, Chef, Wine & Spirits Educator, Writer, Mother, Science Geek
The entire bible is rife with historical errors, it’s hard to just name a few major ones in such a short space.
For starters, there was never a global flood. The human population didn’t come from just two people, and certainly was as never low as 8 (the claimed number from the Noahide flood myth)- scientific analysis of our genes shows that the human population couldn’t have dropped below around 1500 unrelated individuals and still have the genetic diversity we see now.
The Jews were never held as slaves in Egypt, thus no Exodus. They were never even IN Egypt en masse, and the Egyptians of the pharaonic period didn’t have slaves as suggested in the bible. The monuments of the pharaohs were build by farmers and similar workers in the flood season of the Nile. There is not only zero evidence of the Jews there, but corroborating evidence (from other historical tribes of the Levant area, language analysis, etc) that the Jews never left the Levant at all. There is no evidence of an Exodus of a million odd people as claimed in the bible, and in fact many of the places cited didn’t exist until centuries after the time period. The Exodus account was an eighth century BCE justification narrative for a land war with Egypt.
The Jewish “kingdom” of David and Solomon was nowhere near the size claimed- it was a minor tribal area at best, and even that’s a bit shaky. There was no Soddom and Gomorrah- no other culture ever mentioned these allegedly large and prosperous cities, and no trace has been found in the area claimed.
The Gospels are even full of historical problems. Even if one discounts the utter lack of contemporary evidence for Jesus or any of his supposed miracles, there are other issues. The census NEVER required anyone to go to town of origin of their lineage- that would have collapsed the economy of the Empire. Roman censuses counted just the head of household IN their household- they were for tax purposes, so they cared where you lived, not where you came from. They were also done by province, not empire-wide, and usually subcontracted to the publicans. Further, Matthew states that Jesus was born under the reign of Herod the Great, who died in 4BCE. Luke claims it was during the census of Israel conducted when Quirinius was governor of Syria- a post he did not take until 6CE, 10 YEARS after Herod the Great died. So both Matthew and Luke contradict themselves- the census literally could not have occurred at the same time as Herod was alive, yet both describe them as simultaneous. Luke also says that Augustus Caesar decreed “all the world should be registered”, which is false.
Herod the Great never slaughtered infants as described in Matthew- despite there being many chroniclers of Herod’s abuses, this little gem appears NOWHERE but the bible. Even Flavius Josephus, who extensively recorded Herod’s evils, mentioned nothing of this event, which he would have if it actually occurred.
There were many minor errors showing the Gospel writers (Greeks, for the most part) had no clue of the geography of the area- like the story of the Gadarine swine, which Jesus supposedly drove into the Sea of Galilee, despite Gadera being kilometers from the sea. And that’s just Matthew, since Mark’s said “Gerasa”, which was 30 kilometers away. Mark’s descriptions of Jesus’ movements made no geographical sense and are at times impossible.
No historians of the time, despite living in the area, ever recorded any major earthquakes or skies going black as was claimed happened during Jesus’ death.
Interestingly, early scholars that even mentioned what early Christians believed- like Tacitus, Philo, Pliny, Suetonius, Epictectus, Cluvius Rufus, Quintus, Curtis Rufus, Josephus, the Roman Consul, Publius Petronius- never mentioned any crucifixion. In fact, the crucifixion seemed to be unknown even to early Christians until the Second Century!
The trials would never have occurred as claimed in the bible, either. Rather hilariously, a nineteenth century scholar, Rabbi Wise, searched the then-extant records of Pilate’s court to find a record of Jesus’ trial and found nothing. Pilate was depicted by the Gospels as a good man who only reluctantly agreed to the condemnation of Jesus- but history shows he was cruel and corrupt. It was a likely attempt after the First Jewish revolt to place blame on the Jews, rather than the old tradition of blaming Rome for all their ills. The Romans also had no custom of releasing a prisoner at Passover, and Pilate was known to be far too ruthless to have ever caved to a mob (in fact, there are many records of him brutally subduing mobs). Never mind that it was claimed in the Passion narrative that the Sanhedrin met on Passover night to have Jesus arrested and condemned- when in reality the Sanhedrin were forbidden by Jewish law to meet during Passover at all.
Sadly, I could keep going.