The Bible Skeptic

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In December of 2003, William B. Eerdmans published a book dealing with the historical claims of the Old Testament. Increasing criticism of the historical reliability of the Old Testament has risen in recent years with some scholars of the Bible almost totally dismissing as accurate any historical claim made in the Hebrew texts. This new book from Eerdmans, written by learned professor of Egyptology and Archaeology at the University of Liverpool, Kenneth Kitchen, systematically takes these "minimalist" (as they are known) claims to task, revealing with each chapter the great reliability of the Old Testament in matters of ancient Near Eastern history. Far from being a book of pure fiction, Kitchen reveals that the Old Testament has many claims that bear remarkable historical accuracy. Kitchen shows that such claims cannot be the work of active imaginations but must come from those who actually witnessed or were very close to the events being reported. Kitchen titled this book, appropriately enough, On the Reliability of the Old Testament.

However, in Kitchen's book he only discusses those points of agreement between history and the Old Testament. In other words, if the Old Testament makes a claim that can be verified as historically accurate, Kitchen readily reports this match in his book. Kitchen steers clear of any historical claim made in the Old Testament which seems to contradict, or have a discrepancy between, what we know about history. My articles, which you will find on this website, examine the tantalizing claim of Kitchen's book: is the Old Testament reliable? In addition, articles here will examine New Testament claims, as well, and also a critical look at a variety of apologetics offered by defenders of the Hebrew and Christian bibles. Certainly there are points of agreement between what we know in history and certain claims in the Old and New Testaments. For most biblical scholars, the issue is not over whether the Bible is completely true or completely false, historically speaking. The issue is simply not that black and white. Kitchen's mistake in arguing for the reliability of the Old Testament--as it often is with other apologetic mistakes arguing for New Testament reliability-- is that he only takes those points that agree with his case and expounds on them while ignoring the errors the text presents with known history. While I don't disagree with all of Kitchen's conclusions, I think he has been intentionally selective in his presentation of historical claims found reliable in the Old Testament narratives. In this sense, Kitchen is not different than a wide variety of Jewish and Christian apologists who argue that the Bible is God’s inerrant Word. Kitchen appears in his book to be quite annoyed with those who would claim that the Old Testament historical claims are based upon nothing put pure fiction, and rightly so I would agree. He goes to great lengths to show otherwise and should be commended for trying to balance the view. But, sometimes, in trying to present a balanced view, apologists can tip the scales too far in the opposite direction.

The articles on this site are not direct responses to claims either made or ignored in Kitchen's book. In fact, I will be looking at a broad range of claims made by a broad range of defenders of the Old and New Testament's historical reliability. Kitchen's book is not my sole focus, but stands as a good example of what can be offered by a credible scholar with apologetic sympathies. My discussion will take seriously the view held by many that the Bible is the inspired word of God, that it is reliable --historically, scientifically, morally and theologically. Those who hold this view will have found an ally in Kitchen's work and it is for this reason that I present not a challenge to Kitchen's book in particular, but to the overall argument shared by other apologists: that the Bible is a reliable historical document --in total. Given the view that the Bible is the inspired word of an omniscient deity, the Bible cannot be reliable in only some of its claims, but it must be reliable in all that it claims. Otherwise, if only a handful of its assertions can be shown to be historically accurate while others shown to be historically inaccurate, then that provides ample reason to conclude that the Bible is simply another ancient document, not much different from other ancient works in some respects but admittedly totally unique in others. It is the work of fallible human beings. In order for the Bible to be unquestionably the work of an omniscient deity the text needs to agree in all of its historical claims with what we know of ancient Near Eastern history instead of only a handful that apologists handpick to hold up as examples of the text's historical "reliability."

More of these ideas and the angle of my approach to the reliability of the Bible will be furthered in other articles on this site. Please use the Table of Contents to navigate through the articles I have written and visit often. I will be adding new articles as time permits. Click on the "Contact" button on the Contents page and drop me a line if you any comments or questions.

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