DID YOU KNOW?
The answer
Disagree. Richard Simon, a French Catholic priest, argued it in his Critical History of the Old Testament in 1678. His aim was to show that the Bible alone was not enough, so the church's tradition was needed.
Why it’s interesting
Church authorities suspended him anyway. He counts, with the Jewish philosopher Spinoza, among the founders of modern biblical criticism. His question still applies to 2 Kings 21:2-9 and 2 Chronicles 33:2-9, which list Manasseh's wrongs in nearly the same words.
Scholarly consensus
Learn the Bible.
Not just the stories, but the history, authorship, and scholarship behind it.