by Joey Lawsin
Abstract:
This article critically examines the concept of God as presented in the Bible and its influence on major religions such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It questions the existence of God and scrutinizes the Bible for any inconsistencies, contradictions, or errors that could challenge the validity of God’s existence.
Introduction:
The Bible and the Church have significantly shaped the belief in God. The Bible is the primary source that provides evidence of God’s existence — the God of Abraham, Constantine, and Muhammad; the God of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in this order. Without the Bible, the concept of God would remain unknown.
Does God Exist?
To ascertain God’s existence, this article will highlight, argue, and evaluate evidence found in the Bible. It will review major religions using a historical timeline and compare and differentiate the doctrines of two major religions, Judaism (Old Testament) and Catholicism (New Testament), to shed light on each Bible’s agenda. Furthermore, it will scrutinize key figures in the Bible, such as God, Satan, and Jesus, to determine if any of them are worthy to be god.
The Bible: A Source of Contradictions?
If a single fault, contradiction, modification, error, or inconsistency is found in the Bible, it could serve as empirical evidence against God’s existence. Such findings would challenge the Bible’s credibility as the Word or Work of God and question whether this biblical god is worthy of being called God.
Evidence that Proves God Doesn't Exist:
The Bible itself provides various concrete evidence suggesting that there is no God. Interestingly, even the idea of God did not originate from the Abrahamic scriptures (Old Testament), which were copied by Christians (New Testament) and borrowed by Muslims. Instead, it came from writings of earlier civilizations like the Sumerians. The concept of god would not have surfaced if it had not been introduced to early people by Nature. The presence of errors, inconsistencies, and contradictions in the Bible further supports this argument.
Conclusion:
This scholarly article presents compelling evidence that challenges the existence of God as depicted in the Bible. It argues that man created God and suggests that the Bible was a human creation filled with contradictions and errors.
Narrative:
As we know, Earth is made up of six major continents. These islands are inhabited by people of different colors, cultures, languages, and belief systems. Because of these social diversities, some people believe in some forms of gods and goddesses, others believe in only one god, and the rest don't believe at all to any deities or demigods. Some build their own churches, synagogues, or temples. Others even appoint themselves to become pastors, ministers, or even priests. Because of diversity, the Bible itself has been translated hundreds of times in different languages like Hebrew, Greek, Latin, German, and English from which its original texts and contents have likely been changed. Moreover, since every culture adores a specific god or gods, interprets the holy scripture according to their self-understandings, and establishes religious congregations or churches based on their own belief systems, then which culture has the true religion? Which one has the true Bible? Which one adores the true God? If there are may gods, who among them is the true God? Is God a Catholic? A Protestant? A Jew? A Muslim? A Buddhist? A Hindu? A Christian? Is God black? White? Yellow? Red? Green?
In order to answer all these questions systematically, First, let us study the origin of the bible and the history of every religion around the world. Second, let us determine who are the founders of these individual religious groups, what are the real names of their church or organizations, when and where they were founded. Third, we will compare and contrast the ideology behind the book with a simple skeptic question; if the bible is the Word of God, why does the Bible carry so many errors, mistakes, or contradictions? Finally, as an added bonus, I am going to present a fresh philosophical argument, the Appeal to a Creator, which will challenge the misconception that creation cannot exist without a creator, or that design cannot exist without a designer, or that laws cannot exist without a lawgiver. Furthermore, we will also examine if we can prove God's existence without ever referencing verses from the bible; the only single hard evidence that provides proof there is a GOD.
(i) The Old Testament vs. The New Testament:
The bible is not a single book. It is made up of several books bounded together under one cover and bears a single title. It is a collection of different books by different authors written in Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic. It can be read historically, literally, allegorically, anagogically, symbolically or tropologically. Because of these various renditions, the Bible can be interpreted in so many ways.
The old testament, which is made up of 46 books, was written in Hebrew and partially written in Aramaic. The new testament, which is made up of 27 books, was composed in Greek.
The Hebrew people, particularly the Jewish whose religion is Judaism, recognize only 39 books. They are divided into three major categories: The Law, The Prophets, and The Writings. The first five books, which are referred to as the Pentateuch or Torah, are generally recognized to include materials from at least four different sources: Yahwist, Elohist, Deuteronomist, and Priestley. When the Torah - a prophetic book the way the Koran is to Islam, Avesta to Zoroastrians, Adi Granth to Sikhs - and the other ancient manuscripts were compiled together as a single book, the scripture became know as the Old Testament. Meanwhile, the early Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians recognize 7 more books. These books are Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, Tobit, and Maccabbes 1 & 2. Protestant Christians recognize the seven as the “apocryphal” books.
