Where is the 'proof' that shows the Bible to be false?

Well, according to Matthew the family of Jesus lived in Bethlehem when Jesus was born during the reign of Herod. After describing a (fairy tale) story about a threat to Jesus and a trip to Egypt, Matthew then said that, after some time the family of Jesus bypassed their original home in Bethlehem and settled in Nazareth so that Jesus would fulfill a (non-existent) prophecy.

But according to Luke, Joseph and Mary lived in Nazareth before the birth of Jesus and went to Bethlehem because of a (non-existent) requirement during the governorship of Cyrenus (which began ten years after the death of Herod) that everyone had to go to the city of their ancestors for a tax enrollment. Not long after the birth of Jesus the family returned to their home in Nazareth.

The two stories are completely contradictory and cannot be reconciled.

ADDED

Patheher. The KJ Bible says taxing; the NIV says census; others say enrollment. The original Greek word is apographo, which means an enrollment for the purpose of taxation. All of the versions of the Bible I have say Cyrenius (that's the Greek spelling; Quirinius is the Latin) was governor of Syria.

The source you gave does not fit the context of the biblical story. The Romans taxed only the provinces they had direct control of, such as Egypt (which your source mentioned). They did not tax the provinces controlled by client rulers such as Herod.

There is no evidence that there was a Roman census in Judea during Herod's reign, and attempts to prove otherwise have no basis. Among other problems with such attempts, Saturninus was Governor of Syria from 9 BC to 6 BC, and Varus from 6 BC until after the death of Herod.

When Herod died in 4 BC, the Romans gave Judea, Idumea, and Samaria to his son Archelaus to rule, and the other parts of Palestine to his other two sons. Archelaus was brutal as ruler and his subjects appealed to Rome. As a result, Rome deposed Archelaus in 6 AD and took over direct rule of Archelaus's territory. In so doing they instituted taxation of that territory, and Quirinius, as the newly installed governor of Syria, was tasked to oversee the taxation, hence the enrollment. This taxation did not include Galilee, which was ruled by Herod's son Antipas, so Joseph, as a resident of Galilee (according to Luke's story) would not have been required to go to Bethlehem for the enrollment (contrary to Luke's exaggeration, the taxation was not world wide and did not require everyone to return to the city of their ancestors, which the Romans would never have done because of its impracticality and because there would have been absolutely no reason for it; they taxed on the basis of residency, not ancestry).

In Matthew's story, Joseph originally lived in Bethlehem. Some time after the birth of Jesus and the trip to and return from Egypt (which Matthew made up to appear to fulfill prophecy) Matthew used the brutal reign of Archelaus as an excuse to have Joseph and his family settle in Nazareth instead of returning to Bethlehem. As the KJ Bible says, "And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene." That indicates that Joseph was making a new home for himself and his family there. Again, there was no such prophecy. Matthew just made it up to give a reason for Joseph to settle in Nazareth.

Luke's story (also a made-up story, as was Matthew's) has Joseph and Mary leaving their home in Nazareth and going to Bethlehem where Jesus was born, and returning to Nazareth not long thereafter after performing the ritual requirements according to the law of Moses, which was forty days. There is simply no way the two stories can be reconciled. Among the other things noted above, the time frame provided by Luke leaves no room for the events described by Matthew.

Perhaps this link will help:

http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/science/long.htm...

This will provide you with a list of scientific inconsistencies and inaccuracies in the Bible. The only way the vast majority could not be considered as such is if one retreats to the stance that "the Bible is not being literal". The problem, of course, is that a sizable percentage of Christians do take the Bible at it's literal word, so who is really at fault? For example, consider these lines from Leviticus:

11:13 And these are they which ye shall have in abomination among the fowls ; they shall not be eaten, they are an abomination: the eagle, and the ossifrage, and the ospray,

11:14 And the vulture, and the kite after his kind;

11:15 Every raven after his kind;

11:16 And the owl, and the night hawk, and the cuckow, and the hawk after his kind,

11:17 And the little owl, and the cormorant, and the great owl,

11:18 And the swan, and the pelican, and the gier eagle,

11:19 And the stork, the heron after her kind, and the lapwing, and the bat.

If these lines are literally interpreted, then the Bible is telling us that bats are birds; of course, we know that bats are mammals and not avian creatures. This error is simple to explain: those who wrote and put the books of the Bible together believed that bats were indeed birds...they were ignorant as to the knowledge of how to tell the difference between mammalian and avian life.

I wouldn't let this bother you, though...almost every holy text of almost every religion contains scientific inaccuracies, so Christianity is not alone in this. It is something that we should expect given the scientific development of most cultures when these holy texts were written.

