Atheists/Skeptics: WHY do you think the Bible was written?

The Bible is not a single book, but a collection of books written by various people (if any one tells you of a book dictated by supernatural beings or dropped from heaven, tell them to go and lie down in a darkened room). Many of the books of the Christian Bible called the Old Testament did not start off as holy books. Many of them were chronicles of the lives of the leaders of Israel and later redacted from a religious perspective. Some of them undoubtedly contained recitation of great deeds made during special cultic events held to thank God for his blessings on Israel and were written down verbatim or later. Many were written by people who were afraid that their heritage would be lost when they went into exile. The prophetic writings were probably penned and collected by their followers among the prophetic circles.

The New Testament comprises basically of the Gospels, Acts and Letters (one could argue that the Book of Revelations is an extended letter to the 7 churches). The Gospels and Acts of the Apostle were written when it was realised that the original eye-witnesses who probably knew the events described by heart would soon die off and some record had to be left to future generations. The letters of Paul and others were written to encourage or admonish christians and later collected. The motivation from the point of view of the authors was to 'instruct in and build up their faith'. Few of them gained anything significant personally. They often didn't even bother to put down their name as the author (except Nehemiah who was the typical civil servant). Among the NT authors, there was no political motivation in the sense we understand it. They saw the world from a religious perspective.

Well, King Josiah (who with the help of his high priest Hilkiah) when they wrote Deuteronomy they put all the laws they wanted enacted in the mouth of God. You know, so Josiah could justify murdering all his political opponents. Paul, when he instructed all those early Christian cults, got the personal rewards of being a cult leader. He got to exercise control over the lives of other people, some people really get off on that.

But the Bible is an anthology written (and edited) by dozens of people with different (and sometimes conflicting) motivations and messages over a period of around 1100 years. Song of Solomon is an erotic love poem, Genesis is a collection of myths, Revelation is a letter encouraging people to hold on for a couple of years until God magically overthrew the Roman Empire, which was actually persecuting Christians (and not the fake "we're being persecuted" crybaby stuff that modern Christians whine about). The authors (and in the case of Genesis, redactors too) had very different motivations, and their general themes were tied together very tenuously. The agnostic theist/humanist who wrote the bulk of Ecclesiastes had a very different theme than the Gnostic* self-righteousness of Paul.

The thread that strings them all together is that when the canons were being decided, the committees thought they could interpret all the books to support their dogma.

*mystery religion, not opposite of agnostic, although Paul was that as well

It all boils down to identity and control. Considering the original Israelites were a disbanded tribe of Canaanites that gathered after the fall of the Canaanite city/state system, they had to come up with something to unify them. They no longer had a government nor an identity, so they created both by borrowing from their old religion and other local religions.

Political gain was, of course, an identity. During that day in age, civilizations were identified by the gods and or goddesses they worshipped. They had a unique identity. They created a monotheistic religion when everyone around them was polytheists. Personal gain was power. Priests were the power positions in early governments.

I think that what may have motivated them was finding a way to easily control people's lifestyles. To make people be good people, not to steal or murder or judge others.

What motivated them could have been people's current(then) ways.

To gain personally: security.

Politically, I'm not sure..

The concept of fear is the most successful when it comes to trying to get people to do what you want them to. You tell them their soul is in danger, and the ones of those they love and they are all bound to do whatever it takes to save it from burning in Hell.

Just like when someone's child is kidnapped, most parents that love their children will do just about anything to make sure their child is back with them, where they know that child is most safe.

Maybe politically they wanted to gain respect or leadership? By saying that the candidate that was most like the Bible said one should be deserved to be the leader.

This is way to complex a question for yahoo answers and to be honest i think you're being disingenuous and not really looking for an answer. you're asking us to scrutinize the motivation of people living 1000+ yrs ago.

If you want an actual answer i suggest you read some books like

Some mistakes of moses by Robert Ingersoll

A history of god by Karen Armstrong

Who wrote the new testament by Burton L Mack

The Bible with sources revealed by Richard Elliott Friedman

The bible was written so many people but only four gospels were selected for publication. That also not in the original form. They were altered, added, deleted, inserted time to time by so many so called authorities. Especially the great king Constantine introduced the trinity in the year 325 AD.

I think that, like every other religion, the concept of God started out as a way to explain that which we could not explain at the time. Based on the way the Bible is written, though, it seems clear that some very smart person or group of people realized the potential religion has to control others, and used that to manipulate into a religion centered around fear, punishment and reward, and discrimination against those who don't conform.

It was inspired by Gods to better control the masses. It started out with simply good intentions, but eventually this council of Gods became corrupted and many religions sprouted and erupted and confused the people, but the Gods still had control of the people through their minds using fear, faith, and confusion as tools. Fortunately, those Gods have been destroyed to allow the beginning of the next, and final, God cycle. (for this place at least)

To explain the world around them. When people bought into it, and things weren't going right, a certain few claimed they knew what would appease the Biblical god, and came up with rules for everyone to follow to make life better (or so they thought).

I think the original authors of the various books of the bible wrote them like people write down lyrics to songs, or fables and fairy tales.

It wasn't until much later that they were collected and canonized to form the basis of a religion subscribed to by the Emperor.