Under Construction

On this page and the Inerrancy and Authority of the bible page we discuss some of the criticisms of the Bible and Christianity. I am not an biblical apologist and make no attempt to counter these criticisms; There are other places to look for that (see links below). Most people, even of other religions, believe the Bible is at least inspired by God, if not the literal "Word of God".
Although there are inconsistencies in some details in the bible (Many Christians refute this saying it is just our lack of understanding) it is generally very consistent considering more than 40 authors wrote it over more than a thousand years.

The people who make the most sense to me in this discussion claim you cannot prove or disprove the bible.
There are mysteries in the Bible that the human mind can't resolve. Reason will only get you so far; A certain amount of faith is required.
See Faith vs Reason

Top Questions/Objections

• Why does a Loving God allow Suffering?
  See Why suffering.
• Why should I be a Christian when so many I know are hypocrites?
  See Hypocrisy
• Don't we all have the same God? Why do christians think theirs is the "true religion".
  See Why Christianity.
• Why would a just God condemn "good" people who never had a chance to hear about Christ or rejected "organized Christianity" because of its shortcomings?
  See: ChristianBibleNews.blogspot.com/ and Strobel's book (below). Judgement, Salvation and Eternal Life
• Others in Lee Strobel's book "The Case for Faith: A Journalist Investigates the Toughest Objections to Christianity"
  See: Summary of the book at HourOfPower.org.
  • Miracles Contradict Science
  • Evolution explains life, so God Isn't needed
  • A loving God would never send people to hell
  • Can you be a Christian if you still have doubts?

• Predestination vs Free Will. - One of the major controversies among Christians is the extent of predestination that God has ordained. At the extremes are those who claim that God uses only one to the exclusion of the other. Either extreme is wrong, since the Bible clearly indicates that both are in operation. See Predestination vs Free Will
• Some things that appear to be contradicitons have explinations. Consider the times and people for whom it was originally written. This may explain things that are hard to understand in a modern context.
  The eye for an eye [Exodus 21:23-27] philosophy of the old testament vs the "turn the other cheek" [Matt 5:38-42] philosophy of Christ. Actually this is part of continuum to make people more forgiving. In ancient times when a person of one tribe was injured by another tribe, vengeance was taken out on the whole tribe, so the eye for an eye rule was a toned down version of this. The turn the other cheek took it a step further.

The Bible has several places which seem to be inconsistent with the moral message.

• Moses commands troups to kill women and children in Midian Numbers 31:17-18
• Moses commands his people to kill their brothers, sons and neighbors who worshiped improperly. Exodus 32:27
• Elisha calls down a curse on some youths who mocked his baldness, and 42 are killed by a bear. [2 Kings 2:23-24]
• Uzza is killed for trying to keep the Ark of the Covenant from falling. [1Chronicles 13:7-11]]
• You can't be my disciple unless you hate your family [Luke 14:26-27].

A study Bible with comments and explanations at the bottom of each page can help to resolve some difficult passages.
Joining a Bible study group is a good way to get help in understanding it.

Make sure you read the whole chapter so you get the complete context of a verse.

Here are some opposing views I ran across. I have not taken time to critically analyze them and many may contain half truths, so you should not take them at face value.

Prophecies criticized: At www.oocities.org/Metzad/324x0.htm Eliyahu Silver refutes 15 of the 324 messianic prophecies listed at the Baptist Hope of Israel Page

Silver says: "according to their homepage, it is for them a divine commandment to reach out to the Jewish people and shove these lies down their throat, until they accept upon themselves a few extra gods and/or a God forsaken, extra-Biblical "trinity", that flies right in the face of what God wrote in the Torah: Hear Israel, Y-H-W-H is our God, Y-H-W-H is ONE! "Deuteronomy 6:4"

Books:
"The Case for Faith: A Journalist Investigates the Toughest Objections to Christianity"
Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas, by Elaine Pagels.
Thomas' gospel was rejected, when the New Testament canon was fixed in 357. Like John his gospel centers its theme on a higher knowledge available in Jesus' words and message, but Thomas claimed that light of God is in everyone not just Jesus. Pagels uses this to point out the startling diversity in early Christian thought.