The New Testament, on the other hand, is not part of the Jewish Bible. Thus, it has to be perceived as a separate scripture in itself just like the OT as a separate scripture in itself. NT contains 27 books. These books were compiled by the Council of Nicea back in 325 AD. This is a council of bishops convened in Nicea by the Roman Emperor Constantine, a mitraist, whose mission was to determine which books must be included in the new testament. Two criteria must be followed: the context of the book must be a continuation of the local Jewish religious beliefs and it must promote the teachings of the apostles. Because of these two specifications, the Old Testament and the New Testament were combined as one book and became to what we now call The Bible.
The Old Testament, which contains 39 books, was written between 1400 to 400 B.C. or approximately 3410 years ago. The New Testament, which contains 27 books, was written approximately 40 to 90 AD or approximately 1500 years ago. All in all, the bible is made up of 66 individual books collected and compiled as a single book. The books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were not written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John respectively. These four apostles never identified themselves as the true authors of these gospels.
Books of the Old Testament:
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, 2 Kings, 1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Job, Psalm, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi.
Books of the New Testament:
Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, Hebrews, Philemon, James, 1 Peter, 2 Peter, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, Jude, Revelation.
(ii) Judaism vs. Christianism:
The theology of Judaism is totally different from Catholicism. As you will see later, the dogma of the New Testament is in conflict with the holy teachings of the Old Testament. The ideology behind the NT contradicts the ideology of the OT. NT is the antithesis of OT because of the following differences:
Judaism recognizes the Reality of God and the basic moral virtues of justice, equality, and righteousness. It acknowledges the coming of the Messiah as a human being and not divine. Its central faith is to follow what God wants them To Do, which is to be righteous at all times. It also speaks that because God so loves the world, he gave the word - the Law and its Covenant - to his people. It teaches redemption and not salvation. It also talks about the Grand Promise of God which is atonement and forgiveness at the end of time. It teaches that the existence of a God can't be accurately conceived, described, or pictured. It also teaches us to share a huge amount of time in doing good works. In Judaism, this action is the equivalent of spirituality. Judaism supreme value is Life. Judaism believes that a home without children is a home without blessings. The sanctity of marriage is not in reproduction. It is the bond that connects between two people, the world and the next generations. It also speaks that children are urged to grow into "good deeds". It worships one God and only one God.
Christianism, on the other hand, recognizes the Reality of Jesus. It acknowledges the messiah as both human and divine. Its central faith is to follow what the Church wants them To Believe, which is because "God loves the world, he "gave his only begotten son Jesus the Christ" to the people. It teaches salvation and not redemption. This means that Christians can be saved from their sins through the "Son of God". It also speaks about Revelation which obviously only exists in the New Testament. Its followers, called Christians or followers of Christ, are always motivated by hopes of rewards and fear of punishment. They dedicate huge time in collecting tithes and enticing new members. Their supreme value is the afterlife because Jesus promised them this. They also believe that children have the right to leave their father and mother. The sanctity of marriage is in reproduction. Their children are urged to grow in faith, not deeds. They worship not only God, but also Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost, Mary Immaculate, Joseph the carpenter, angels and saints, and even Mother Theresa.
Remember also, if the New Testament of the Romans was not added to the Old Testament of the Jews, the idea of sin would not even exist at all. Judaism believes that man can be good or bad. That’s it. They don’t believe that human beings are sinners. Original sin does not exist in their scripture. They believe that if someone does bad things against other people, he is forgiven by God if he has been forgiven by the people he has wronged. If he does bad things against God, God forgives him by simply returning to Him with an honest conscience and sincere convictions.
(iii) Bible Inaccuracies, Contradictions, and Mistakes:
We were told that the Bible is the Word of God. Since God is perfect, He makes no mistakes. If the Bible is God's work, then the Bible makes no errors. If this claim true, then we can say that God really exists. If not, then the holy book will serve as proof that God really doesn't exist. To find out, let us scrutinize the first book of the bible. Then let us pick random biblical passages that contradict each other. Let us also discuss the existence of some imaginary animals like unicorns and dragons that can only be found in fairytale books. We will also question some suspicious events in the old and new testaments. We will also study some important personalities in the bible like God, Satan, and even Jesus Christ himself, who is the main figure of the bible, the person everyone prays, the savior every faithful is waiting for, whose name can't be found anywhere at all in the bible.
