NT and OT scholarship

A Short History of the Bible, Being A Popular Account of the Formation and Development of the Canon, by Bronson C. Keeler:

The Authorities. The writings of the Christian Fathers, the ecclesiastical history of Eusebius - the oldest Christian history now extant - and the modern works, On the Canon of the New Testament, by Brooke Foss Westcott, D.D., and The Canon of the Bible, by Prof. Samuel Davidson, D.D., LL.D., are the sources from which the information must chiefly be drawn.

As some of the statements from Prof. Davidson will appear to the general reader quite remarkable, a word or two in explanation may be necessary. He is an Englishman, in the recognized head and front of the Protestant students of the world. He is eighty-three years of age, has spent a life in the study of these topics, is one of the ablest if not the ablest authority now living on the subject of the canon ... He was requested by the editors of the new edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica to write the article on the Canon for that work, and accepted the commission, supposing that what they desired was the facts. He told how the Bible had been made up, what books had been put in at different times and what left out, and that the Bible had not always consisted of just the books now in it. When the editors read the article, they declined to publish it as it was. They "mutilated" it, as Prof. Davidson says, and what was left after the eliminating process was completed now appears in the Encyclopedia as the article on the Canon. Prof. Davidson then published the original in book form, entitling it The Canon of the Bible, and in the preface he tells why he issued it. It is from that work that I quote so frequently.

The inexperienced person has little idea of the difficulty which the critical party finds in getting its facts before the public; nor of the systematic suppression used by the Christian press and clergy to prevent unpleasant truths concerning the Christian religion from coming out. There is not an orthodox religious newspaper in the world that will publish the facts concerning the origin of the Bible, which are given in these pages; there is scarcely a magazine in America that will publish them; and it is but recently that any newspaper would do so. Men who know the Christian theology to be untrue, have to get their audience as best they can.
-- A Short History of the Bible, Bronson C. Keeler, 1881

Those graduating in religious studies from every major university in America, as well as every major theological seminary that is independent of Christian financial pressure, know certain facts to be true.
They know that:

• The entire bible is saturated with common mythological themes, from the creation and flood myth to virgin birth and resurrected hero mythology.
• The stories of the patriarchs in the Old Testament are known as 'temple legends' to enhance the history of the Hebrew people and are mostly fictional.
• The gospels were not written by anyone who knew Jesus personally.
• The 'Christ' myths and formulas are direct copies of Zoroastrian myths adopted by the Jesus sect.
• These facts, with others, have been known for years, and taught by internationally respected scholars from major universities world wide.

Religiously educated clergy, through the sin of omission and silence, yet continue to promote superstition.
-- William Edelen, Presbyterian and Congregational minister (1999)

Link

Jesus and the New Testament

• Deconstructing Jesus by Robert M. Price
• The Jesus Puzzle by Earl Doherty
• Gospel Fictions by Randel McCraw Helms, a New Testament scholar. The book goes through the history of how the Gospel narratives were created (invented).
• Who Wrote the Gospels? Randel McCraw Helms
• Gospel Truth: The New Image of Jesus Emerging from Science and History and Why It Matters by Russell Shorto, provides an introduction to modern New Testament scholarship. This field tends to be critical of traditional Christianity.
• The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity by British scholar Hyam Maccoby
• Paul and Hellenism by Hyam Maccoby
• The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man: How Reliable Is the Gospel Tradition? by Robert M. Price
• Who Wrote the New Testament?: The Making of the Christian Myth by Burton L. Mack
  Shows how the Gospels are fictional mythologies created by different communities for various purposes. The author discusses the theory of the Q Community being Cynics (one of several ancient Greco-Roman schools of philosophy).
• The Christian Myth: Origins, Logic, and Legacy by Burton L. Mack
• Die Widersprüche zwischen den Evangelien; Ihre polemische und apologetische Behandlung in der alten Kirche bis zu Augustin, by Helmut Merkel, 1971. ("The contradictions between the Gospels; their polemic and apologetic treatment in the Early Church upto Augustine") This book covers the embarrassment that the Church Fathers felt at the presence of discrepancies among the canonical Gospels, which non-Christians of the day like Emperor Julian, Porphyry and others had noted.
• The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament by Bart D. Ehrman and Brad D. Ehrman. (Bart D. Ehrman is associate professor of religious studies at UNC-Chapel Hill)
  The authors examine how early struggles between Christian "heresy" and "orthodoxy" affected the transmission of the documents about which these struggles were largely waged. The book discusses how proto-orthodox scribes of the 2nd and 3rd centuries occasionally altered their sacred texts for polemical reasons. For example, to oppose:
  • The Ebionites, who claimed that Christ was a man but not God
  • The Docetists like Marcion, who claimed that Jesus was God but not a man
  • The Ptolemaean Gnostics, who claimed that Jesus was two beings, one divine and one human
  The authors' analyses paint the social and intellectual history of early Christianity, where scribes lived in an age when they could alter the documents they were copying to make the texts say what they were thought to mean. In this way, they caused the orthodox corruption of Scripture, showing that the victors not only wrote the history, but also reproduced the texts.
• When Jesus Became God: The Struggle to Define Christianity during the Last Days of Rome by Richard E. Rubenstein
  Gives some insight to Church Councils that are not discussed in history classes because they have been 'ignored' by the Church. This includes the Council of Sileucia which led to the adoption of the religious ideas of Arius. The book also discusses how Athanasius used violence and politics to force Trinitarianism into the mainstream Church.

