Who Wrote The Bible

It is now not only admitted by intelligent and honest theologians that Moses was not the author of the Pentateuch, but they all admit that no one knows who the authors were, or who wrote any one of these books, or a chapter or a line. We know that the books were not written in the same generation; that they were not all written by one person; that they are filled with mistakes and contradictions. It is also admitted that Joshua did not write the book that bears his name, because it refers to events that did not happen until long after his death.

No one knows, or pretends to know, the author of Judges; all we know is that it was written centuries after all the judges had ceased to exist. No one knows the author of Ruth, nor of First and Second Samuel; all we know is that Samuel did not write the books that bear his name. In the 25th chapter of First Samuel is an account of the raising of Samuel by the Witch of Endor.

No one knows the author of First and Second Kings or First and Second Chronicles; all we know is that these books are of no value.

We know that the Psalms were not written by David. In the Psalms the Captivity is spoken of, and that did not happen until about five hundred years after David slept with his fathers.

We know that Solomon did not write the Proverbs or the Song; that Isaiah was not the author of the book that bears his name; that no one knows the author of Job, Ecclesiastes, or Esther, or of any book in the Old Testament, with the exception of Ezra.

We know that God is not mentioned or in any way referred to in the book of Esther. We know, too, that the book is cruel, absurd and impossible.

God is not mentioned in the Song of Solomon, the best book in the Old Testament.

And we know that Ecclesiastes was written by an unbeliever.

We know, too, that the Jews themselves had not decided as to what books were inspired — were authentic — until the second century after Christ.

We know that the idea of inspiration was of slow growth, and that the inspiration was determined by those who had certain ends to accomplish.

Robert G. Ingersoll, 1894

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God, Hebrews, and the Number 40

What’s with the Hebrews and the number forty? Sounds like they were heavily into numerology.

• The Flood rain was forty days.
• After landing on the mountaintop, Noah waited forty days to open the windows in the Ark.
• Moses was on the mountain for forty days.
• The Hebrews walked the desert for forty years
• They search out the Promised Land for forty days
• Isaac was forty when he married Rebekah.
• Twice, Judges gave peace for forty years.
• One occasion, war for forty years.
• One Judge had forty sons…poor wife.
• Saul ruled for forty years.
• David ruled for forty years.
• Solomon ruled for forty years.
• Joash ruled for forty years.
• Prophecy said Egypt would be barren for forty years.
• Elijah was in the desert for forty days.
• Jesus walked the desert for forty days.
• Joseph walked Nineveh for forty days.
• Jesus was said to appear to his followers for forty days after his resurrection from the dead.

I’ve heard, but never checked, that forty years is mentioned forty times in the Bible.
The word ‘forty’ is mentioned one hundred and forty times. This seems to be an obsession with the Jews…or ‘God.’

I know I have missed a few (?) here, but doesn’t this raise a few questions about the stories? Do modern day Christian religions have an obsession with the number 40? I haven’t heard anything about this.

Update: Moses killed an Egyptian who was beating a Jewish slave…at the age of forty. 6.15.08

Moses spent 40 years in Midian tending his father-in-law’s sheep.

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Angry God

In the Old Testament, God is mostly depicted as an angry, disagreeable deity.

He delivers His people from slavery in Egypt, He *”gives” them the Promised Land for eternity, only to find them ungrateful and sinful. * They really had to kill for it.

Time after time they run after foreign gods…so God punishes them by letting their enemies capture and rule over them…and they cry for God to help them…God accepts their contrition…He gives them a righteous leader who leads them to victory over their enemy, and then after a while they start sinning again, on and on.

What kind of god would put up with that? I don’t find much of anything in the Old Testament that makes “Godly” sense. The only thing the Jewish people in the OT seem good at is bitching and spinning tall tales. They don’t appear to be in the least bit special, and their line of ‘heroes’, as listed in the Bible, are just as sinful as the rest of humanity at the time. Think David killing his lover’s husband; Solomon having a thousand wives.

The people don’t seem to deserve any special consideration. Their story seems more like a wandering peoples trying to justify their killing off of an already establish bunch of landowners, to take the land for themselves.

In fact, as I read about all the wars and mass killings listed in the OT Bible I get the feeling these are just wars to redistribute the wealth of the one group over another. The one excuse listed more than any other for the Jews to go to war and commit genocide against their neighbors is sinfulness. Those darn people of Jericho, and Ai are just really bad sinners…let go kill them all and take this land for our own. They go to war at the drop of a bagel…but only because God said it was OK.

They have a God that follows them all over the country and directs them to kill and take peoples land. How conveeenient.

God tells the Jews their people will be like the sands on the beach…uncountable.

God tells David his line and throne will last forever.

Yet modern history, also tells us these two things didn’t happen.

Archaeology also tells us many things in the Bible didn’t happen.

Jesus is said to have descended from David…two different stories about that in Bible.

The more you research…everything…connected with the Christian religion, the more uncertainties, and factual problems you encounter. The more I research, the more I get the feeling this religion is just a fairy tale of the Jewish people. It wouldn’t be so bad if some of the stories had some actual facts backing them up. Most of them don’t, and Christians go around doing back-flips trying to explain them, rather than just admitting they are moral illustrations and allegory meant to make a point. Nooo…the Bible is literal line for line truth.

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To assert that the earth revolves around the sun is as erroneous as to claim that Jesus was not born of a virgin. Cardinal Bellarmine, during the trial of Galileo Galileo, 1615