John Kesler

The best books on Bible errancy aren't those with the stated goal of debunking some aspect of the Bible. It's better to read books by real Bible scholars, most of whom are not Bible inerrantists. I highly recomend James L. Kugel's How To Read The Bible (or via: amazon.co.uk) (not to be confused with Marc Zvi Brettler's book of the same title (or via: amazon.co.uk), also a good read). Kugel discusses many Bible stories, and gives the traditional interpretation as well as what many scholars believe was actually the case. Though not intended to undermine the Bible, any honest appraisal of the text leads to the inevitable conclusion that it contains errors.

Toto

Reminder - How to construct Amazon links to benefit II

mrunicycler

FYI, don't mistake my one quote for meaning that the entire book (the encyclopedia of biblical errancy) spends its time 'proving that the bible records god doing evil things'. I just happen to think that one bit is worth remembering (or at least being able to look up)

Much of the book is dedicated to picking out pieces that contradict each other, which is what you said you were looking for in the OP. For instance, on page 92 he lists at least ten contradictions the bible has regarding the resurection in this manner:

Maybe not the most dramatic bit of prose, but it seems to fit the bill of what you asked for perfectly.

The author then goes into some discussion, before pointing out Eccle. 3:19-21, Job 7:9, Eccl 9:5, etc, which he claims refute the idea of anyone being able to resurrect, as they say things like, "he that goeth to the grave shall come up no more," etc.

I turn the page twice and find this among a couple of pages of a similar list:

Which, again, seems to fit exactly into what you were asking for when you said you wanted a book that 'focus(es) on textual evidence such as internal contradictions.'

B.S. Lewis

Thanks mruni.

mrunicycler

No prob. Hope you get as much use from the book as I did.

fatpie42

Okay, I'm actually looking for something similar to this. I've recently read E.P. Sander's "The Historical Figure of Jesus (or via: amazon.co.uk)" and to be quite honest, while I know some people don't think it goes far enough, I found it to be absolutely full of just the sort of thing you are looking for. It's one of the main reasons why I started my "Christian Urban Legends" thread.

However, the real reason why I ended up getting that book was firstly because it was readily available in my local book shop and secondly because it was highly recommended by a reviewer on Amazon while I was looking at some other books. Those other books I was looking into were both recommended by the iidb member 'Vorkosigan':

- Theissen et all "The Historical Jesus" (or via: amazon.co.uk)
- Crossan "The Birth of Christianity" (or via: amazon.co.uk)

I intend to read both of these when I'm not quite so thoroughly skint, but I have no idea what to expect.

jjramsey

I'd recommend Robin Lane Fox's Unauthorized Version: Truth and Fiction in the Bible. It's an older book, and Fox rather oddly concludes that gJohn was written by an eyewitness, but for the most part, it's a critical treatment of the Bible that neither pulls punches nor falls into dumb traps like "teh Bibble sez pi=3."

yalla

I was halfway through Robert M. Price's "The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man" before I got sidetracked by real life. Seems to fit the debunking descriptor reasonably well and its interestingly written. I intend to get back to it shortly.
And "The Bible Unearthed" by Finkelstien and Silberman [I prefer John Laughlin's "Bible and Archeology"] does a fair job on deconstructing the Jewish bible as does Thomas Thompson's "The Mythic Past".

Kelly

There is a fairly good online copy of most bible contradictions, written by William Burr in 1860 and found at scacred-texts.com. It's not a book of course, but on the other hand it's free. It's a very straightforward text and lacks any philosophical or apologist narrative. The text is quite lengthy and the author just points out all the contradictions in a very matter of fact manner.

http://63.249.123.11/bib/cv/scb/scb01.htm