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I first created a simple web site in 1999 in order to have a place to post my research on the subject of Christianity so that I could more readily make available to others what I discovered through my own studies. [It was later converted to Google sites, and more recently, when that changed it was offline for a while and has not been updated or reformatted since.]
To make a long story short, I grew up in an evangelical, fundamentalist form of Christianity. While studying and preparing to be a minister, however, my studies made it completely obvious that I had been misinformed. The Christianity that I inherited proved to be false. The Bible is demonstrably a fallible collection of human writings, not "the perfect, infallible work of a personal God." Despite Christianity's rich symbols, stories, and metaphors, when the religion is taken literally and at face value, it amounts to error on a massive scale.
Too many people are unwilling or unable to look deeply into their inherited religion with any critical eye. I wish to share my findings and the evidence with any Christians who are open-minded enough to study diligently, so that fewer and fewer people will devote their lives and energies in vain to outdated, fallacious, and harmful ideas. My hope is that future generations will one day be free from the weight of misguided ancient traditions.
Please read these papers as thoroughly as you are able, and let me know your reaction to the information presented. If you can find mistakes, any at all, please make them known to me, and if you are aware of other helpful sources, please mention such.
E-mail me at bodhi7442 at hotmail.com or gmail.
Thank you.
MJ Kruebbe
Some of My Papers:
This important paper uses the Bible itself to construct a time-line of Old Testament events, and then reveals, story-by-story, the mythical nature of much of the Torah and the foundations of the Judeo-Christian world-view. It takes the reader through the basic plot of the first five books of the Bible.
Here is a Scientific and Historical Time-line to which you can compare the Biblical time-line.
[Update and Side Issue: If a reader should want to explore what is known about the real ancient Egypt, in order to compare a slice of real history with the Bible, I started collecting information on Ancient History and the Bible.]
[I have also added a comparison of the "Mosaic Law" to the Code of Hammurabi, which existed long before the Hebrew/Jewish law.]
Most Christians are able to maintain their faith because they do not understand Jewish history or the Old Testament in its historical context. This paper provides a nice survey of Jewish history from the time of the kings to the development of Christianity, and it covers the background and message of each of the prophetic books of the Old Testament. It explains Jewish prophecies of a messiah and compares them to what really happened in history, and it reveals the misleading twists put upon the Hebrew scriptures by orthodox Christians. Three of the most important sections of the paper are the following:
Appendix D: Christian Misinterpretations of the Hebrew Scriptures
Appendix B: The Suffering Servant - Jesus was not the "suffering servant" of Isaiah.
Epilogue: Why Jesus Was Not the Messiah, the Christ
But these sections are only properly understood by grasping the information presented in the main body of the paper.
Christian sources disagree on some very significant issues concerning what happened after Jesus' death. Examine these discrepancies and their ramifications along with other problems within Christian teachings about the resurrection. Note also how the Jesus resurrection stories are strikingly similar to other ancient stories about dying and reviving gods, saviors, demigods, and heroes, and use similar language and numerology.
Was Jesus crucified in the afternoon (the 6th hour after sunrise) on the day leading up to the Passover Meal, as in the anonymous gospel ascribed to John (see 18.28; 19.14-16)? Or was Jesus crucified about 9 in the morning (the 3rd hour after sunrise) on the day after the Passover meal, as in the anonymous gospel ascribed to Mark and the other 2 gospels that copy that plot (see Mark 14.12; 15.25). Or is neither version trustworthy? ... Beginning with that question, this essay examines the various conflicting gospel accounts of Jesus' death, finding that none are truly trustworthy accounts.
This is a list of problems that I have found with typical Christianity; some are statements, others are in the form of questions to which I found no satisfactory answer in orthodoxy. There is no set order (#5, #12, #17, and #20 are among my favorites), and the strongest reasons are not the initial ones, but the weight of the entirety.
NT textual and historical criticism, and the historical Jesus. The idea that the New Testament Gospels contain the words of Jesus is a very problematic assumption.