EDIT: In answering Gilgamesh, he may not be exactly correct, but Jesus' birth is very conflated...he was conceived in Nazareth, born in Bethlehem, fled to Egypt and then went back to Nazareth. It seems a little scattered and the timelines do not seem to converge.

In addition, you seem to be skipping by entries that show revealed errors. I hope this is not intentional as it weakens your case. There is no shame in admitting error, but there is in concealing it.

The Bible knows nothing about the universe that we know of. In the universe that we know of, the earth is less than an insignificant spec of dust and is no more important than any other planet in the universe. The earth's sun is but one of some trillions and trillions of suns. The fact of the matter is that there is nothing special about the earth as far as the universe is concerned.

According to the Bible, God created the earth before he created the sun, moon, and stars, and he will destroy the whole cosmos in the last days when he judges the earth and its inhabitants. In that context, the earth is central to the biblical cosmos and the rest of the cosmos is subordinate to the earth. Does that make sense in light of what we know about the universe?

In the biblical view of the cosmos, the earth, sun, moon, and stars are not what we know them to be. According to the Bible the earth is a flat immovable disk supported by pillars. There is not one single passage in the Bible indicating the earth is a sphere, and there are numerous passages indicating the earth is flat. In Isaiah 40:22, the Hebrew word translated as "circle" in reference to the earth, means "circle" (i.e., a disk in the biblical context) not "sphere."

There is nothing in the Bible indicating that the earth revolves around the sun. According to the Bible it is the sun that moves, not the earth (Ecclesiastes 1:5 and many other passages) and the reference to the earth being suspended over "nothing" or "emptiness" refers to the bottomless abyss under the disk of the earth, not the outer space we know of. (If the earth is "suspended," how can it be moving around the sun at 66,000 mph?) Other passages--1 Sam 2:8, Ps 75:2, Ps 96:10, and many others--clearly indicate that the earth is set on pillars and does not move. There are no passages whatsoever indicating otherwise. Don't forget that the church burned Giordano Bruno at the stake for saying that the earth moves in contradiction to the Bible, and that it would have done the same to Galileo if he had not recanted.

According to the Bible, the firmament (literally in the Hebrew: "that which is beaten out," as a beaten out metal plate) of heaven is a solid structure (NEB: Job 37:18: "Can you beat out the vault of the skies, as he does, hard as a mirror of cast metal?) that holds back the waters above the heaven, and the stars are just lights set in the firmament and will fall to the earth in the last days.

In his book, The Biblical Cosmos Versus Modern Cosmology, David Presutta presents an enormous amount of evidence from the Bible showing all of this.

There are also many other things in the Bible that show that it is not trustworthy.

For me, it's not the "proof" the Bible is false, but the LACK of proof that it's accurate!

Some examples:

Lack of evidence of encampments around Mt.Sinai thousands of years old.

Lack of remains of Egyptian chariots or soldiers at bottom of Red Sea.

Lack of remains of encampments scattered around Sinai Peninsula.

(You'd think they'd leave some broken pottery here and there wandering the Desert 40 years).

If the Flood covered all the Earth, how did the animals from Australia and the Americas reach the Middle East? (Especially the really slow ones that can't swim, like the Amazon ground sloth).

Where did the water go? It would have to be six miles deep worldwide to cover Mt. Everest, and how could it drain into the oceans?

We now know the stars aren't little points of light in the sky, but great blazing globes of hydrogen many light years away. Many of them have their own planets. Why would "God" go through so much trouble to make them as navigation lights when he could have made little points of light in the sky?

Well Consider This The Bible Was Written By MAn And Man Is Open To Outside Influence And Misinterpretation. So Those Who Believe It To Be The Word Of God Are Fools.

Good Question Though

I would hope that if you truly love god you see it as false - after all, the first part of the book shows god to be a vicious tyrant and a serial murderer and torturer - we just put Saddam Hussien to death for that stuff

As far as "answering" the question, there is a very good course put out by the Teaching Company called THE RELIGIONS OF THE ANCIENT MEDITERRANEAN WORLD, which follows the line of development of the Egyptian and Mesopotamian religions - both of which contributed to the development of Judaism - the Zoroastorian religion -as well as some of the aspects of the Mediterranean Mystery Cults - added to the myths surrounding Jesus.

You should be able to go to a local library and ask them to lend you the series

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You want an inconsistancy? A clear contradiction is in the Books of Acts. Acts 9:7 (Paul's conversion experience) reads "And the men which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice but seeing no man." Compare to another telling of the same conversion experience in Acts 22:9, which reads "and they that were with me indeed saw the light, and were afraid; but they heard not the voice of him that spake to me."

