Lawrence Krauss on The argument from scripture
Krauss regards Scripture as a human document riddled with scientific errors, contradictions, and moral horrors — not a source of truth about the universe.
Lawrence Krauss has been blunt in his assessment of Scripture as a source of knowledge about the world. The Bible, he argues, gets virtually every scientific claim wrong: the age of the earth, the origin of species, the structure of the cosmos, the cause of disease. A book that is so consistently wrong about the natural world, Krauss contends, has no credibility when it makes claims about the supernatural one.
Krauss is particularly critical of the way Scripture is selectively quoted in apologetic contexts. Believers cite passages that seem to anticipate modern science — references to the expansion of the universe or the suspension of the earth in space — while ignoring the vast number of passages that reflect the primitive cosmology of their authors: a flat earth, a solid firmament, a geocentric universe. This selective reading, Krauss argues, is not honest engagement with a text but motivated reasoning.
His broader position is that Scripture is a historical document that tells us about the beliefs and values of the people who wrote it — and nothing more. It is not a source of scientific knowledge, moral authority, or metaphysical truth. Treating it as such, Krauss argues, is an obstacle to genuine understanding of the universe.
“The Bible is not a science book. It was written by people who didn't know where the sun went at night.”