Some aspects of Christianity too closely resemble Roman Imperial Cult and the propaganda behind it. Since the Roman cults preceded Christianity, either some copying was going on (by way of competition or otherwise), or the same cultural forces and mythological influences shaped both cults. Virgin births, unions of Gods and mortal women, alleged prophecies of golden ages to come and saviors bringing peace, signs, portents, miracles, the darkening of the sun at the death of the savior, the ascension to heaven, the testimony of witnesses, postmortem deification -- all of these features and many more are shared between Christianity and various stories associated with Roman history and imperial religion.
Early Christians thought Jesus was coming back "soon," even within their lifetimes. They were wrong.
According to Christian writers of the gospels, Jesus himself also claimed the alotted time was fulfilled, the end was near, that people would see him as "Son of Man" / messiah-king, coming on the clouds of heaven with angels, and that he would sit on a throne, judge the nations, reward the chosen few who had repented and believed in the Jewish god YHWH and his messiah-king, and punish all unbelievers and evildoers. He said explicitly that it would all happen before that generation passed away and that some of his audience would live to see it. He was wrong. Rather than face such foundational errors and delusions, Christianity simply ignored and obfuscated those teachings, and most believers never really understood how they had been deceived.
Dr. Bart Ehrman explains what academic historians think we can know about the historical Jesus.
Listen to Dr. Bart Ehrman explain the apocalyptic message of the historical Jesus.
In his book Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium (1999, Oxford University Press), New Testament scholar and professor Bart Ehrman explained that historical investigation reveals Jesus to have been a first-century Jewish apocalypticist. Jesus expected that the history of the world was about to end, that the Jewish god YHWH was about to intervene in world affairs, overthrow the forces of evil, bring judgement upon the world, destroy much of humanity, abolish existing political and religious institutions, and establish a new order on earth, the "Kingdom of God," rewarding the faithful few while punishing all who failed to worship YHWH and his messiah. It did not happen. However, rather than face such foundational lies, Christianity simply continued to evolve and grow in political power and popularity.
In this video, Ehrman does not go through all of the biblical citations for Jesus' apocalypticism. But if you want them, you can read my essay "Is Jesus Coming Back Soon?", which is mostly a collection of passages straight from the Bible itself, showing clearly what early Christians really believed.
There are all kinds of historical and literary problems with Christian stories about the birth of Jesus. Claims to have Jesus’ genealogy and claims of a “virgin birth” are relatively late, independent, contradictory, and similar to standard ancient Mediterranean myths regarding the births of many demi-gods and heroes, revealing the fictitious nature of these gospel accounts. Matthew posits Bethlehem as Mary and Joseph’s home town, whereas Luke makes Nazareth their home town. The authors of both Matthew and Luke want to portray Jesus as born in Bethlehem but coming from Nazareth, but they invent very different stories in order to create such a scenario. Luke’s Roman census story is a historically inaccurate fabrication. Furthermore, attempts to portray events as fulfillments of prophecy are transparently absurd when the supposed prophecies are examined in historical context. This paper examines early Christian accounts related to Jesus’ birth.
A Rebuttal of Tim Staples' Attempted Defense of the Gospel Birth Narratives. 2014-11-22
My answers to the following questions, which were posed to me as part of an on-going discussion in 2009:
Have you ever noticed how often the Bible uses numbers like 3, 7, 12, and 40? What is behind this? Are such numbers a clue that these stories are myth and symbol, not factual history?
Many parts of the Bible depict Yahweh in quite a primitive fashion. At one time, the Jews imagined their national god Yahweh as a storm god and sky god, just as the ancient Sumerians, Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, and others each had the concept of a sky god / storm god.
Did YHWH desire to live in the Jerusalem Temple? -
Many Jews thought he did, and that the Temple was an essential part of his worship, but later Jews and Christians removed emphasis on the temple, since the Romans had destroyed it. Both phases of this religious history produced ideas about god based not upon reality but upon the imaginations of religious authors.
Does YHWH Personally Control the Weather? -
Biblical authors believed that their god Yahweh controlled all aspects of the weather personally. In modern times, the more education a person has, the less likely that person is to believe that all aspects of the weather are personally controlled. Modern science sees weather as governed by the same impersonal, natural "laws" and forces that are the basis of physics and chemistry
The authors of the Bible, along with so many other ancient Mediterranean people, believed in a 3-tiered universe:
the heavens/ skies above (often imagined as being in a solid vault, dome, or tent),
the stationary earth/ land below (usually a flat circle/disk or a flat square),
sheol/ hades/ hell/ tartarus beneath.
