading to debates over accuracy and meaning. Archaeological evidence supports few Old Testament events and challenges many others. Critics argue that the Bible’s early narratives, including the Genesis, the Exodus, and the united monarchy, are historically and scientifically inaccurate, as evidence from archaeology, geology, astronomy, biology, and genetics contradicts literal interpretations. Though Jesus is broadly agreed to have existed, the details of his historicity are also debated.
Philosophers Elizabeth S. Anderson and Simon Blackburn argue that the Bible is morally inconsistent, citing passages they describe as endorsing slavery, genocide, misogyny, violence, and other unethical practices.
Authorship
At the end of the 17th century, only a few Bible scholars doubted that Moses wrote the Torah (also known as the Pentateuch, traditionally called the "Five Books of Moses"), such as Thomas Hobbes, Isaac La Peyrère and Baruch Spinoza, but in the late 18th century some scholars such as Jean Astruc (1753)Encarta-encyclopedie Winkler Prins (1993–2002) s.v. "Astruc, Jean". Microsoft Corporation/Het Spectrum. began to systematically question his authorship. By the end of the 19th century, some such as Julius Wellhausen and Abraham KuenenEncarta-encyclopedie Winkler Prins (1993–2002) s.v. "Pentateuch. §2. Theorie van gesplitste bronnen". 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) to 500 BC (the time of Ezra) and that the history it contained was often more polemical rather than strictly factual. By the first half of the 20th century, Hermann Gunkel had drawn attention to mythic aspects, and Albrecht Alt, Martin Noth, 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 mention an author, some of which are probably or known to be pseudepigrapha, 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 by John of Patmos (not by John the Apostle, nor by the author(s) of the other 'Johannine literature'). Scholars disagree whether Paul wrote the "Deutero-Pauline epistles" and whether Simon Peter 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 has proposed that there are several examples of gnostic attitudes in the Pauline epistles. Bart D. Ehrman and Raymond E. Brown note that some of the Pauline epistles are widely regarded by scholars as pseudonymous,Scholars who hold to Pauline authorship include Wohlenberg, Lock, Meinertz, Thornell, Schlatter, Spicq, Jeremais, Simpson, Kelly, and Fee. Donald Guthrie, New Testament Introduction, p. 622. and it is the view of Timothy Freke, 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 and Christian Bibles, are considered sacred and authoritative 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 proposed rejecting the entire Jewish Bible. He considered the God portrayed therein to be a lesser deity, a demiurge, and that the law of Moses was contrived. A similar view is referred to as Jesuism, which does not affirm the scriptural authority of any biblical text other than the teachings of Jesus in the Gospels.
Judaism discount the New Testament and Old Testament deuterocanonicals. They, along with most Christians, also discredit the legitimacy of New Testament apocrypha.
Ethics Elizabeth Anderson, a professor of philosophy and women's studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, states that "the Bible contains both good and evil teachings", and it is "morally inconsistent".
Anderson criticizes commands she interprets that 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 (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 (for men), the killing of prisoners, and child sacrifice. 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" (Matthew 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, 1 Corinthians 14:34–35, Ephesians 5:22–24, Colossians 3:18, 1 Timothy 2:11–12, 1 Peter 3:1). Anderson states that the Gospel of John implies that "infants and anyone who never had the opportunity to hear about Christ are damned [to hell], through no fault of their own".
Simon Blackburn 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" (Matthew 10:5–6),: "Then the persona of Jesus in the Gospels has his fair share of moral quirks. He can be sectarian: 'Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not. But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel' (Matt. 10:5–6)." racist (Matthew 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 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 (Leviticus 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 historicity of the Bible is the question of the Bible's "acceptability as a history".
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.
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
The validity of the Gospels is challenged by writers like Kersey Graves and Gerald Massey, who argue that the story of Jesus incorporates elements from mythic tales, such as those of Horus and Greek myths.Freke, Timothy and Gandy, Peter (1999) The Jesus Mysteries. London: Thorsons (Harper Collins) Comparative mythology examines these parallels and suggests that Christianity may be based on a mythical creation rather than a historical figure. Some critics propose that Jesus was the Jewish manifestation of a Pan-Hellenic cult known as Osiris-Dionysus.
Christ myth theory 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. This is in contrast with writers such as David Strauss, 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 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 note that the authors of the Gospels are not known.
In modern scholarship, the Christ myth theory is considered a fringe theory and is dismissed by virtually every scholar.
Internal consistency