Some people think the Bible is a “good book”, the work of a perfect God. If you actually read the Bible, you’ll find that this book is not actually good in any way. It’s a very poorly written book full of stupid nonsense, false claims, and terrible advice. This post is about how bad the writing in the Bible is.

The Bible repeats itself way too much. It’s full of random non sequiturs. It does a terrible job when it attempts to quote itself, and when it tries to make analogies. And it constantly contradicts itself.

The Bible says Adam named his wife Eve, because she would be the mother of everyone. But Adam wouldn’t have known anything about reproduction at that time, so that’s not a realistic thought process for him to have. He wouldn’t have known what a mother was, because mothers didn’t exist yet.

The Bible seems to indicate that God first gave humans permission to eat meat just after the flood. But two chapters before that, God gives Noah instructions about how many “clean” and “unclean” animals to take on the ark. How could God expect Noah to distinguish between those, if he hadn’t even given people permission to eat meat at all yet, much less told anyone which animals he considered “clean” or “unclean”?

The book of Job has God ask who did some things, where the answer is obviously supposed to be God. What’s the point of asking and giving away the answer at the same time? Maybe there would be a point to these questions if Job had ever said anything unreasonably arrogant, but he hadn’t.

Then it has God state that Job’s friends have not spoken the truth about God, unlike Job. Does the author not realize that he’s having God call himself cruel and unjust? Job is the one who spent almost the whole story talking about how cruel and unjust God was, while his friends did nothing but try to defend God. And now God confirms that Job was right.

Genesis says “Shechem had done an outrageous thing in Israel“. Looks like the author forgot that this story was set in a time before a place called Israel existed. Later, it says “the sons of Jacob came upon the dead bodies” in the city of Shechem. I guess that means the sons other than the ones who had left the dead bodies there?

Joseph says he was “forcibly carried off from the land of the Hebrews“. Did such a thing even exist in Joseph’s time? He had been carried off from the land of Canaan, which (according to the Bible) did not yet belong to the Hebrews.

It’s unclear what Joseph is trying to do when he tells his brothers to tell the Pharaoh, who apparently hates shepherds, that Joseph’s family tends livestock. Some translations have him tell his brothers to tell Pharaoh that they tend cattle, which implies that Joseph is continuing to take after his father and trying to deceive Pharaoh. But it still wouldn’t make any sense, because even in those versions, Joseph tells Pharaoh that they’re shepherds. If he’s trying to hide the fact that they’re shepherds, he’s doing a very bad job.

It says God avoided harming the Israelites during half of the Ten Plagues, but it doesn’t say so during the plagues of blood, frogs, gnats, boils, or locusts. It also never says the blood or the darkness went back to normal. Either God was being sloppy and forgetful here, or the author is.

While the Israelites were still slaves in Egypt, God told them they should celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread on that day because that was the day he had brought them out of Egypt. No, God, that hadn’t happened yet. Later, he told Aaron to put some manna with the tablets of the covenant law, which didn’t exist yet.

Leviticus 2 starts out like it’s going to tell what to do “when anyone sins unintentionally and does what is forbidden in any of the Lord’s commands“. It then tells what to do in several more specific scenarios, but doesn’t get around to telling what to do when an ordinary individual sins until 25 verses later.

God makes it sound like a unique attibute of unclean kinds of animals is that touching their carcasses makes you unclean. But then he says the same is true of the “clean” animals. So why didn’t he just say that all animal carcasses make you unclean? There was no reason to bring up the distinction between clean and unclean kinds of animals here.

Most of Numbers 2 is written like God is giving instructions, but the quotation of God ends in verse 2.

The verse that starts with “This is how the lampstand was made:” doesn’t tell us anywhere near as much about that as you would expect from a description that starts that way.

Moses starts a sentence with “When you are in distress and all these things have happened to you”, but then he tells them what will happen at a later time, instead of telling them what will happen when they are in distress and all these things have happened to them.

He starts another sentence with “As you know,” before telling his people a bunch of geographical details about the promised land. Why would they know all that? They’ve never been there. And if they really do know, why is he telling them?

Deuteronomy 12 is a rambling mess, giving rules about eating meat that sound like maybe they’re actually trying to give rules about sacrifices, but not actually saying anything about sacrifices when giving those rules, which makes the rules sound pointlessly obvious, though if the rules really were about sacrifices, they would contradict the other rules in this chapter that actually do mention sacrifices.