Although there is no reason to shame our ancestors for lacking the scientific knowledge that we have gained over hundreds of years, it is still important to note that the biblical 3-tiered worldview was primitive and erroneous, and that the Bible reflects human imagination, not the "perfect, infallible word of God."
Spirit, Matter, Free Will, and Determinism -
Modern Christian beliefs in a "non-physical spirit-realm" are relics of ancient misunderstanding, and concepts of free will must be qualified according to the results of modern brain research and other relevant observations.
The Fictitious Story of Jesus and the Woman Caught in Adultery (John 8.1-11)
"Let him who is without sin among you cast the first stone." These words and the story that contains them were not originally to be found in the gospel of John, but were added much later by anonymous scribes to various manuscripts of the bible. This story is yet another example of the unreliable textual history of the bible.
Even Christian Morality Evolves:
2008-01-15 - copied from a blog post of mine - "The Evolution of Christian Morality" -
Christian morality is not "absolute." The Yahweh/God character changed over time. Morals changed over time.
Did God/Jesus want Christians to keep the Law of Moses?
The writings of the Old Testament "prophets" are certainly at odds with the New Testament epistles, but where did Jesus stand?
I frequently meet people who mistakenly think that there can be no morality without their god or Christianity, and that any lack of an allegedly divine, "absolute" morality is bad, destructive, immoral, or meaningless. Here are some of my past responses to such individuals.
"What Happens When Societies Stop Worshipping God? | Phil Zuckerman"
Oct 20, 2023. Social Scientist Phil Zuckerman explains what happens when people in free democratic countries abandon traditional religion.
Mithraism & Christianity Compared - (unfinished, not updated)
Did Christianity borrow some of its teachings and practices from a Roman mystery religion? The highlight of this paper is the list of Parallels between the two religions.
People have often asked me how I came to my conclusions. This is a narrative answer to be read in addition to "Why I Rejected Fundamentalist Christianity" (below) and the rest of these writings.
New Testament Writers Twist the Original Meaning of Old Testament Passages
Was Jesus Perfect? - (unfinished)
Does Christianity Stand Apart from All Other Religions by Omitting Self-Effort?
Supplements - Helpful study aids. (to be augmented over time)
Mark and the Messianic Secret: Why does the earliest gospel present Jesus as hiding 'the truth' from people?
God's Alleged Wrath against Unbelievers:
According to the bible and its Jesus character, people should be afraid of the Jewish god Yahweh, and Yahweh will unleash his wrath against all people not believing in Christian stories about Jesus.
Jesus' Bad Ideas:
It seems like almost everyone knows or at some points hears or learns the Golden Rule: Treat others like you want to be treated. It appears in the gospels teachings attributed to Jesus, and it also shows up in many cultures and religions around the world, such that almost all human societies seem to recognize this moral concept. I acknowledge that there are some good ideas in the gospels. However, I sometimes see people boasting about what a great teacher Jesus was, and occasionally even some less religious people will talk about how they think the historical Jesus was some kind of peace-loving hippie who just wanted to spread love and goodness and was misunderstood. I am not convinced. Let me explain why and present some of the false, superstitious, and harmful teachings of the Jesus character presented in the biblical gospels. Just because there are some good teachings in the gospels does not mean we should ignore or white wash the many harmful teachings therein.
The Ascension of Moses:
Good Books by Reputable Scholars: Check out their reviews and buy them.
The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts, by Israel Finkelstein and Neil AsherSilberman. 2002. Touchstone.
Who Wrote the Bible?, by Richard Elliott Friedman. 1987.
Dr. Friedman is an American biblical scholar, theologian, translator, and Ann and Jay Davis Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Georgia.
The Composition of the Pentateuch: Renewing the Documentary Hypothesis (The Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library), by Joel S. Baden. Yale University Press. April 24, 2012.
