is the Bible historically accurate?
Historians and other scholars have exposed many of the Bible's claims as historically inaccurate.
For example, in the New Testament, the second chapter of Luke asserts that shortly before the birth of Jesus, the emperor Augustus ordered a census throughout the Roman world. Luke claims that every person had to travel to the town of his ancestors for the census to be taken. He identifies the census as the reason for Joseph and Mary traveling from Nazareth to Bethlehem, where Jesus is said to have been born. In his book Gospel Fictions, Randall Helms says this type of census was never taken in the history of the Roman Empire. He points out it's ridiculous to think the practical Romans would require millions of people to travel enormous distances - to towns of long-deceased ancestors - merely to sign a tax form.[59] Likewise, in Asimov’s Guide to the Bible, Isaac Asimov affirms that the Romans would certainly arrange no such census.[60]
Matthew chapter 2 avers that shortly after the birth of Jesus, King Herod ordered the massacre of all male children two years of age or under in Bethlehem and its vicinity. In the book of Luke, which contains the only other New Testament story of Jesus’ birth, there is no mention of this horribly cruel order. It's also not recorded in any secular histories from the time – not even by writers who carefully described many far less wicked deeds of Herod.[65] The lack of corroboration means Matthew’s account was fabricated.
Matthew 27:45 alleges that while Jesus was on the cross, there fell over the whole land a darkness lasting from midday until three in the afternoon. Andrew White explains that although Romans such as Seneca and Pliny carefully described much less striking occurrences of the same sort in more remote regions, they failed to note any such darkness occurring even in Judea.[66]
Finally, the previously discussed contradictions can be cited as examples of historical inaccuracies. In each instance where the Bible contains a contradiction about an alleged historical event, at least one of the accounts is wrong. The Bible writers were poor historians, let alone conveyers of messages from an infallible God.