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Goodbye Jesus

A Case Against The Historical Validity Of Bible


Tzarza

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Hello ex-C hivemind, I have a question for you. 

 

What are the most convincing reading/sources would you recommend that discuss the historical validity of the bible? I have lots of small, or secondary sources that I trust, but I would like to present the best case possible. 

 

I've been discussing thoughts about spirituality/Christianity with a friend who I know to be a Christian. He is quite a liberal thinker, very intelligent, very well-schooled it seems. Although it's come up that he believes in the historical validity of the Bible and I don't, we haven't really probed that discussion yet. I have a suspicion that this is one of the major things which holds his faith up. He also claims to be a descendant of Martin Luther, and I think he has a certain pride in that. Although I don't know his exact thoughts, I know that he is at least familiar with the 'q' documents. I don't think he took them seriously. Given his intelligence,  I wouldn't expect him to believe in the validity of the bible, but I know that my reasons for not believing aren't good enough to ..deconvince him. 

 

So what sources do you recommend that I check out? Anything academic? 

 

 

 

 

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Maybe you didn't see it yet but SRD does a nice job on his blog.

 

http://contradictionsinthebible.com/how-do-we-know-that-the-biblical-writers-were-not-writing-history/

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Ummm.....pretty much anything related to the field of archaeology.

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TZARZA: Just for your information, the Q documents did not survive. At least that's my understanding. Q is the letter historians gave to refer to a  document or documents that they know were use by one or more of the Gospel writers in their creating those very same Gospels. But nobody has copies of Q. If I'm wrong in this will somebody come forward and correct me? 

 

One source is "The Born Again Skeptics Guide to the Bible, by Ruth Hurnence. And Godless,  by Dan Barker. There are many, but I don't have a list handy. A good library would have them.   bill

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Why I Believed by Ken Daniels has a very good chapter on this. $1 on Kindle

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So what sources do you recommend that I check out? Anything academic? 

 

For starters:

 

Jesus, Interrupted by Bart Ehrman for the New Testament

 

The Bible Unearthed by Finkelstein and Silberman for the Old Testament

 

Why I Believed by Ken Daniels has a very good chapter on this. $1 on Kindle

 

I plunked down the buck for Ken's book, but you can actually read it online for free here.

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I have found it best to let scholars present their case rather than get into debates and arguements with a believer because that is usually viewed as opinion based rather than fact based.
 

Everyone is different. If your friend is a discerning person I doubt he will be convinced by any one source of information. I’m an inquisitive person but not necessarily an intellectual one and it took me seven full years of study and research before I was convinced the bible and Christianity simply was not true in any literal or historical sense.

 

I’ve recommended Karen Armstrong’s book A History of God to a number of people. She is recognized as a world renown religious historian.She is a former nun.  Just about anything Bart Ehrman or Robert M Price has written would be good. They are both exception biblical historians. Ehrman’s book Misquoting Jesus & Jesus Interrupted are two excellent sources for discrediting the bible supposed inerrant status.

 

Anything written by Dr. Robert M. Price would be good. I would recommend his book The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man and The Christ Myth Theory & It’s Problems as two excellent books that debunk Christianity.



 

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I enjoyed "Why the Jews Rejected Jesus." The author is a Jewish theist, so it doesn't address the validity of the Old Testament but rather accepts it, but it does a nice job of exposing the holes in the Christian new testament.

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