it’s a compilation of books by multiple authors with multiple perspectives, and treating it like it’s supposed to be a cohesive text that’s supposed to have a single message makes it impossible to understand as a historical text…

I do not accept the fundamentalists claim that the book was directly inspired by God himself - and many Christians would not agree with that fundamentalist claim either. Different books of the Bible were written by different authors with different purposes. This is a necessary jumping off point to do any critical analysis of it.

The entire point here is that it is stupid as an atheist to accept the fundamentalist’s argument, to treat the compilation of books like it is even supposed to be a unified Voice of God.

Notice how the compilers of the Genesis often included two versions of a story next to each other. Were Adam and Eve created at the same time, or was Eve made from Adam’s rib? How many of each animal did Noah bring on the Ark? These things contradict, because the compiler was trying to include all versions of the story available. I suspect a big purpose is to legitimize a unified political identity - that you have a merging of different groups, different tribes, and you don’t want to piss anyone off by leaving out their traditional story.

Then later, different authors are compiling stories of historic kings, and they include stories of behavior that was genocidal and awful. They throw in some justification, because at the time these books are serving as political history.

Then you have the “prophets” post Exile trying to cope, trying to understand what went wrong and coming up with different explanations.

By the time you get to the New Testament, you have a strong influence of Greek philosophy, and again, political tensions in relation to the Roman Empire.

Saying “the Bible condones genocide” is meaningless. Saying something like “the authors of Samuel condone genocide” is more accurate.