Dr. Joel S. Baden is an American biblical scholar, assistant professor of Old Testament at Yale Divinity School. Ph.D. from Harvard 2007.
"Joel Baden presents a fresh and comprehensive argument for the Documentary Hypothesis. Critically engaging both older and more recent scholarship, he fundamentally revises and reorients the classical model of the formation of the Pentateuch. Interweaving historical and methodological chapters with detailed textual case studies, Baden provides a critical introduction to the history of Pentateuchal scholarship, discussions on the most pressing issues in the current debate, and a practical model for the study of the biblical text."
Gospel Fictions, by Randel Helms. 1988. Prometheus Books.
Dr. Helms is an American professor of English literature. He has taught at University of California and Arizona State University.
Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why, by Bart D. Ehrman. 2007.
Dr. Bart D. Ehrman is a U.S. New Testament scholar and James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Incredible Shrinking Son of Man: How Reliable Is the Gospel Tradition?, by Robert M. Price. 2003.
Dr. Robert M. Price (b. 1954) is an American New Testament scholar. He received a Ph.D. in Systematic Theology from Drew University in 1981 and another in New Testament in 1991. Dr. Price was formerly a pastor of the First Baptist Church in Montclair, New Jersey. He has also served as Professor of Religion at Mount Olive College and the Johnnie Colemon Theological Seminary, and he has worked with the Center for Inquiry Institute.
From Jesus to Christianity : How Four Generations of Visionaries & Storytellers Created the New Testament and Christian Faith, by L. Michael White. Dec 1, 2004.
Dr. L. Michael White is a professor, Ronald Nelson Smith Chair in Classics and Religious Studies, and Director of the Institute for the Study of Antiquity & Christian Origins (ISAC) at the University of Texas in Austin.
Scripting Jesus: The Gospels in Rewrite, by L. Michael White. 2010.
Dr. L. Michael White is a professor, Ronald Nelson Smith Chair in Classics and Religious Studies, and Director of the Institute for the Study of Antiquity & Christian Origins (ISAC) at the University of Texas in Austin.
The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings, by Bart D. Ehrman. 2011.
Dr. Bart D. Ehrman is a U.S. New Testament scholar and James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium, by Bart D. Ehrman, Oxford University Press. 1999.
Dr. Bart D. Ehrman is a U.S. New Testament scholar and James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
God: An Anatomy, by Francesca Stavrakopoulou. Knopf. Jan 25, 2022.
Dr. Francesca Stavrakopoulou (b. 1975) is a British biblical scholar, Professor of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Religion at the University of Exeter. Her research focuses on the Hebrew Bible and Israelite and Judahite history and religion. She has frequently presented on BBC media. She earned her D.Phil. in theology at the University of Oxford.
"An astonishing and revelatory history that re-presents God as he was originally envisioned by ancient worshippers—with a distinctly male body, and with superhuman powers, earthly passions, and a penchant for the fantastic and monstrous."
"Francesca Stavrakopoulou presents a vividly corporeal image of God: a human-shaped deity who walks and talks and weeps and laughs, who eats, sleeps, feels, and breathes, and who is undeniably male. Here is a portrait — arrived at through the author's close examination of and research into the Bible — of a god in ancient myths and rituals who was a product of a particular society, at a particular time, made in the image of the people who lived then, shaped by their own circumstances and experience of the world."
Resurrection and Reception in Early Christianity (Routledge Studies in Religion), by Richard C. Miller, Routledge, April 6, 2017.
"Richard C. Miller is a humanistic scholar of Christian origins in the ancient Hellenistic and Roman world. He undertook his graduate study at Princeton Theological Seminary, Yale University, and UCLA, completing his Ph.D. in Religion in 2013 at the Claremont Graduate University School of Religion in Los Angeles, California."
