DID YOU KNOW?
The answer
Baruch Spinoza, in his Theological-Political Treatise of 1670. He held that finding what a passage meant and asking whether it is true were two separate jobs.
Why it’s interesting
People before him had denied the Bible's truth, but they were atheists or heretics. Spinoza professed belief in God and still said plainly that the sun did not stand still for Joshua (Joshua 10:13). His readers found that shocking.
Scholarly consensus
Learn the Bible.
Not just the stories, but the history, authorship, and scholarship behind it.