The bible is the basis of Christianity, without it Christianity would have never existed. But for a book that is supposed to be the most famous and widely read books in the world, it is a suspicious thing that no one even knows when or where it was written or who published it. It's central, most famous person of all time, Jesus Christ, had nothing written about him by any of the historians or writers that were his contemporaries. It's almost as though, outside the bible, he never existed at all.
What is stranger yet is that though it is generally assumed that the gospels were written between 70 and 120 CE (at least 40 years after Jesus' death), the church fathers themselves never even mentioned the gospels in their writings until the last quarter of the second century. These are some extremely shocking facts about a book that's supposed to be the most important book with the most important man in the entire history of humanity.
A lot has been written about the bible, both in favor and against. In my opinion, the best test of the bible is to compare it by itself. Two statements that are opposites cannot both be true. Either one or the other can be true, or neither -- but two opposite statements can never be true. You can't make the bible mean what you want it to just so that it will fit your doctrines or what you want it to mean. It is what it is.
It's not really important to me how Judas committed suicide, whether he hanged himself or fell headlong onto his sword. The bible is full of all kinds of contradictions that, while they DO prove the bible not inerrant, most don't prove much that is extremely profound. What is much more important to me is whether Jesus was God or the Messiah, or neither; or whether Christianity is the "true" religion, etc.
The following are some what I consider some of the hugest problems with the bible, that are not issues that you can just explain away or interpret to make them fit the dogmas of Christology. These are the some of most important foundational issues that prove that much of Christianity is based on fraud, forgery and falsehood, and places Christianity in the same class with all the other mythologies.
Genealogies that reveal forgery
Who was Mary's father? We can already rule out Eli, in the genealogy in Luke, since Luke says that Joseph was the son of Eli. If Eli were the the father of Mary that would make Joseph and Mary, brother and sister. They were devout Jews so insest would be out of the question.
"Joseph which was the son of Heli" (Luk 3:23)
Was Mary the daughter of Jacob, in the genealogy in the Matthew? This also is not possible since it says,
"Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary" (Mat 1:16).
But that would give Joseph two fathers. This is actually not a contradiction. The explanation for this is that Eli wasn't Joseph's biological father, but it was still his genealogy. The reason? Since Eli died childless, and Jacob and Eli were brothers, Jacob married Eli's widow according to Jewish law, so that she would bear children to him, and Joseph was born as a result of this union. Joseph was actually the son of Eli's widow -- according to church history.
At any rate, since Eli died childless, he couldn't have been Mary's father, and neither was Jacob her father. In other words, neither genealogy, in Matthew nor in Luke was Mary's. There is no evidence whatsoever in the bible that Mary was of the tribe of Judah. However there is plenty of strong evidence that Mary was of the house of Levi.
So if Mary wasn't a descendant of David, then Jesus didn't qualify as the Messiah -- unless he had a flesh and blood father who was a descendant of King David -- and Joseph was. But if Joseph was Jesus's biological father, then Mary wasn't a virgin. And for Jesus to be God the savior, Mary had to be a virgin, according to Christology. If Mary wasn't a virgin then all the scripture about the virgin birth is all forgery. This is the most serious contradiction in the bible. Let's consider that later.
The Disqualified Messiah
But let's suppose just for argument's sake that Mary was a virgin when Jesus was born as the bible says and as most Christians believe; and somehow Jesus was actually a descendant of David in order for him to qualify as the Messiah. The very most important thing to the Jews was that the Messiah deliver them from their oppressors, the romans. The Jews were expecting this from the Messiah. There were several men claiming to be the Messiah who were descendants of king David, but did not qualify since they were unsuccessful in overthrowing the Romans. Many Jews rejected Jesus for this very reason, and rightly so. The following verses plainly show that the Jews were expecting Jesus to fulfill this messianic prophecy:
Luk 1:69 And hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David...
Luk 1:71 That we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us;
Luk 1:72 To perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant...
Luk 1:74 ...that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear,
Luk 24:21 But we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel...
Act 1:6 ...they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?
Jesus did not qualify as the Messiah as he didn't deliver the Jews from their enemies, as many of his followers expected.
Zec 12:8 In that day shall the LORD defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and he that is feeble among them at that day shall be as David; and the house of David shall be as God, as the angel of the LORD before them.