Moses lists the animals that Israelites are allowed to eat. All ten of them. Then he says they can eat any animal that has a divided hoof and that chews the cud. Surely that includes more than just the ten he listed? So what was the point of listing those specific ones?

Then, “of those that chew the cud or that have a divided hoof”, he lists a few specific animals that they’re not allowed to eat. But he implies that any animal that doesn’t have both of those properties is forbidden, so there was no need to list specific animals. It was also pointless for him to say “or that have a divided hoof” in that sentence, since none of the animals he listed in that sentence had those.

Moses tells the people what to do “if it is true and it has been proved that this detestable thing has been done”, when no detestable thing has been specified.

He says if a guilty person “deserves to be beaten”, then the judge should have that person flogged “with the number of lashes the crime deserves“. That’s awfully vague. This seems like the kind of thing you would want to have more specific laws about. Moses seems to think that this is important enough to make a law about, but not that it’s important enough that the law needs to specify exactly when someone deserves to be beaten, and how much.

When Moses is done giving Israel the laws that he already gave them, he states that he’s now 120 years old and no longer able to lead them. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was saying he was no longer able because he was old. But that can’t be it, because the Bible says he was not weak when he died. So what was he trying to say, then?

Then Moses sings a song where he states that when God divided mankind into nations, he set up boundaries according to how many sons Israel had. That doesn’t make much sense chronologically, since nations already existed before Jacob was even born. And what does the number of sons of Israel have to do with assigning land to all the other nations, anyway?

And then Moses gives a blessing to each of the tribes of Israel. For most of the tribes, the narration includes an introductory line stating that this is what he said about that tribe. But it fails to give the tribes of Reuben, Ephraim, Mannasseh, and Issachar their own introductory lines.

Later, it says “Joshua took the entire land” and gave it to the tribes of Israel. If I didn’t know better, I’d think it was saying that Joshua had taken all of the promised land. But that can’t be it, because Joshua never did take all of the promised land. A lot of it was still unconquered when Joshua died. So what was that supposed to mean, then??

In the middle of telling what land Joshua gave the Levites, the Bible states that Arba was the forefather of Anak. Other than that, it doesn’t say who Arba and Anak are, or why we need to know about them. They don’t seem to have anything to do with what it was saying. Except that it had mentioned a place that had Arba in its name. But it doesn’t say how that place is related to Arba, whoever that is.

Then Joshua lets the Israelites know that God is going to bring on them all the evil things he has threatened, until he has destroyed them from the land. Was that statement meant to be conditional on what Israel was going to do? If so, Joshua forgot to say that part. And if not, what was the point of telling them that, if they can’t do anything about it?

The book of Judges tells about a time when the Israelites “turned from the ways of their ancestors, who had been obedient to the Lord’s commands.” It should have said some of their ancestors. Not all of their ancestors had been obedient.

It says Samson’s enemies were lying in wait for him all night at the city gate. And that his solution was to break off the city gate in the middle of the night and carry it away. How is that supposed to in any way help him get past his enemies?

In the story of Ruth, Naomi’s sons (who both die young) happen to have names that mean “sickness” and “wasting”. Not very realistic.

A story in 1 Samuel tells how big both the army of Israel and the army of Judah were, and a story in 2 Samuel has David count the fighting men of Israel and the fighting men of Judah separately. Looks like the author forgot that at the time of these stories, Judah was supposed to have been part of Israel. The author also forgets that Jerusalem didn’t belong to Israel yet, and has David go there after killing Goliath, like he’s coming home or something.

In 1 Samuel 20, Jonathan needs to inform David of something that he just found out, even though they both already knew it. So he conveys that information to David using an elaborate secret code, as if he’s unable to talk to him in person for some reason. Then he talks to him in person.

It says hundreds of people flocked to the fugitive David so he could be their leader. It doesn’t say why. It doesn’t say if he had ever done anything to make them want to do that.

In a psalm that David is supposed to have written while Saul was king, it says God has made David “the head of nations“. David was not the head of any nation at that time.

The author of 1 Samuel has a Philistine call David “as pleasing in my eyes as an angel of God“. Why would a Philistine talk like that? This author is not doing a very good job of writing a character who doesn’t believe in the God of Israel.

When David tries to get Uriah out of the war, to go home to his wife, Uriah objects that Israel “and Judah” (which is still not a separate entity, by the way) still have to camp out in tents because of the ongoing war. So, Uriah asks, how could he go home to eat and drink and make love to his wife at a time like this?