Misquoting Jesus: : The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why, Bart Ehrman
The result of years of reading the texts in their original languages. Ehrman says the modern Bible was shaped by mistakes and intentional alterations that were made by early scribes who copied the texts.

"In God, Distrust: How Religion Poisons Everything", 2007, Cristopher Hitchens

Julia Sweeney's Book, CD and off Broadway show "Letting Go of God",
describe how she lost her faith.

Others:
Alleged Errors in the Bible Part Two, Part Three, Part Four (couldn't find Part 1)
 at www.johnankerberg.org

and Matthew 11:25: "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children."

i.e. We're not smart enough to figure it out.

Others use the "words have a different meaning in the original Hebrew or Greek".
You might expect these problems with the King James Version (KJV), which follows a "formal equivalence" (word-for-word) translation principle rather than a "dynamic equivalence" (thought for thought) principle of other modern translations. But this argument is used for the newer translations also.

Some questions - things I am trying to resolve:

• The conflict between the salvation thru faith and grace [Ephesians 2:8-9, John 3:16] vs salvation thru acts in James 2:14-17.
• Christ refuses to see his Mother and brother in Luke 8:19-21.   John 7:3-8 says they didn't understand what he was doing.
• You can't be my disciple unless you hate your family (Luke 14:26-27).

Other Criticisms:

• Why did God only reveal himself to the house of Israel (initially) and Gentiles in the Mideast and Europe. Couldn't he have done the same in Asia, Africa, the Americas?
  This is related to the question "Why would a just God condemn "good" people who never had a chance to hear about Christ. above.
• Why is there no record of the Plagues in Exodus 9 or the Exodus in general in Egyptian history.
• Archaology which doesn't support the bible:
  • No evidence of Exodus, kingdoms of David or Solomon or much of anything about ancient Israel until the seventh century B.C.
  • Camels mentioned in [Genesis 24:10] (2000 BC) were not widely used until after 1000 BC
• Why is there no mention of dionsaurs?
  The related question is why did God let many species go extinct.
• What about the churches persecution of scientists who discovered the helliocentric (sun centered) nature solar system. This was mainly the churches view the only thing in the Bible about it is in [Joshua 10:12-13]: "So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, "
• The Torah (first 5 books of the old testament) attributed to Moses, who lived about 1,500 BCE. The hebrew language only came about in the 9th or 10th century BCE, so it was passed down by word of mouth. Most of us have played the game variously known as Chinese whispers, Telephone, Broken Telephone starts with one player whispering a phrase to the next successively down the line. What ends up usually is very different. The argument is that jews memorized it exactly as part of their religious training .

Violence:
In addition to religious wars there has been a lot of violence associated with the religious right. A few are:

• Timothy McVeigh, Oklahoma City Bombing
• Late-term abortionist George Tiller killed by Kansas native Scott Roeder
• The Army of God has taken responsibility for the bombing of a gay bar and an abortion clinic in Atlanta.
• Paul Hill, a former Presbyterian minister and leader in Defensive Action assassinated a physician and bodyguard outside an abortion clinic.
• Opposition to gun control
• Support of the KKK in the early 20th century

Links:
Bible Inerrancy
Is the Bible True at (www.christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-t003.html)
Apologetics Encyclopedia
Alleged Bible Discrepancies at ApologeticsPress.org
Jesus at (www.apologeticsindex.org/j20.html)
Why Christianity
campus.fortunecity.com/defiant/666/essays.html by GR Gaudreau.
List of "Biblical Inconsistencies"
Bible contradictions - by category
What The Christian Fundamentalist Doesn't Want You To Know: A Brief Survey of Biblical Errancy
Contradictions Answered
Answers to so called Bible contradictions

Books:
Good Book: The Bizarre, Hilarious, Disturbing, Marvelous, and Inspiring Things I Learned When I Read Every Single Word of the Bible by David Plotz