Student99

Hello Everyone,

I am a High School student, and am now confronted with writing my senior paper, I decided to choose "The Bible" as my topic, and i wanted to delve into the information on whether the bible was real or not. Unfortunately i have ran into a bunch of road blocks, and Cannot seem to find any literature Opposing the Bible's legitimacy, If any of you could possibly provide me with some Authors or even Books that give a good defense on whether the Bible is real or not I would greatly appreciate it.

Thx in advance

Secular Pinoy

You can start by perusing Peter Kirby's Recommended Reading List on the top of this forum.

Student99

Yes, i did look through that list, but really didnt find anything that "seemed" that it was opposing the bible...

Peter Kirby

Hello,

You are right that none of the books in my list of recommended reading were written with the express purpose of opposing the "legitimacy" of the Bible. But if you are interested in anti-apologetics, you could start with the Biblical Errancy section of the Secular Web.

best,
Peter Kirby

Koyaanisqatsi

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "real" or "legitimate." Do you mean, "non-fiction?"

In other words, are you looking for books that speculate on the origins of the mythology?

Student99

SOrry for the late Reply, koyaan, yes something among those lines, and thank you peter, i will certainly look into that

Secular Pinoy

Heh, I thought PK's list does oppose the bible! Anyway, the Historical Documents section of the Secular Web has several online books criticizing the bible. You can start with these ones in particular:

• Some Mistakes of Moses by Robert Ingersoll
• Is it God's Word? by Joseph Wheless
• Forgery in Christianity by Joseph Wheless
• Age of Reason by Thomas Paine
• The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors by Kersey Graves

Koyaanisqatsi

There are many great books out there on the subject (as well as a lot of discussion and essays here), but I can personally recommend right off the bat a book by Burton Mack called Who Wrote The New Testament? The Making of The Christian Myth.

Sojourner553

First, let me point out that you have picked a very broad topic.



I will give you a source summary of many topics--here let me give you a broad outline:

http://mac-2001.com/philo/crit/index.html


Section II: A description of many of the descrepancies in the Old Testament stories/ similarities with pagan stories.


(recommended: Birth stories, Miracles, Apocalypse events)

Section III: Shows how the texts themselves are not all from one source; have had "revisions" by many later hands.

Section IV: Similaries of Christianity with Mithraism and the Gnostics sects especially. Shows for example why Christmas is celebrated which is clearly Mithra's birthday -- not Jesus'

Section V: Gives a history of the early Christian sects, how they were eradicated by the Orthodox Church. (Much more Dark Ages, etc -- how religion influenced).

Section VI: Chapter 1: Shows how the concepts of heaven, hell, and the devil evolved over time and between the OT and NT; also discusses the philosopher's paradox on the nature of God in Chapter 2.


Section VII: Recommend Chapter 4: Near Death experiences; relics, speaking in tongues, stigmata, etc.

Section VIII: Philosophical proofs for the existance of God (and their flaws)

Would recommend Chapter 3: Which shows were the Bible conflicts with scientific findings in biology and astronomy.


That should keep you busy!

Viti

The Bible is a collection of many writings...which specific parts were you looking at? I thought The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity was a good refutation of the Paulianic writings