Which is it? A contradiction is clearly present for his companions cannot both hear and not hear in the same event. Even odder is the fact that both passages appear in a single author (supposedly Luke), who is often tauted by fundamentalists as being an "above average" historian. What even mediocre historian can't edit his own work for consistancy? The issue left is that the text was tampered with after the fact (certainly possible), but then that opens up the can of worms as to just how much MORE was tampered with, and to what ends? Agreeing that it was tampered with only proves that EVERY PIECE of supposed prophecy could have been written after the fact or manipulated as to fit some past vague prohetic statement.

Nearly a third of the books of the New Testament is devoted to Pauline works; and Paul's claims to authority are based not on a relationship with the earthly ministry of Jesus, but with his claims of a conversion experience. If he can't keep that story straight, how much else has he decided to fabricate?

Your studying the Bible for "years" shows only that you read with a sycophantic need, and not a scholar's passion. Clearly you have given this little if any thought

i just want to say that what athiest, agnostics, and scientologist believe is true is only in the realm of reality. but what religion gives is a belief far greater than this universe or any as a matter of fact. I wouldn't consider them lost souls, just people who think differently in this world, only when they have given up in life are they truly lost souls. and theres always a way to steer them back into religion, but when that day comes i would think it would be to late to save them (hopefully not). come to think of it science can't prove the bible as false. Theories are only theories while the bible has been passed down from generation to generation, don't let people who dont believe tell u otherwise.

Lots of people will say scientific theories (examples are the theory of evolution and the big bang theory) prove the Bible wrong. The problem with this is that these are only theories and are in no way proved.

There is no concrete evidence that proves the Bible wrong. People who are told that something miraculous happened, something that has not happened in front of the person, won't believe it unless they see proof because to that person it is completely illogical. To these people living for hundreds of years or an animal used as God's instrument is completely illogical. Most people won't believe something until they see it with their own eyes. But that doesn't prove the Bible wrong either. Most logic is relative, not absolute.

This is a tough question to answer right here because before you can really understand why so much scientific knowledge refutes what the Bible says, you have to have a solid understanding of scientific process. Rather than just giving you a very simply packaged answer, you have to go out and learn about science itself, and then start reading up on the various studies and theories that contradict what the Bible says.

I wish I could just list a bunch of science stuff here (and really I could) but it won't mean much to you unless you first gain a solid understanding of scientific process. :)

NATALIE: Gravity is also a theory. So is the idea that some disease is caused by germs. So is the idea that the earth goes around the sun. These things are all theories.

Edit: Okay, since you asked for some of the list, here is a partial one off the top of my head early in the morning :) Bear in mind that if you've already heard the religious excuses for these points you probably will not understand why they are scientific refutations of the Bible until you fully understand why scientific processes work.

-There is no evidence for a worldwide flood, and in fact there is not enough water on the planet--in liquid, vapor, and solid form--to cover all the continents save for one mountain peak. Even if there were, the tallest peak would not have been in the Middle East, where the Bible is set. The science of geology bears these things out.

-1 Kings 7:24 and 2 Chronicles 4:3 state that the circumference of a circle is three times its diameter. This is incorrect; we know that pi is 3.14159...etc. Mathematics bears this out.

-The Bible refers to bats as birds and makes many other incorrect taxonomic references to animals. The science of biology, and its daughter science genetics, disproves the Bible's stance on animal relationships.

-There is no evidence for a tribe of tens of thousands of people wandering the region for forty years as described in Exodus. The sciences--albeit soft ones--of anthropology and archaeology disprove Exodus.

-There is no evidence that all humans descend from a single human male and a single human female. If our ancestral population were so tiny, there would be clear genetic markers for a "population bottleneck," as in the cheetah. A solid understanding of evolutionary theory and of genetics is required to understand why Adam and Eve are just a myth. Aside from the fact that they are first described as the only humans, and then one of their sons goes off and marries another human whose creation by God was never mentioned. Hmmm....

There are lots more, but I have to get ready for a long day of cleaning up animal feces. You can google this, you know; there are lots of great articles and web pages detailing the many ways in which the Bible fails scientifically. But again I must stress: If you've already been fed a string of lies from religious sources about why the above are not scientifically disproven, then you will require much more reading in the basic principles of science in order to understand how and why you've been lied to by your faith.

You will not get a true answer. "Just couldn't of happened - talk to the hand."

If they could prove a written prophesy that was claimed to be fulfilled was falsified by being recorded after the event would be academically something to go on. Very slim chance that would ever happen.

There is no proof that any book or letter in the Bible is falsified. Rather the evidence that the Bible indeed is quite accurate to comparing to ancient discovered texts show rather the opposite.

They have no academic proofs just preconceived ideas and hear'say they do not want to budge from. Most of those so called anti-biblical 'proofs' are old and dusty that has been spun around and refuted years ago and have no serious academic truth.