The Old Testament and the Middle East

Not only have Adam and Eve and the flood story passed over to mythology, but we can no longer talk about a time of the patriarchs. There never was a 'United Monarchy' in history and it is meaningless to speak of pre-exilic prophets and their writings.
... the Bible's 'Israel' [is] a literary fiction ...
We can now say with considerable confidence that the Bible is not a history of anyone's past.
-- Thomas L. Thompson, Professor of Old Testament at the University of Copenhagen and one of the leading biblical archaeologists in the world

• Who Wrote the Bible? by Richard E. Friedman, summarises mainstream Old Testament scholarship.
• A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam by Karen Armstrong, discusses the history of the Judeo-Christian conception of God.
• The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts by Neil Asher Silberman and Israel Finkelstein - online summary.
  The authors, who are directors of archaeological institutes, are authorities concerning the archaeology of early Palestine.
  The book discusses how archaeology has shown that there is no evidence for the existence of:
  • Abraham and any of the Patriarchs
  • Moses and the Exodus
  • The period of Judges and the united monarchy of David and Solomon.
  Doubting the Story of Exodus - L.A. Times News, April 13, 2001

  The modern archeological consensus over the Exodus is just beginning to reach the public.
  ...
  In a new book this year, "The Bible Unearthed," Israeli archeologist Israel Finklestein of Tel Aviv University and archeological journalist Neil Asher Silberman raised similar doubts and offered a new theory about the roots of the Exodus story. The authors argue that the story was written during the time of King Josia of Judah in the 7th century BC--600 years after the Exodus supposedly occurred in 1250 BC--as a political manifesto to unite Israelites against the rival Egyptian empire as both states sought to expand their territory.

• Archeaology and the Bible, Background of the Old Testament and Moses - Fact or Fiction? at the Norwegian site Bandoli. In English and Norwegian.
• Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel by Frank Moore Cross
  Operating on the assumption that Biblical chronology is accurate, the book discusses the mainstream theory of how the Judeo-Christian beliefs evolved from the religion of the Phoenician-Canaanite people.

The Bible and Prophecy unfulfilled

• The Age of Reason Parts I and II by Thomas Paine, one of the founding fathers of America, and a Deist
• Part III of The Age of Reason available from American Atheists:

  In the nativity fictions as elsewhere in the gospel stories, the evangelists sought to bolster their defense of the messiahship and divinity of their client by showing that he was the fulfillment of various Old Testament (OT) prophecies. ... a very detailed and devastating analysis of these "prophecies" was done two centuries ago, by Thomas Paine, one of the non-Christian Fathers of our Republic. Paine's analysis was published as Part III of The Age of Reason and was titled, appropriately, Examination of the Prophecies.

  Link
• Bible Prophecy: Failure or Fulfillment? by Tim Callahan
• More on failed prophecies