The churches I grew up in would say that they took the Bible "literally". That is to say that every book in the OT was inspired directly by God, meaning that every word is to be treated as if the words were written by God himself. Therefor, anything said in it must be 100% factually true and is completely coherent to a single theology. Archaeological discoveries in the past 200 years or so have greatly expanded our knowledge of the time of early Israel.

# Enuma Elish

The Enuma Elish is a series of tablets recording the Babylonian creation mythology. The dating for the tablets is usually around 1200 BC, but the origin of these stories is thought to predate 1750 BC. (To compare, a historical Moses is usually dated to around 1300 BC).

The Enuma Elish describes the god Marduk cutting open Tiamat thus creating the sky and the earth. However, there remain several similarities with the Bible's creation story.

• Light is created before the sun.
• Describes the waters above being separated from the waters below.
• Darkness is what exists before anything is created

The Enuma Elish was discovered relatively recently (1849) and wasn't publicly published until 1876. Before this discovery, the story in Genesis was thought to be unique in its telling of creation. However since then, archaeologists have discovered several creation myths from nearby civilizations of the same time period that all have similar details.

Why does the Bible's creation story have so much in common with the creation stories of the surrounding societies? Why do creation stories that predate the writing of Genesis and the Hebrew people have so much in common with the Bible's creation story?

# Code of Hammurabi

It's taken for granted that the laws written down in the OT in Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy were written by God himself. The laws in the OT are still often quoted today in evangelical circles to get an idea of what God wants or to understand what is good or evil in the eyes of God.

For the Babylonians however, they had their own set of laws. There is a famous set of laws called the Code of Hammurabi that dates back to about 1900-1600 BC. (Predating the nation of Israel by hundreds years) In 1901, a large portion of the code was discovered. So today we have over 200 laws from the early Babylonians.

However, what quickly become apparent in reading the Code of Hammurabi is how much of it lines up with the laws given by God in the OT. For example, here are a pair of passages describing laws surrounding "Goring Oxen"

There are obviously some nuances that could be teased out in each of these respective laws. But if God is the author of the OT law, then why does it seem to be derived from the Code of Hammurabi?

source: Marc Zvi Brettler. How to Read the Bible

# Canaanite Conquest

Throughout the book of Joshua there are several cities listed where the Israelites conquer the city by means of force and kills everyone in the city. For example, Joshua 10 lists the cities of Makkedah, Libnah, Lachish, Eglon, Hebron, and Debir. And there is no sidestepping this, the Bible explicitly states that "They left no survivors."

The problem however, is that despite a huge expansion in archaeological digs in the past 200 years, there has been almost no evidence of any conquest or destruction.

We would expect to find Canaanite material culture (pottery jugs, housing styles) replaced by totally new styles, most likely with Egyptian motifs or styles, reflecting the origins of the conquering people. However, such evidence eludes us even after a large number of excavations and surveys (mini-excavations). What have archaeologists found instead? Some evidence of destruction, but significantly more evidence for new settlement patterns at previously uninhabited sites in the highlands. This suggests to many that the main claim in Joshua -a complete and total conquest by Israel- is false.

Another example is the battle of Ai in Joshua 7 and 8. The word 'Ai' actually means 'heap' or 'ruin'. And the archaeological evidence shows that the city was uninhabited a long time period both before and after the time of Joshua. (2400-1200 BC). So if there was no one actually living in Ai for several centuries, where did Joshua get this story about the conquest of Ai? Why would someone name their city "ruins"?

Scholars postulate that this is an "etiological story"; a story that is meant to explain where something got its name. The idea is that the author of Joshua wanted to explain how the ruins of Ai got its name. So a fictional conquest was created around the set of ruins to explain how the ruins got their name and at the same time give the site a sense of national pride and meaning.

I do not think that the author of Joshua was intending to mislead people, but rather was more concerned with passing on stories of national pride, moral teachings, and cultural reinforcement. By using real locations that Israelites would be familiar with, the stories had a deeper connection with the readers of the stories.

# Daniel

The book of Daniel is unique in the Bible because it is written in 2 different languages. Chapters 2-8 are written in Aramaic and the rest of the book is written in Hebrew.

However, despite being named Daniel, this book could not have been written by Daniel himself. The author makes multiple historical errors that someone living at the time would not have made.

• The book talks about Nebuchadnezzar being exiled at the time, but Nebuchadnezzar was never exiled during his reign. The best that can be assumed is that this is rather a mix up with a later king, Nabonidus, who took a leave of absence.
• In chapter 5, Belshazzar is listed as the final king of Babylon which is just factually incorrect.
• There are also Greek loan words used throughout the book. This all seems to point to Daniel having been written during the Greek period, not during the Babylonian exile.

If the author is living in Babylonian exile, how does the author of Daniel get current events incorrect?

source: Marc Zvi Brettler. How to Read the Bible

# Chronicles

In Sunday school, I was told that Chronicles was more or less another history of Judah that just happens to cover some of the same details as Samuel and Kings. So Chronicles was written by a different author but should also be considered 100% historically factual and never contradicts anything in Samuel and Kings. What isn't known by many Protestant Christians is that the book of Chronicles in the Hebrew Bible is actually placed at the end.

The book of Chronicles ends with Cyrus the Great declaring the end of Babylonian captivity. So the author is writing sometime in the 6th century BC. So then that leaves the question, where did the author get the information he is writing about? A large amount of Chronicles comes from the other books in the Bible, but where do the additional details come from? For example in 1 Chronicles 6, a genealogy is given for the high priest Zadok who lived during the times of David and Solomon. The Chronicler then writes down an entire genealogy starting at Aaron all the way through to descendants of Zadok until the exile. Where did the Chronicler get this information on the names of the generations and that Zadok was a descendant of Aaron? We don't know, and by all appearances, it seems that he made it up (which was a common practice at the time).

The Chronicler also leaves out certain stories such as King Saul, David and Bathsheba, David murdering Uriah, the prophet Nathan, the rape of Tamar, Absalom's rebellion, the struggle for the throne after David's death. What these all have in common is that the author is leaving out anything that he feels makes David and Israel look bad.

There are many more changes that Chronicles makes to the stories in Samuel and Kings (such as the story of King Manasseh's repentance), but the questions that come up from them are the same. The Chronicler was writing hundreds of years after the events being told but readily makes changes to the stories, adds genealogies, and omits most details about the Northern Kingdom. Where is the Chronicler getting his information if he is writing hundreds of years after the events took place?

source: Marc Zvi Brettler. How to Read the Bible