Zec 12:9 And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.
Jer 33:15-16 In those days and at that time, I will cause an offshoot of righteousness to spring forth for David, and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In those days, Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will dwell safely, and this is the name by which it will be called: "The Lord is our righteousness."
Did Jesus "defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem" and "destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem"? Was Judah saved and did "Jerusalem dwell safely"? If Jesus were their deliverer sent from God he would have. According to the gospels (supposedly), he did not even try, and he just freely gave himself over to the Romans to be executed. What's more after the death of Jesus the Jews were persecuted, slaughtered and scattered over the Earth. Obviously Jesus was not God the Savior, nor did he qualify to be the Messiah who was supposed to deliver the Jews from their enemies.
The False Prophecies of the Second Coming
However, one might say that he hasn't fulfilled all the prophecies yet, and that this is one of the things that he will do when he returns. But according to Jesus's own predictions (he supposedly said these things) he was to return within that first century. Here's ample proof:
Mat 16:28 There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.
Mat 10:23 Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come.
Rev 1:7 Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him.
Mat 24:30 ...they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
Mat 24:34 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.
Mat 24:44 Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.
Those men "standing here", died in the first century. He was supposed to have come before they had gone over all the cities of Israel -- that would be in their lifetimes -- the first century. Those who "pierced him" died in the first century.
"This generation" passed in the first century. If he had meant a future generation he would have used the words "That generation". He said for them to whom he was speaking to be ready, and they died in the first century. Either that or those standing there at the time are now over 2000 years old!
No one saw Jesus coming in the clouds in the first century, unless he came in secret or they just forgot to write it down for history and everyone forgot about it -- very unlikely.
Jesus' "second coming" had to happen in the first century, and obviously it did not. According to the old testament, if a man's prophecy did not come to pass he was to be considered as a false prophet and he was not to be listened to. It's not a wonder that the Jews rejected him.
The Jews actually did what their holy book said to do. I'm not saying that Jesus was a false prophet, I just don't believe that Jesus actually said those things -- they were forgeries. Jesus did not deliver the Jews from their enemies and neither did he return in the time frame that he predicted -- within the first century.
The Reason Christianity Could Only be a Myth
The main reason that the writer of Matthew included the genealogy in the gospel with that name was to show that Joseph (not Mary) was a flesh and blood descendant of King David and with this, convince his readers that Jesus qualified to be the Messiah. But for other (valid) reasons he was disqualified.
Since Joseph actually was the biological father of Jesus, then Mary wasn't a virgin and the whole virgin birth story was a forgery. Jesus could not be both the Messiah and God both. The reality is that he was neither. I don't believe that even Jesus himself claimed these things; I believe that there were men years after Jesus' execution that attributed these things to him.
If Jesus didn't fulfill the messianic prophecies, then he wasn't the promised Messiah. If Mary wasn't a virgin, then Jesus wasn't God. If Jesus wasn't God, then he wasn't the savior either since the Old Testament says the God is the only savior and there isn't another besides him. So if Jesus wasn't the savior, it really doesn't matter if he died on the cross or not; he couldn't save anyone from their sins or take anyone's sins away -- much less the sins of the whole world, past and future.
It doesn't really matter if he raised from the dead, and it doesn't matter if he ascended into heaven. He wasn't God and he wasn't the savior, neither was he the Messiah. What's more is since Hell is actually only a mistranslation and a deliberate misinterpretation, and not even a Jewish concept, there was nothing for Jesus to save the world from anyway.
This means that many stories in the bible were invented, such as the virgin birth, the infancy story of Jesus, the stories surrounding the judgement of Jesus, his crucifixion, resurrection and ascension. Most Christians believe that he could heal because he was God, but if he wasn't God then he didn't heal all those people and do the miracles that the gospels say he did. He most likely didn't even teach his disciples that the messianic prophecies of the Old Testament were about him or that he even claimed to be God, unless he actually believed that about himself.
What this shows then is that probably more than 80% of what was written about Jesus was merely a man-made invention; was forged and most of those stories were enhanced and embellished. This being the case, Christianity is nothing more than a myth.
Of all the tyrannies that afflict mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst. - Thomas Paine