The first book of the Bible is called Genesis. It tells us a story about God's creation of the universe in just seven days. The creation story begins like this:
1 In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. 3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 5 And God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And the evening and the morning were—the first day.6 And God said, “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the water, and let it divide the waters from the water.” —the second day.11 And God said, “Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yields seed and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself upon the earth:” And it was so. —the third day.14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night, and let them be for signs seasons and for days and years.” 16 He made the star also. —the fourth day.20 And God said, “Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creatures that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.”—the fifth day.26 And God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and of the air, over the cattle, over all the earth, and over every creeping their that creepeth upon the earth.” 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him, male and female created he them—the sixth day.33 And on the seventh day God ended his work, which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work, which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it because on it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.
If you closely read the first sentence of the divine story, God, in the very beginning, created only two objects: heaven and earth. He did not mention any other nearby planets like Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, planet X, or any galaxy at all. Since these planets were only discovered later when the telescope was invented in 1608 (only 400+ years ago), obviously biblical writers had no idea that earth was not the only planet that exists. And because of their limited knowledge and technology, the biblical story will definitely revolve only among four main characters: God, heaven, earth, and man. That’s why Genesis was written with the first passage: “In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth”.
Take note also that writers at that time were confined only by what they see. The division of the above and below caught their imagination in developing the idea of heaven and earth. They perceived that earth was a single dimension; and the sky, which they thought was heaven, was another dimension. They presumed that since men live on earth, a human-like life form also lives in heaven.
Writers at that time also failed to recognize that scientifically light should come first. We see objects because light reflects on objects. If light is not present, everything is black. Black is the absence of colors while white is the presence of colors. It is only through white light that we see objects in colors.
The biblical passages, starting from the second day to the sixth day, speak only about earth’s makeover – water, vegetation, and creatures were created but interestingly not on nearby planets. Was god overseeing the whole universe when he did the makeover or he was simply standing on earth like a full-grown man that he did not see the other planets? Or the biblical writers' insufficient knowledge about our galaxy stopped them to speak more about the creation of the universe?
Aside from the inconsistencies of Genesis, there are lots of discrepancies outside of the bible too. The age of the Earth according to the genealogical interpretation of the bible is 6,000 years old. This means that God created heaven and earth approximately 6000 years ago only. Interestingly according to scientific research, it is 4.5 billion years old already. The difference between 4,500,000,000 and 6,000 calculates a huge chronological discrepancy. It seems this biblical god is not good enough in counting birthdays and remembering calendar days. Or maybe it was the gospel writers who lost count.
(iv) Translation of the Bible Timeline:
500 BC - Hebrew scripture (Jewish) (39 books OT)
200 BC - greek manuscript (mitraism) (39 + 14 Ap books NT)
382 AD - Latin Vulgate (catholics) (39 OT + 14 AP + 27 NT)
1380 - first handwritten bible manuscript (Catholics) -John Wycliffe (80 books)
1450 * invention of the printing press - Johann Gutenberg
1516 *Erasmus declared that the Latin vulgate is corrupt
1517 - german translation (protestant) - Martin Luther (80 books)
1560 - Geneva Bible (protestant) - Church of America (80 books)
1604 - Bishop Bible (Anglican) - a rough draft of the KJV - (80 books)
1609 - Douay/Rheims (Catholics) - church of Rome (80 books)
1611 - King James Bible (Anglican) - Church of England (66 books)
Gal. 1:8-9 tells us that: " 8 But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema. 9 As we said before, so now I say again: If anyone preaches to you a gospel, besides that which you have received, let him be anathema.".
The biblical verses tell us that adulterating the contents of the Bible is a grave offense to God. This means that if a single verse is misrepresented, altered, or corrupted then the purity of the word of god is now damaged, defective, and erroneous. The word written by a perfect god becomes imperfect. The Bible also speaks about condemning those who falsify the doctrines, those false teachers, and fake churches. From this line of thought, all religious doctrines, priests, and churches who are not Catholics are all fraudulent and embellished with counterfeit and deceit.
Many among modern believers thought that Christianity was already known before and during the Christ era and that the word Christian was the name given to the followers of Christ. However, these ideas are big misconceptions. The very earliest followers of Christ were actually called Nazarenes. They were also called by their opponents as messianists or Galileans. Hence, the twelve disciples of Jesus the Christ were the first messianists. Also, since 1880, every protestant bible has 80 books instead of 66 (+14 apocryphal), and only in 1885, the Apocrypha was removed. The KJV is neither catholic nor protestant, it is Anglican in translation.
