Why do people called themselves christians when they havent read the bible?

It's not terribly fair to keep altering the tone of your question with additional information. However, I'll do my best to help.

First of all, we have to ask ourselves what a "Christian" is. Generally speaking, it is someone who believes in a loving creator God, separated from his creation by spiritual flaws, who intervened personally through Jesus Christ, to complete his relationship with us. It isn't essential to have an intimate knowledge of the Bible to understand or accept this premise. I've been a Christian for over twenty years and I honestly don't think I've ever read Habbakuk.

Now I'll take on your additional points:

Most Christians with even a slighty enquiring mind will know roughly when we believe the Gospels were written. It is hardly surprising that the first generation of Christians didn't bother writing the message down. They thought that Christ's return was literally imminent and that any day he would return in glory. It was a while before they realized that perhaps that wasn't going to happen and maybe they'd better get the story straight!

Our modern culture tends to dismiss oral traditions as fundamentally prone to mis-remembrance error and exaggeration and, to an extent, we are right, but not to the extent that we expect. My son, long before he could read, could recite long sections of text from his favourite books with nothing more than picture cues. He would often - and to my wife's amusement - correct my reading. Yet he couldn't read. Without this ability, his memory did the work, providing - after just one or two recitations - a perfect recall of the content of the story. Oral traditions work the same way. A trained mind can recall with remarkable accuracy huge swathes of text, word perfectly.

However, that's not to say that errors are impossible. Of course they occurred and that's why the early compilers included four versions of the Gospel. There was no definitive version to call upon, but instead they chose the four thought to be the best, most consistent and most reliable.

This meant not including a number of accounts that have recently attracted attention in the press, including the infamous Gospels of Thomas and Judas. However, the reason these accounts weren't included wasn't because of their content (not directly, anyway) but because of their provenance. Thomas, for example, is not a story as the synoptic Gospels and the Gospel of John are, but a collection of sayings of Jesus Christ. It is thought to share some similarities with the famous "Q" source (a lost source thought to have been shared by Matthew, Mark and Luke in their compositions) but may easily have acquired its content from the synoptic Gospels instead. Scholars are divided on the date of composition of Thomas - no doubt the early Christians were similarly divided on its vailidity.

What you call "mistranslation" is more the case that certain words in the Bible have, since the publication of the popular Authorised Version in the 17th Century, gained a certain weight in the English language that often wasn't intended in the Biblical form. "Angel" is a good example of that. The word does, indeed, come from a Latin form meaning "messenger" - and interestingly, a reading of the accounts of the resurrection in Luke and Mark. In Mark, there is a single man, dressed in white. In Luke, the experience is described with a great deal more drama! But that's journalists for you.

None of this, in itself, is tantamount to undermining the message of Jesus itself. Certainly, it is possible that the early church leaders conspired to "spin" certain traditions that led to the patriarchalist church we see (slowly crumbling) today. It is only human to try to support what you think is the status quo: all the moreso in a world that was under dire threat from external violence on all sides!

But none of that diminishes the mesage of Christ, of a personal relationship with God through his sacrifice on the Cross.

In that, I may, of course, be deluded. But at least it is a comforting delusion.

EDIT - Domme Me - It was seven. And I didn't have to check. Although I should admit that if you'd asked me a couple of years ago, I would've got it wrong.

The answer is simple the Bible can be read in the original language so there is a fixed and dependable script that can be referred to and translating from one language to another creates room for error. Also the languages are dead languages and the meaning of the words are fixed and permanent. One example is the word "bed" and the word for "staff" (big stick) are spelled the same in Hebrew and Genesis 47 the original text translates leaned on his bed or staff? More modern translations say leaned or bowed on his bed but it could have well meant leaned on his staff. I feel it would make more sense from a theological point of view as the Staff can be a type of the Holy Spirit as man is supposed to lean on God for support or Man is supported by Gods grace. Translation errors are rather small and can not alter the truth of God's provision for mankind's salvation. The Koran is full of contradictions and everyone keeps their mouth shut because Islams might be offended and they KILL. not forgive. Mohammad was a mad dog, megalomaniac, killer, rapist, robber and liar but no one ever complains. Why don't you ask questions about him. I know you don't want to get killed. But you aren't worried about eternal damnation so you attack the Bible believers with the same trite questions liberals have been repeating like a mantra since the 1800s or longer.

