The Bible. Mysterious, enigmatic, the indisputable word of God. Not according to the facts. This look at the Bible contains many facts, some of my own thoughts, and perhaps one of the most realistic viewpoints you can find on the subject. Your clergymen, (priest, pastor, pope, or whatever you call them), are not going to tell you these facts. Mainly because they don't want to discuss them but, partly because they have studied what their particular church wants them to "spread the word" about and they don't know. "Woe," you say, "my preacher knows the Bible inside and out and would never tell anything but the truth". Okay, what was the forbidden fruit? "That's easy," you say, "an apple." You would be wrong. The Bible doesn't say it was an apple, (why would an apple be forbidden), nor does it say Eve was tempted by the Devil. It says "a serpent." I don't make this stuff up look for yourself. That's exactly what I do. I have studied the Bible that's why I'm writing this, to show exactly what the Bible is and is not.
First of all, let me get this out in the open. Your Bible teachers want you to believe the Bible is the "word of God." Well I hate to burst their bubble, (not really), but, it is obviously the word of man. Furthermore, if I am to believe what a preacher told me, it was written by crazy people. I was told it is the "inspired word of God." "In other words," I asked, "the writers of the Bible heard voices in their heads?" "God's voice," I was told. Now I don't know about you, but I think if your hearing a voice in your head other than your own, you're crazy. Inspired word? You can be inspired by anything. The Jews' inspiration for writing the original text of the Old Testament was a need to unify their people. Their leaders wanted a way to separate the Jews from the rest of the known world and their myriads of religions and gods. Which brings me to the only true miracle I've found in the Bible.
It's a miracle any Jews have survived until today. Imagine what it was like during Old Testament times. There were many different tribes and clans of people who had a different god for every situation. That's the way ancient people explained things they didn't understand. "It's a god making it thunder," or, "an angry god has brought this sickness upon us". They had a god for everything. Now, imagine a people coming up with the idea of one "God" for everything. And, if that wasn't shocking enough, not only is there "one true God," he is more powerful than all of your gods put together and, (here's the part I like), we're his only "chosen people." Now, put that in your pipe and smoke it! There is your true miracle. It's a miracle the Jews weren't wiped off the face of the earth long ago. This also brings me to a true Bible prophecy. The Bible says the Jews will multiply and spread all over the world. They did.
Most people think the Bible was written as it happened. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Most of the Old Testament was written down hundreds, (I said hundreds), of years after the events supposedly happened. It was passed down from generation to generation by word of mouth. One of my grade school teachers demonstrated just how quickly word of mouth gets distorted. She wrote a sentence on a piece of paper and hid it behind her back. She then whispered it to the first kid in the first row and told her to whisper it to the next and so on. By the time it got to the last kid the sentence was nothing like what it had began. Now, imagine this going on for hundreds of years. You get the picture.
Some stories in the Old Testament are simply borrowed or taken from other cultures and given a Jewish makeover. The story of the creation and the garden of Eden can be found in much older writings almost word for word. The story of the great flood and Noah's ark are found in the "Epic of Gilgamesh," an ancient Mesopotamian writing, (one of the oldest in the world), that predates the Bible by at least a thousand years! By the way, there is no geological evidence of a world wide flood ever occurring. There is plenty of evidence of localized flooding in ancient times. When I say "localized flooding" that includes a large area. It would have wiped out the world as far as an ancient civilization would have known, but not the whole world. And certainly ancient people would have seen this as the "wrath of God".
