The Bible is meant to be the Word of God, and is the foundation of the Christian religion. Everything that Christians believe and everything that they know of God and Jesus emanates from the Bible. If the Bible is not credible, then the whole of the Christian religion is founded on falsehood. I believe that the Bible is far from credible, for two main reasons:

1. It is shot full of contradictions and factual errors
2. It contains many ridiculous stories and claims , which don't tally with the idea of an all-knowing, all-powerful being, and which no-one in their right mind would take seriously.

If the Bible were truly the inspired word of God, then it would have neither of these faults. It should resound with clarity and truth and be an instant inspiration to anyone who reads it, such that they would immediately be converted.

The fact that the Bible does contain contradictions, errors and preposterous stories marks it down for what it is - at best, a storybook full of thrilling tales, never intended to be taken seriously, at worst an attempt by writers with ulterior motives to deceive a gullible, uneducated public into believing what the writers wanted them to believe. Personally, I believe the latter explanation is closer to the mark.

The Bible is a document that inspires confusion, hatred and bigotry, and which sanctions moral values that are utterly reprehensible.

Many Christian apologists, clutching at straws to explain away the many problems with the Bible, claim that the "original" text of the Bible, whatever that is, was indeed the inspired Word of God, but that the inaccuracies and contradictions crept in over the ages through the human failings of mortal translators and copiers. How they could possibly know that, given that the "original" Bible texts are not available to anyone, is an interesting question in itself. However, it's a moot point. I believe it's quite absurd to suggest that God would inspire humans to write down a perfect version of the original Bible, then be so slapdash in his subsequent stewardship of it to allow it to be mistranslated and miscopied so appallingly. Surely he would extend his divine guidance to every monk, scribe, translator and printer who had anything to do with publishing and promulgating his Holy Book, given its priceless importance as the prime piece of evidence for people to believe in him? And if things really did somehow get out of hand, why not float a Second Edition (Revised and Completely Updated) down from a cloud and straighten out all the confusion? No, the crucial point is that the Bible is very clearly a construction of human beings, put together by them for their own purposes. A religion based on the Bible is a religion with no credible basis at all.