I read the Bible to debunk the organised truth.I also came to the conclusion early on just how much the truth was distorted in those far off days yet to this day the Churchians and in particular the Hypocrisy of Rome refuses to admit the many mistakes that they deliberately inflicted on simple people searching for love and mercy in an uncompassionate world.Divinely revealed truth is the one that gets me.I as a spirit and son of my living creator also have a divinely revealed truth that requires no book or dogma or orthodoxical blind observance and belief to its principles and that is simply to love and not to judge my brothers and sisters.I have read the Gnostic gospels and even some of them require an incredulous belief however I cannot state that you have to read the Bible to be a believer in Christ and adopting the consciousness that he preached.Too many Christians pay lip service to the word.I shall give you an example.One Christmas as an experiment in living out Christianity I sat outside a church as a homeless person on Christmas eve.Yes I did recieve money but not one individual offered me a bed.You dont learn that in school for kindness comes from the heart.So who are these paragons of Christian virtue?Why do we as believers in Christ empower them to dictate to us what they have never practiced.I thoroughly despise all organized religion and although I know that there are millions upon millions of people who at heart are good who go to the organised celebration of the demystified and neutered Christ I just wish the prelates,ptiests,vicars,bishops,archbishops and any other I have not mentioned would come down into the relity of this world and seek the suffering of living in the lie they have sold the world in the name of Jesus peace be to him.

Gospels written decades after Christ's death? Most Christians I know are aware of that.

The early church chose which books were to be included in the Bible. Yep, most of my Christian friends are perfectly aware of this.

The Dead Sea Scrolls "explain" most of the miracles in the Bible? Er, no they don't. Certain words had a specific meaning in the Essene community, but the Essenes were hardly the only religious group in Palestine at that time so I think you overstate the importance of their rituals and words.

Technically, to become a Christian one only has to accept Jesus in his heart. Some people read and study the Gospels and sort of make a more rational decision, others feel it in themselves that Jesus is for them without much study. A friend of mine told me once that the way he became a Christian happened one day when he was going to work and happened to look at a billboard poster that said "Jesus is the way" , and as he continued going on to work he pondered on those words and decided that that Jesus was for him.

There are many ways, God is the judge

I have read the bible - all the way through front to back - about 5 times in all....... and I consult it - taking care to read it in context - three or four times a week

partly the reason why i now describe myself as an 'agnostic/atheist'

{edit] a nice bit of haughty sarcasm from 'green eyes' (above)

Well, 'green eyes', I have often debated with fundamentalists and know too well that people who THINK they know the bible too often do not, and are simply relying on stories they have heard.

as a simple example, try asking a cross section of 'christians': "According to the bible, how many sheep did Noah take onto the ark" and see how many people say, "2"

because the bible is just more information on the subject, being a christian is believing in god, and walking a pure and true path. things are more diverse these days, and none of us can honestly know what happened because we weren't there/

for all we know, a hobo wrote the bible, some person found it and published it. or maybe the story of jesus was a bed time story back then that just got looked into a little to much, or maybe every word is true, we will not know until our deaths aparently.

You chastised people for not reading the Bible and then you give statements from other sources and from so called scholars. Where are your statements from the Bible since you complain about others not reading it.

If you follow Jesus Christ's word and are a member of his church then you are a Christian even if you can't read you can still be a Christian.

The gospels were written by eyewitnesses, the Bible was not assembled by the catholic church, and atheists believe whatever they hear as well. And apparently they have a hard time writing grammatically correct. Most western christians dont know much about the bible, and most western muslims dont know much about the quran, or if they did they would be killing american and christians and catholics and jews and atheists every day because thats what it teaches. Most JW's dont know how twisted their belief really is or if they did they would get out, and etc. people believe what is easiest for them to believe but will never be satisfied outside of Jesus Christ.

Ged, you got all of those addition comments from the Bible ? Or are you just attacking our Christian belief and faith in the Bible? Church and Christians schools are not brainwashing but heart washing...huge difference...the truth...is Jesus saves