...The Bible doesn’t portray Jews and Christians in a very heroic light.
In the Old Testament, the Jews — which, by the way, are presented as God’s people — are depicted as incorrigibly corrupt. They are constantly backsliding into paganism. There’s a righteous remnant, sure, but (a) by definition a remnant is a minority, a smaller subset of the larger whole, and (b) the remnant often gets it wrong in various ways.
The negative depiction is at the collective as well as the individual level. Take two examples of individuals you’d expect to receive hagiographic treatment: Abraham, despite being the “Father of Faith,” is at crucial moments shown to be utterly faithless; David, despite being “a man after God’s own heart,” is depicted as a murderer and adulterer.
And these depictions aren’t by writers with an anti-semitic agenda; if anything, they had a natural incentive to whitewash.
In the New Testament, the Gospel accounts depict the disciples as obtuse, incredulous, and cowardly.
...Beyond the Gospels, the New Testament letters — most of which were written by the Apostle Paul — generally present the earliest Christian churches in a state of moral and doctrinal crisis.
...The lot of them are losers. Plain and simple. But that’s a critical part of the story, isn’t it?
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