Well, when he asks this, Uriah is already eating and drinking at the palace. So the eating and drinking part clearly isn’t a problem for him. It seems the only thing that Uriah really objects to is specifically the prospect of having sex with his beautiful wife. Which doesn’t make much sense, except for the narrative purposes of implying to the reader why David had wanted Uriah to go home in the first place,¹ and providing a reason for David to resort to getting Uriah killed.

A prophet gives David a message pointing out that God has given David “all Israel and Judah“. The author continues to forget that Judah is supposed to have been part of Israel. (In reality they had always been two separate kingdoms, but not in the Bible’s version of history. Acting like Judah is distinct from Israel in David’s time is inconsistent.)

When Shimei accuses David of having shed blood in the household of Saul, David acts like Shimei is right, even though David doesn’t kill any relatives of Saul until later. And they act like God disapproves of David supposedly having killed Saul’s relatives, but then when he actually does it, it’s because that’s what God wants him to do.

2 Samuel 20 claims that the whole nation of Israel instantly went from supporting David to abandoning him just because one guy suggested it. But it says the men of Judah stayed loyal to him, which means that what it just said is false. “All the men of Israel” didn’t desert him.

2 Samuel 23 reports what David’s last words were, which is out of place. David doesn’t die till three chapters later. Before he dies, David says he expects Solomon to know what to do, because Solomon is “a man of wisdom“. Looks like the author forgot that Solomon wasn’t supposed to have been wise yet. He doesn’t become wise until the next chapter, after David dies.

When it’s telling about Solomon’s reign, 1 Kings continues to talk about “Judah and Israel“. According to the pseudohistory of the Bible, that’s like saying “California and the United States”.

The Bible’s description of Elisha returning a miraculously resurrected boy to his mother is ridiculously boring and mechanical.

It has the other prophets call Elisha “man of God“, a phrase which in the Bible means a prophet. The prophets are all “men of God”, so why would they call him that? Wouldn’t they call him something more specific, to distinguish him from the rest of the men of God?

The Bible says some time after Elisha died, some people threw another body into Elisha’s tomb because they were in a hurry. It doesn’t explain why his tomb was open.

The story of Esther has the king of Persia state that “no document written in the king’s name and sealed with his ring can be revoked“, while doing just that.

Isaiah takes almost 50 words to say “this is what the Lord says” before getting around to actually saying what the Lord says. And it wasn’t even necessary for him to say that he was going to say what the Lord says at all, since he had already been saying what the Lord says.

God tells Jeremiah he’s going to send four kinds of destroyers, which he names and tries to say what each of them is going to do. But instead of naming any specific ways of destroying, all but one of the things he says they’re going to do are pretty much the same thing, which is killing/destroying. There was no need to say that the destroyers were going to do that. And the other thing he says one of them is going to do doesn’t seem to involve destroying at all, so why is he calling it a destroyer? Or if it does involve destroying, why didn’t he mention that?

When some people are trying to get the prophet Jeremiah executed for predicting disaster, some other people argue that that would just make God angry, and that in a previous case, listening to a prophet who predicted disaster had had good results. After that, a story about yet another prophet is inserted parenthetically in the middle of that story about Jeremiah.

In this story, a prophet who is saying the same thing as Jeremiah does get executed for predicting disaster, and it doesn’t say anything bad happened as a result. So inserting that story into Jeremiah’s story was not only pointless, but kind of undermines the point they were trying to make.

Jeremiah tells the people that God says the people have done what they said they would do. But when they said they would do it, that was part of this same conversation. It doesn’t seem like enough time has passed since they said that just now, for them to have had time to do it. Hosea 6 and Haggai 1 both end in the middle

of a sentence for some reason. In Micah 2, God tries to convince his people that he’ll bring them back to their land, when they’re still not even convinced that they’re going to have to leave their land.

Zechariah sees four chariots, and asks an angel about them. The angel tries to explain what they are and where each chariot is going, but forgets one of them.

The author of the gospel of Luke implies that the Roman census required everyone to travel to wherever their distant ancestors lived, which makes no sense. “Luke” must have made up this part just so that he could claim that Jesus was born where a prophecy said the Messiah was supposed to be born.

The author of the gospel of Matthew has Jesus ride into Jerusalem on two donkeys, because he misinterpreted the prophecy that he was basing his story on.

