What surprises people the most when they study the Bible's history and how it was compiled?

 

There are a number of things that are strikingly and obviously false.

You don’t need to read the Bible to know that there was no Adam and Eve, for example.

But it’s surprising how much of the traditional story about the Bible misses the mark. Some basic facts that are very well established now about the Bible:

1. Moses not only did not write the Pentateuch, but likely didn’t exist.
2. Similarly, the Exodus is entirely mythical. The Israelites were indigenous to Canaan and were never slaves in Egypt.
3. Until at least the Babylonian exile, the Israelites were polytheistic. Yahweh was one god amongst many and it was only later that he became the One True God.
4. The Book of Daniel was a forgery written hundreds of years after it’s supposed date of writing. That’s why it get’s a bunch of prophecies shockingly correct and then proceeds to get all of it’s later prophecies wrong.
5. Jesus made false prophecies.
6. The traditional authorship of the Gospels is almost certainly false. We have no clue who wrote them but it certainly wasn’t anyone close to Jesus or his followers.
7. Many of Paul’s letters are forgeries.

Those are just a few statements that are unlikely to raise any eyebrows amongst scholars of the Bible but they would cause mayhem in any church in America.