(v) Founders of Major Religious Groups Timeline:
Hinduism -- Unknown, 3000 BC, India
Judaism – Abraham, 2085 BC, Middle East
Buddhism – Sidhartha Gautama – 560 BC, India
Taoism – Lao Tzu – 550 BC, China
Roman Catholic – Constantine, 590 AD, Rome
Islam – Mohammed - 610 AD, Saudi Arabia
Orthodox- Michael Cerularius, 1054, Judea
Protestants, Martin Luther, 1517, Germany
Swiss Reformed - Zwingli, 1523, Switzerland
Anglicanism - Henry VIII, 1534, England
Calvinism; Dutch Reformed - Calvin, 1536, Switzerland
Presbyterians – John Knox, 1560, Scotland
Baptists - John Smith, 1605, Holland
Episcopalians - Seabury, 1620
Quakers – George Fox, 1647
Freemasonry – Albert Pike, 1700, Scotland
Shakers - Ann Lee, 1784
Methodists – John Wesley, 1739, England
Unitarians - Lindsay, 1774
Mormons or Latter-day Saints - Joseph Smith, Jr. 1830, USA
Christian Church - Campbell and Stone, 1832
Seventh-Day Adventists – Ellen White, 1860, USA
Jehovah's Witnesses – Charles Russell, 1870, USA
Salvation Army - Rev. General William Booth, 1865, England
Christian Science - Mary Baker Eddy, 1879, USA
Unity School of Christianity - Fillmore, 1889
Pentecostals – Charles Parham, 1906, USA
Iglesia – Felix Manalo, 1914, Philippines
Worldwide Church of God - Herbert W. Armstrong, 1934, USA
Unification Church – Sun Myung Moon, 1954, South Korea
Scientology – Ron Hubbard, 1955, USA
Church of Satan – Anton LaVey, 1966, USA
Hare Krishna – Swami Prabhupada, 1968, USA
(vi) Different Versions of the Bible:
Hebrew Manuscript - 500 BC - OT 39 books
Septuagint - 200 BC - Completion of 39 OT + 14 Apocrypa
Greek Manuscript - 100 AD - NT 27 books
Vulgate- 390 AD- Latin manuscript of 39 OT + 27 NT + 14 AP
500 AD - bible translated into 500 languages
Martin Luther's Bible- 1522 - German translation
King James Version (KJV)- 1611 - Most widely used version 66 books
Revised Version (RV) - 1885 - First major revision of KJV
American Standard Version (ASV) - 1901 First American revision of KJV
Revised Standard Version (RSV)- 1952
New American Standard Bible (NASB) - 1971 Modern English translation word for word
New International Version (NIV) - 1973 Modern English translation thought for thought
Jerusalem Bible- 1966 - First version of the Bible commissioned by the Catholic Church
New King James Version (NKJV) - 1982 Modern English version of KJV
New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)- 1990
Catholic Bibles:
(DRB) Douay/Rheims
(NVB) Navarre Bible series
(RSV) Revised Standard Version
(JB) Jerusalem
(NJB) New Jerusalem
(NAB) New American
(GNB) Good News
(NRSV) New Revised Standard Version
Protestant Bibles:
(KJV) King James Version
(RV) Revised Version
(ASV) American Standard Version
(NKJV) New King James Version
(GNB) Good News
(RSV) Revised Standard Version
(NRSV) New Revised Standard Version
(NIV) New International Version
Remember that the Hebrew scripture (old testament) doesn't contain any books of the new testament even to this day. Take note of this line for future reference. And the first use of the word "Christian" in the Bible can only be found in the new testament on Acts 11:26, "And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch." It is found only twice more in Acts 26:28 and 1 Pet. 4:16. All are found in the new testament(NT), the book that was added to the old testament(OT), the Hebrew Scripture.
BTW, why did God choose Jesus Christ, Mohammed, Buddha, or Khrisna, and not the first Cro-Magnon or the very first primitive man to spread his gospel? The bible said man was created to God’s image and likeness and most probably intelligence. Was the very first human not identical to God, or was God waiting for the evolution of man to kick in? Who came first, dinosaurs or men? Why are dinosaurs, not dragons or sea serpents, not mentioned ever in the bible? How long is a day to god—a billion years, a trillion atomic years, or a microyoctosecond? Are we wired to believe in God or are we indoctrinated to believe god?
Since there are different religions all over the world and there are different gods likewise, who do you think is the authentic “GOD” — is it your god (if you have one) or it is their god? And which culture do you think is foolish; those people who adore sacred monkeys, those who adore golden elephants, those who adore symbols like crucifixes, or those who adore other forms of gods? Can you ask yourself why without prejudice or discrimination?
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