Jesus complains about something that the teachers of the law and Pharisees do, and something that they don’t do. Then he says they “should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former“. If he wants them to do the former, then why did he complain about them doing it?? What was the point of mentioning it at all?

Matthew inserts the command “Let the reader understand” in the middle of a sentence as if that was part of something Jesus said. Which doesn’t actually help the reader understand anything.

In the parable of the lost son, Jesus says the lost son ended up desperately in need, because of his own irresponsible actions… and also because there was a severe famine affecting the whole country. Adding a famine to the story was completely unnecessary, and weakens the point that the story was trying to make. And then Jesus forgets about the famine, and has everyone have a big feast as soon as the son gets back home.

Mark says the disciples were astonished, and others following Jesus were afraid. It doesn’t say what they were astonished by or what they were afraid of.

Matthew has the Jews declare that the responsibility for the blood of Jesus will be on their children. That seems rather unlikely to have happened. Why would they say that? Doesn’t make any sense.

Jesus was put to death for allegedly claiming to be the king of the Jews, which was apparently considered treason against the Roman emperor. But then how did all the people who actually did call Jesus the king of the Jews get away with it? The Magi, Nathanael, all the people who greeted Jesus when he came to Jerusalem, Pilate, and all the Christians should have been crucified too.

That’s assuming it really was treason to claim that the Jews had a king. But I don’t see why it would be. Can’t a king exist under an emperor without undermining the emperor’s authority? Didn’t the Roman empire already have various kings who were subordinate to the emperor? Like the Herods. Should all those kings have been crucified too?

The Bible says Pharisees, unlike Sadducees, believe in spirits and angels and resurrections. And then it says some Pharisees said Paul should be declared innocent because “What if a spirit or an angel has spoken to him?” They said that, not because that was a coherent reason for them to conclude that Paul was innocent, but just because they’re the kind of people who believe in spirits and angels. Sounds like bad fiction writing to me.

In Romans, Paul says “this” will take place on the day when God judges people’s secrets. What will? You mean the thing you were talking about three verses ago?

Hebrews 11 tries to promote faith by telling about some Old Testament people who had faith. Then it admits that “all these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised.” Why is the author conceding that, and thereby undermining the whole point of this chapter, when it’s not even true? Half the people this chapter mentions weren’t promised anything to begin with. And the other half kinda did get what they were promised.

Revelation has someone claim that Babylon had boasted that she was not a widow and would never mourn. That does not sound like something that anyone would realistically boast about. The only reason it says she said that is to set Babylon up to be immediately proved wrong by God.

Revelation predicts that Satan will recruit vast numbers of people from multiple nations, and gather them for battle, and they’ll march up and surround Jerusalem… And then God will kill them all with fire from heaven. Well, that was over awfully fast.

Discontinuity

Genesis 10 starts listing the sons of Javan, and then says “the Kittites and the Rodanites“, as if those were two of Javan’s sons. It does the same with the sons of “Egypt” and “Canaan”, except almost none of the “sons” it lists for them are actual individuals. It also has a list of the sons of Cush, but then in the next verse it says Cush was the father of Nimrod, who was not included in the list of the sons of Cush for some reason.

An angel tells Hagar “I will increase your descendants so much that they will be too numerous to count.” Why would an angel say that? Is the angel really the one who’s going to do that? Or did the author forget that it wasn’t God talking?

The Bible says three men were with Abraham, and then it says “the men” went away to Sodom, even though only two of them did.

Jacob makes a 72-word statement about God… or was he talking to God? It didn’t sound like he was, until he was 64 words in. Leah claims she’s hired her husband with her son’s mandrakes, but she hasn’t. Her husband never got the mandrakes. She gave them to someone else.

Laban vaguely threatens that God will judge Jacob if he ever marries anyone besides Laban’s daughters. Is he unaware that Jacob has already done that?? Genesis 34 has someone ask for his son to be allowed to marry “your daughter“… when he’s talking to the girl’s brothers.

The Bible claims that the reason Jacob loved Joseph more than any of his other sons was that Joseph was born to him in his old age. If that’s the reason, then Joseph shouldn’t have been his favorite. Benjamin should have been his favorite. Jacob was older when Benjamin was born than when Joseph was born.