"This book offers an original interpretation of the origin and early reception of the most fundamental claim of Christianity: Jesus’ resurrection. Richard Miller contends that the earliest Christians would not have considered the New Testament accounts of Jesus’ resurrection to be literal or historical, but instead would have recognized this narrative as an instance of the trope of divine translation, common within the Hellenistic and Roman mythic traditions. Given this framework, Miller argues, early Christians would have understood the resurrection story as fictitious rather than historical in nature. By drawing connections between the Gospels and ancient Greek and Roman literature, Miller makes the case that the narratives of the resurrection and ascension of Christ applied extensive and unmistakable structural and symbolic language common to Mediterranean "translation fables," stock story patterns derived particularly from the archetypal myths of Heracles and Romulus. In the course of his argument, the author applies a critical lens to the referential and mimetic nature of the Gospel stories, and suggests that adapting the "translation fable" trope to accounts of Jesus’ resurrection functioned to exalt him to the level of the heroes, demigods, and emperors of the Hellenistic and Roman world. Miller’s contentions have significant implications for New Testament scholarship and will provoke discussion among scholars of early Christianity and Classical studies." -- Amazon review.
Other Information From the Web:
Some Reasons Why Humanists Reject The Bible (.doc format) - By Joseph C. Sommer - Sommer has written a good basic essay on why people should not accept the Bible as their guide to truth.
The Argument from the Bible (1996) - By Theodore M. Drange (.doc format) -
www.infidels.org/library/modern/theodore_drange/bible.html - A GOOD basic essay showing why no one should consider the Bible a legitimate source of religious truth or history. He covers the following topics, and I put an asterisk beside the ones I thought best:
Argument of Fundamentalists
*Alleged Fulfilled Prophecies
Unfulfilled Prophecies
*The Resurrection
*More Contradictions
*Factual Errors
*Ethical Defects
Bible Inconsistencies: Bible Contradictions? - Compiled by Donald Morgan (.doc format) -
www.infidels.org/library/modern/donald_morgan/inconsistencies.html - This guy has put together an excellent LIST (with scripture references) of contradictions and inconsistencies found in the Bible. A few in the list are not that serious, but plenty of them are major contradictions, and the list the LONG. There are definitely enough to prove without any doubt that the Bible is FAR from inerrant, most certainly written by humans, and NOT inspired by any real “God.”
He also has lists of Absurdities in the Bible, Atrocities in the Bible, Questionable Precepts and Teachings in the Bible.
Gospel Contradictions from the Passion to the Resurrection - by Austin Cline (.doc format) -
http://atheism.about.com/od/gospelcontradictions/Gospel_Contradictions_Gospels_are_Full_of_Contradictions_Errors.htm - Brief and contains some not-so-important material along with the big stuff, but I include it anyway.
Why Not Believe? Reasons Why Atheists Don't Believe in Gods - by Austin Cline (.doc format) - http://atheism.about.com/od/aboutatheism/p/whynotbelieve.htm
Who Made God? - by Austin Cline (.doc format) - http://atheism.about.com/od/argumentsagainstgod/a/design.htm - People mistakenly assume that the universe “requires” a designer. Just because something is complex does NOT mean it must have been designed. This is a short essay.
Which Bible? - by Steven Carr (.doc format) - www.infidels.org/library/magazines/tsr/1997/6/976which.html - Early Christians repeatedly re-edited their own scriptures. “The evidence of the earliest manuscripts is that Christianity was split into many factions. Orthodox views did not win out until the fourth century or later. Until then, people wrote and rewrote the New Testament books, trying to put the correct spin on the texts. This happened extremely early.”
Godless Ethics, Morality, and Values: Do Godless Morals & Values Exist? (.doc format) - by Austin Cline - http://atheism.about.com/od/aboutethics/p/GodlessEthics.htm - Some people have the mistaken idea that morality or goodness are only possible with faith in a personal god. Morality is a necessary part of human society. Every society will make laws/rules for the well-being of its people, regardless of the religion(s) of the people.
Are People Sad and Hopeless Without the Christian “God”? - a note by Jack Rivall (.doc format).
Does Life Have Meaning Without the Christian “God”? - "Meaning and Nothingness: A Personal Journey," an essay by James A. Haught (.doc format).
The web site www.infidels.org has numerous on-line resources for investigating the topic. Check out their on-line library (especially Modern Library: Theism: Christianity).
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Responses to Christian Memes and Articles around the Web:
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E-mail me at bodhi7442 at hotmail dot com.