The Bible Is Not a History Textbook, It's Propaganda

And what that means for Jesus followers

Let's be clear about something: The Bible is not a history textbook. Now, that doesn't mean it contains no historical truth—it absolutely does.

But the writings collected in what we call "The Bible" weren't written to provide an objective historical record, at least in the modern sense.¹ They were written to change minds, change actions, and sometimes, transform lives.

In other words, the Bible is propaganda. Now before you get upset, remember that propaganda isn't inherently good or bad—it simply means communication intended to influence people's attitudes and/or behaviors.

And the writings of the Bible were certainly crafted to do just that: to encourage people to follow certain religious practices, to accept specific theological claims, to instill a common history, or to rally behind particular leaders. Sometimes, it does all four of those things.

That means its up to us to sort through the propaganda and read the Bible like grown-ups, not children, to find the truth it reveals to us about Jesus, God, and ourselves.

Ancient history vs. modern history

Part of the difficulty for most uneducated readers of the Bible is distinguishing between how “history” was told in the ancient world versus how we tell history today.

The modern idea of history—as a careful analysis of verifiable events using primary sources and physical evidence—didn't emerge until the European Enlightenment in the 17th and 18th centuries. Before that, historical writing served very different purposes.

The ancient Greeks, who gave us the word "history," used it to mean "inquiry" or "investigation" rather than a factual chronological account. Ancient writers weren't primarily concerned with documenting precise timelines or verifying their sources. Instead, they focused on preserving memorable deeds, teaching moral lessons through their stories, and uniting cultures behind a common (folkloric) story of the past.

The people who wrote the biblical texts would have had no concept of history as we think of it today. Their goal wasn't to provide historically accurate accounts that would stand up to modern scholarly scrutiny.

Rather, they were crafting narratives to change minds and actions, while shaping the identity of their communities or culture. Understanding this difference is crucial for reading the Bible thoughtfully today.

This is true of both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. My Hebrew Bible professor at Yale, Jale Baden, one of the world’s leading scholars on the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible), believes the first real character encountered in the Bible is David.²

The rest—from Adam and Eve to Noah to the Patriarchs—are stories of folklore, developed and repeated to give the ancient Israelites a sense of purpose, culture, and responsibility.³ They are certainly not historical accounts that we should read as a textbook about the earth or the ancient Israelites. Reading them that way shows a lack of intellectual maturity.

It was what we did as little kids. How many of us as children read the story of George Washington and the cherry tree? We were told that our very first president “could not tell a lie” (the exact opposite of our president-elect).

This story about Washington isn’t true in the historical sense, but Washington was a real person, and the story does convey a truth about his integrity, which is well documented from other sources.

This same sort of logic should and could be used on Biblical writings. They were crafted to tell a story and convey a truth, but it’s our job to not read them like children, accepting them as absolute fact. Instead, we need to read through the propaganda as grown-ups.

Reading the Bible like a grown-up

For those of us trying to follow the real, historical Jesus rather than the Jesus of institutional, conservative Christianity, this means we need to approach the Bible with careful historical methods.

We need to read the stories of Jesus in the Bible not as children who will believe anything, but as adults who use critical thinking to uncover the truth of Jesus’s actual message.

To do that, we need to ask:

• Who wrote this text? (Often, we don't actually know)

• When was it written? (Usually much later than tradition claims)

• Who was the intended audience?

• What was the author trying to accomplish?

• What historical and cultural context shaped this writing?

• What sources did the author use?

• How does this text relate to other writings from the same period?

(In a lot of ways, the way we must read the Bible mirrors the way we must read the news. I’m a journalist by trade, and news literacy is a vital skill to have in the 21st century. Perhaps for Christians and followers of Jesus, Biblical Literacy is just as important.⁴)

When we ask these questions, fascinating insights emerge. We begin to see how early Christian communities struggled to understand Jesus's message and apply it to their lives. We notice how their interpretations evolved over time.

We recognize that the Jesus of history—a poor, Jewish peasant living under Roman occupation—was gradually transformed into the exact opposite—a divine Christ used by elites to placate the masses into their miserable lives.

Using the historical approach doesn't diminish the Bible's spiritual value. If anything, it enhances it by helping us better understand the real human beings who wrote these texts and the real communities that preserved them. It reminds us that faith has always been a dynamic, evolving thing—not a static set of beliefs to be blindly accepted.

Is this more challenging than simply treating the Bible as an infallible historical record? Absolutely. But it's also more honest, more mature, more meaningful, and ultimately more faithful to the transformative spirit that inspired these ancient writers in the first place.

Remember: The goal isn't to destroy faith but to deepen it—to move beyond simplistic readings that often serve to justify oppression and exclusion, and toward a more mature understanding that can truly change lives and transform our world.

1. If you need more proof the Bible is not a single book meant to be read as such, the Greek word our word is based on is βιβλία, or “the books", plural.

2. For a fascinating lecture by Dr. Baden, check out this YouTube video of a talk he gave on the historical David, and how different communities—including those who wrote the differing accounts of his kingship in the Bible—interpret him.

3. For a good, understandable breakdown of this, check out a real textbook, written by form Yale professor John J. Collins, Introduction to the Hebrew Bible, 3rd. Ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2018).

4. “Biblical literacy” is a term Robert Funk, one of the founders of the Jesus Seminar, used to talk about.