Genesis 37 says Joseph had been a slave of Potiphar, the captain of the guard. Then in chapter 39, Potiphar sends Joseph to prison. But then chapter 40 says the place where he was imprisoned was in the house of the captain of the guard. So the prison Joseph got sent to is in the same place where he had already been living? That would suggest that the person who trusted Joseph enough to put him in charge of the prison was Potiphar, who believed that Joseph had tried to rape his wife. This story does not make any sense.

Also, it never really states that Joseph was ever released from prison. He must have been freed at some point, but apparently the author didn’t think that part was important enough to mention.

Genesis 38 has Judah leave his brothers and go start a family somewhere else. Five chapters later, he’s living with his father and brothers again, with no explanation.

The Pharaoh abruptly goes from telling Joseph about one dream to telling him about another dream, resulting in this odd sequence of words: “Then I woke up. In my dream I saw…”

Joseph’s brothers decided against killing him, and sold him as a slave instead. But after that, they assume he’s dead for some reason.

When Joseph stops pretending to be a stranger to his brothers, the first thing he asks them is “Is my father still living?” Duh, of course he’s still living. How did Joseph not notice his brother talking about his still-living father for the last half a chapter? And did Joseph already forget that just before that, he had told his brothers to go back to their father, acknowledging that he was still alive? Later, Joseph’s father informs him that his mother has died. Which Joseph already knows, since it happened way back when Benjamin was born.

In the last chapter of Genesis, Joseph’s brothers worry that he won’t forgive them. Why? He already made it pretty clear that he would, five chapters ago.

Jacob supposedly told two of his sons that their descendants would be scattered and dispersed “in Israel“, which would be meaningless to them because no place called Israel existed. (And no, this would not be an impressive prediction, either. It’s only half true.)

In Exodus, the first Pharaoh who was hostile to the Israelites worries that they’ll leave Egypt. That would make sense if the Israelites were slaves to the Egyptians at that time. But it makes no sense in the context of this passage, where the Israelites are not slaves, and are seen as a potential threat to Egypt. Why wouldn’t Pharaoh want them to leave?

Later, God tells Moses to go tell the succeeding Pharaoh to let his people go. Moses objects that Pharaoh isn’t likely to listen to a poor speaker like Moses, since the Israelites didn’t listen to him. The author seems to have forgotten that he already had Moses speak to Pharaoh in the previous chapter. And that the Israelites actually did listen to Moses. And that Aaron is supposed to be speaking for Moses, so it doesn’t matter how bad a speaker Moses is.

It says Moses and Aaron did as God commanded, and then it says “he” raised his staff and struck the Nile. Who did? The context doesn’t make it any clearer. This is after God tells Moses to say God is going to do it himself with the staff in his hand… when the staff is actually in Moses’s hand. Then he tells Aaron to do it with his staff.

During the ten plagues, it says all the dead fish made the Nile smell so bad that the Egyptians could not drink its water. What water? I thought there was no water in Egypt at that time, only blood. Then it says God said the Egyptians would need to bring their livestock into shelters before the next plague. Looks like the author forgot that he already had all the Egyptians’ livestock die earlier in that chapter.

Shortly before the Exodus, Moses tells the Israelites to “slaughter the Passover lamb“. As if anyone would know what a “Passover lamb” is. Then it says the Israelites made bread without yeast because they didn’t have enough time before they had to leave Egypt. You mean they were planning to add yeast? After God told them not to? When they’ve been otherwise perfectly obedient in this chapter? Or did the author just forget that he’d already given a reason for them to leave out the yeast?

It says only Aaron and his sons should eat certain things, because those things are sacred. Then it says the fact that certain things are sacred is a reason no one should eat them at all. Which is it?

In the story of the Golden Calf, the author utterly fails to keep track of (among other things) where Moses is, in relation to the mountain. The story has the people say things to themselves, that it would make more sense for Aaron to say to them. Then the author forgets that Moses has already convinced God to forgive his people, and it has Moses try to convince him again. And then the author forgets again that God has already agreed to forgive his people and go with them, and it has Moses try to convince him yet again.

When Moses is on the mountain in that story, it makes a big deal out of God coming to meet Moses and speak with him, when he had already been speaking to him regularly. It also makes a big deal out of Moses getting to see God (from the back, because no one can ever see his face!), even though Moses and others have already seen God before, and Moses is already in the habit of speaking to God face to face, and God even spoke to all the people face to face once. But when Moses comes back from talking to God this time, his face is glowing. Why did this never happen any of the other times he had spoken with God before?

When Bezalel is making stuff for the tabernacle, it says “they” made the table of acacia wood. Who’s “they”? It was talking about him, not “them”.

