Im curious. I keep hearing people say the Bible was a book written by men, to control the masses, or possibly just a story book. Now Bible Believers tend to believe it was written by MANY different men, over the course of hundreds of years. So my question is.....
If you believe the Bible is only a story, then how do you believe it came about? Was it started by one guy, and other people just kept adding to it, or was it one guy just making the whole thing up, maybe his friends helped? And how old is it? Was it written when they made up Christ, or started before?
Im just curious, I know what Bible believers think, Im wondering how Bible Critics think it went.
2006-12-20T08:11:44Z
I know how it went, Im am curious how those who criticize it think it was written, since they dont believe it was written by God.
Gorgeoustxwoman20132006-12-20T08:23:09Z
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Good question.
Obviously there were many writers. Do we have any idea who wrote what in the old testament? Someone said, I wonder how the world started. So they wrote down what they fantasized had happened. There was a flood in Persia, so they expanded on the story and created Noah. Psalms is poetry. Man has worshipped a supreme being since the the cave man so it is not a stretch that these writers were just worshiping their idea of God.
The new testament is another story. I believe that the man Jesus lived. He was a good man and a lot of people liked him. Maybe he was indeed crucified because he was too well liked. Look at John Kennedy. After Jesus died it was a good idea to create a living God and start a new religion. The story oif Mithras was well known, lets start there. " Hey people like to think that they can be healed, lets say that Jesus performed miracles." "We can get their money if we tell them that they will go to an evil place if they don't believe what I tell them to believe." They would never leave my "church" if I use fear to keep them here. Plus, I hate men who have sex with other men. I can put that in this book and make people hate them. I think that women are beneath me, except when they are literally beneath me, so I will make sure they never get any power.
Then you add 400 years and the catholic church to the mix, they had to make sure that this bible furthered the position of their church. So they added and ommitted.
I don't know how it was written. It was probably written by a collection of people with some stuff being taken out of it as time went on. But the book is so full of absurd things and concepts (talking animals, people living to be 800 years old, creating people from a rib, virgin births, giants, the list goes on) that I don't understand how it could be taken as anything more than a "storybook."
The facts we have right now don't convince me that any supreme deity had a say in what went into the Bible. Maybe I'd think it was possible if the prophecies were a little more convincing, but they're really not, upon analysis anyway. It makes a lot more sense that the book was written as a way to control people -- I mean, look around at today's society; it's definitely worked. Also, look at some of the stuff in there; for example, obviously "homosexuality is an abomination" is one of the most-known parts of the Bible. That was obviously written by men; you can't tell me that a supreme, all-powerful, loving God in charge of the entire universe would make a rule that's so petty and ridiculous. The people who wrote the Bible didn't like gays, just like many people in today's society don't like gays, so they wrote that part in there themselves. That interpretation makes a lot more sense to me than the thought of God doing it.
And I don't think Christ was "made up" -- I just think his life story was taken and exaggerated to ridiculous proportions. They wanted to make him seem more amazing and powerful than he really was. I still hold the opinion that he was a really influential guy, but the miracles probably have less than 10% actual truth in them.
Most of the Bible probably began as oral tradition, ie stories passed on by mouth from generation to generation. As time went by, they would have been written down. As new traditions were passed on, perhaps parts were added or taken away, depending on who was writing.
Eventually the Christian Church got together and decided which books belonged in the canon, ie which were inspired by God and belonged in Holy Scripture. And so the Bible was formed.
Don't confuse Bible "criticizers" with Bible "critics". Biblical criticism is a legitimate scholarly discipline that treats the Bible as a document to be analyzed as any other document, eg historically, sociologically, linguistically, textually etc. "Criticism" in that context does not mean the same as "criticize" as in "to speak negatively" of something. Although they overlap, of course.
Dude #1 comes up with stories to explain things to people and has a basic message of whatever because he likes his rug..it ties the room together Dude#2 likes what he hears and tells people Dudes 3-10 like what they hear and now instead of saying "it could be" change it to "And it is 100% this" Dude #11 questions dude#1 and gets stoned to death Dude#1 pisses off the chief and gets put down like a rabid dog
5-100 years pass
Stories of Dude#1 get told and at each telling become more and more grandiose. People start to write down the stuff they heard happened or as they think they remember it (but it was hot out and they only drank wine so their memories are a little fuzzy). They look at society and what they think is wrong so they add a couple of lines to "fix the problem"
Dudes are put in charge who decide that since they cannot get laid then sex is a sin and a dirty act.
People start to go crazy since sex is bad but they like sex so they start to kill others and destroy whatever the wacko in the big hat tells them to since they want to get into heaven but still wanna get laid.
Thousands of years later...people don't like what they hear so they decide the bible is 100% literal truth and start throwing crap around just like monkeys (and there is the biggest evidence for evolution..we act just like our monkey cousins).
It was written over hundreds of years (the NT) and only the books deemed appropriate by men were picked to be put into the cannon. If it were factual it would have been written as it happened. If Jesus was that great, someone would have written it down.
Even Vinny's argument is using the bible to defend the bible. Circular logic goes hand in hand with the bible.