Do for one who may do for you,
that you may cause him thus to do.
The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant
Egypt, approx 1900 BCE.

Conservative Christians assure us that the Bible is entirely free of error.

After you read these books and articles, you will never again accept a single claim of the Bible without independent evidence of its truth.

[Note: Many of these books included links to further information on Amazon.com. This is provided merely as a convenient reference.]

Old Testament

Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman (2001)
The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of its Sacred Texts
(Touchstone)
[Dig around in Israel's archaeological sites and see what comes up - or doesn't.]

Richard Elliott Friedman (1987)
Who Wrote the Bible?
(Harper Collins)
[The Bible's only a book, after all? Why not analyse its origins and structures like any other book?]

William G. Dever (2001)
What Did the Biblical Writers Know & When Did They Know It? What Archaeology Can Tell Us about the Reality of Ancient Israel
(Eerdmans)
[This author takes quite a conservative approach, but see where it leaves the literal biblical account!]

New Testament

Robert M. Price (2003)
The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man: How Reliable is the Gospel Tradition?
(Prometheus)
[Accessible to every intelligent Christian. A bit like walking out your front door and noticing everything's turned chartreuse.]

Bart D. Ehrman (2003)
Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew
(Oxford University Press)
[How the 27 books of the NT were put together - by guess or by God? (Ehrman has written a number of relevant books but this one contains a particularly good brief bibliography.)]

G. A. Wells (2004)
Can We Trust the New Testament? Thoughts on the Reliability of Early Christian Testimony
(Open Court)
[All of Wells' books on Christian origins repay close study. His first, The Jesus of the Early Christians: A Study in Christian Origins (1971 - Pemberton) is now rather difficult to obtain but is available in many libraries. If you have a week or so to spare and read all his works in chronological order you will be thoroughly equipped to take on the most ardent Christian apologist. (Actually, you'll beat 99% of them without raising a sweat.)]

Hyam Maccoby (1986)
The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity
(Harper & Row)
[So if Christianity did not spring from an historical Jesus, who do we blame for it?]

Burton L. Mack (1995)
Who Wrote the New Testament? The Making of the Christian Myth
(Harper Collins)
[How long could Paul have stayed in the same room as the gospel writers without a five-way fist-fight breaking out?]

Bruce M. Metzger (1987)
The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development and Significance
(Oxford University Press)
[Serious students will start off with this one. Conservative in tone and approach but just keep reading between the lines.]

Earl Doherty (1999)
The Jesus Puzzle: Did Christianity Begin with a Mythical Christ?
(CHP)
[Lighter than other texts but well-constructed and easy to read. Quite a good introduction to the 'mythical Jesus' viewpoint.]

Richard E. Rubenstein (1999)
When Jesus became God: The Struggle to Define Christianity during the Last Days of Rome
(Harcourt)
[A blow-by-blow description of a battle royal. Who do you like: Arius or Athanasius?]

Peter J. Thuesen (1999)
In Discordance with the Scriptures: American Protestant Battles over Translating the Bible
(Oxford University Press)
[Deals with a much later squabble than the other texts but underlines the farcical nature of the whole biblical enterprise.]

Richard E Friedman (2005)
The Bible with Sources Revealed
(HarperOne)
[This book delves into the question of how the Torah came to be and why so many contradictions and repetitions appear in the five books of Moses.]

Hector Avalos (2007)
The End of Biblical Studies
(Prometheus Books)
[In this radical critique of his own academic specialty, biblical scholar Hector Avalos calls for an end to biblical studies as we know them. In effect, he accuses his profession of being more concerned about its self-preservation than about giving an honest account of its own findings to the general public and faith communities]

Robert M Price (2007)
Jesus is Dead
(American Atheist Press)
[This book argues that not only is there no good reason to think that Jesus ever rose from the dead, there is no good reason to suppose that he ever lived or died at all.]

Robert M Price (2007)
Paperback Apocalypse: How the Christian Church Was Left Behind
(Prometheus Books)
[Price traces the origin and scriptural basis, which is sometimes astonishingly skimpy, for such beliefs as the Rapture, the Second Coming, the Antichrist, and Messianic prophecy. He emphasizes that the writers of the New Testament consistently set a first-century deadline for the return of Jesus Christ, and yet the stubborn fact that the Second Coming obviously did not occur has not deterred fundamentalist Christians from blindly predicting the event throughout the centuries up to the present day.]

Taner Edis (2007)
Science and Nonbelief
(Prometheus Books)
[Physicist and acclaimed science writer Taner Edis examines the relationship between today's sciences and religious nonbelief. Beginning with a brief history of science and philosophical doubt, Edis goes on to describe those theories in contemporary science that challenge spiritual views by favoring a naturalistic conception of the world.]

Valerie Tarico (2007)
The Dark Side: How Evangelical Teachings Corrupt Love and Truth
(Lulu.com)
[A former fundamentalist examines the moral and rational contradictions that caused her to abandon those beliefs that once structured her life. In their place it offers perspectives that are compatible with love, logic, and the quest for truth.]

Bart D. Ehrman (2007)
Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why
(HarperOne)
[The former evangelical literalist sees in Holy Writ ample evidence of human fallibility and ecclesiastical politics, discounting not only the authenticity of existing manuscripts but also the inspiration of the original writers.]

Bart D. Ehrman (2008)
God’s Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question – Why We Suffer
(HarperOne)
[The author,a professor of religion, attempts to answer the great theological question about the persistence of evil in the world, refusing to accept the standard theological answers. In the end, frustrated that the Bible offers a range of conflicting views, Ehrman gives up on his Christian faith and fashions a utilitarian solution to suffering and evil in the world: first, make this life as pleasing to ourselves as we can and then make it pleasing to others]

Online sources

The Jesus Puzzle – Was There No Historical Jesus?
Did Christianity begin with an historical Jesus or a Jesus myth? Was the original Jesus a man or a mythical savior god? This website examines the Jesus Puzzle through the Christian and ancient-world record, from the Pauline epistles to the Gospels to the second century Christian apologists, from Philo to Josephus to Jewish and Hellenistic philosophy.

Jesus – History or Myth?
An ABC Religion & Ethics forum of debate about the evidence for the existence of Jesus Christ, and the historical reliability of the gospels.

Historical Jesus Theories
This web page seeks to explain and explore some of the theories offered up by contemporary scholars on the historical Jesus and the origins of the Christian religion. Issues include the nature of the historical Jesus, the nature of the early Christian documents, and the origins of the Christian faith in a risen Jesus Christ.