When God is telling Moses the rules about the grain offering, he says whatever touches them will become holy. What’s “them”?

The Bible has Aaron “reply” to Moses when Aaron wasn’t who Moses was talking to.

When God is telling what to do with a wife suspected of adultery, he says to have her drink some contaminated water. Then two verses later, he says that after doing something else, then you make her drink the contaminated water. Too late, already did.

God gets angry at Aaron and Miriam, and punishes Miriam, and then Aaron begs Moses not to stay angry at them. What does Moses have to do with it??

God has Moses have everybody move away from some rebels before the earth opens up and swallows the rebels. But before the earth opens up, Moses and the elders go up to the rebels, and then the author forgets to ever have them get back away from them. How did Moses and the elders not get swallowed up?

The story of Balaam has God randomly change from opposing to supporting to opposing to supporting Balaam’s plan to go prophesy for Balak. It does this without ever acknowledging that God is changing his mind, and instead acts like Balaam is doing something wrong when he inevitably fails to follow all of God’s contradictory commands.

Numbers 25 keeps changing which Israelites have to die, and which other nation is guilty. And then chapter 31 blames the incident on Balaam, who had previously always been portrayed as an obedient servant of God, unable to say anything contrary to God’s will.

Deuteronomy 2 has God telling Moses to pass by the region of Moab at Ar, then it has a parenthetical paragraph, then it seems like God resumes talking where he left off, but apparently it skipped ahead and now they’ve already passed by the region of Moab at Ar.

Moses recounts that God directly spoke to the people face to face, and also that Moses was in between, telling the people what God was saying to them, for some reason. Then about 20 verses and Ten Commandments later, Moses says the people told him to start speaking to them for God. Then God can’t decide whether he wants Moses to go to the people and tell them to go home, or to stay there with God, so he tells him to do both.

A premature mention of Aaron dying is randomly inserted at Deuteronomy 10:6, which makes verse 8 sound like it’s saying something about the time when Aaron died, which would make verse 8 false.

Deuteronomy 19 says to designate three cities of refuge, and then maybe three more if you have enough territory later. This is after God had already told them to designate six cities of refuge back in Numbers 35, and after Moses had already set aside three cities of refuge in Deuteronomy 4.

Moses blames the Ammonites for the attempt to get God’s obedient servant Balaam to curse God’s chosen people. The Bible never said the Ammonites were involved in that before.

A passage in Deuteronomy starts out talking about an individual sinning, then suggests it was a tribe, and it ends up with a whole nation being punished.

Moses says if his people don’t obey God, it will be said: “Therefore the Lord’s anger burned against this land, so that he brought on it all the curses written in this book.” Except that was supposed to be what some hypothetical foreigners were going to say, but nothing about it sounds like how pagan Gentile outsiders would realistically talk about that situation.

Moses talks about what might happen “When all these blessings and curses I have set before you come on you”, except he’s clearly talking about a situation where God has punished his people. Which I’m pretty sure was supposed to be one of two mutually exclusive outcomes. So he should have just said curses, not blessings.

Then there’s a passage that’s introduced by saying Moses is talking to the Levites, but then he’s actually talking to all the Israelites.

Moses’s song in Deuteronomy 32 switches between second and third person, and uses “they” to refer to multiple different groups without specifying who. After describing at length how God is going to turn against his people and destroy them, the song concludes that God’s people should rejoice. And that the other nations should rejoice too, because God is going to take vengeance on those nations.

When it’s telling what Moses said when he blessed Israel before he died, it says something about “the law that Moses gave us“. Did the author forget that this was supposed to be Moses talking?

Deuteronomy 33 keeps switching between talking to the Israelites about God, and talking to God.

Joshua 4 unintentionally has the people cross the Jordan twice, and on the second crossing it has the priests leave the Jordan twice.

One verse in Joshua says something about the land that God had promised to give “us“, when the rest of that book is written in the third person.

God says whoever is caught with the devoted things shall be destroyed by fire, and then nobody notices that God was wrong when they actually destroy that person by stoning.

Joshua 17 is specifying what land Manasseh was given, but then it starts saying they “had” “the people” of certain places, whatever that means.

When the book of Judges is describing the cycle of God endangering and then “rescuing” his people, it says whenever a leader who had rescued them died, the people returned to their evil ways. But it never actually says they had left their evil ways.

(Note: This blog post is not yet complet