The Bible is the most read book of any kind and in varying degrees of acceptance is the basis of the most popular religion on earth, Christianity. Some denominations consider it to be primarily inspirational and a moral guideline. Others consider it as the literal unerring word of God. The History of the Bible: How it Came to Us provides one of the best summaries of its 3000 year history.
The Skeptics Annotated Bible (SAB) provides a very thorough reading of the Bible with a quite different perspective. According to SAB, "Anyone who has struggled through the Bible knows it is not an easy book to read. Those that begin reading at Genesis seldom make it through Leviticus and the few that survive to the bitter end of Revelation must continually face a disturbing dilemma: their faith tells them they should read the Bible, but by reading the Bible they endanger their faith."
SAB continues, "When I was a Christian, I never read the Bible. Not all the way through, anyway. The problem was that I believed the Bible to be the inspired and inerrant word of God, yet the more I read it, the less credible that belief became. I finally decided that to protect my faith in the Bible, I'd better quit trying to read it."
The problem with the Bible is far greater than that. In an interview with CNN (Blake, John; Actually that is not in the Bible, CNN, 6/5/11), Steve Bouma-Prediger, a religion professor at Hope College in Holland, Michigan said, ". . biblical ignorance is so pervasive that it even reaches groups of people who should know better." He continued, "People prefer knowing biblical passages that reinforce their pre-existing beliefs."
Rabbi Rami Shapiro in his Bible class at Middle Tennessee State University said, “Most people who profess a deep love of the Bible have never actually read the book.” He once had to persuade a student in his Bible class that the saying “this dog won’t hunt” doesn’t appear in the Book of Proverbs. “They have memorized parts of texts that they can string together to prove the biblical basis for whatever it is they believe in,” he says, “but they ignore the vast majority of the text."
When we discussed the difficulty of interpreting the King James version of the Bible with a devotee he exclaimed that he had read it all and had no trouble understanding. He was not a Bible scholar, but he quite typical those who claim their beliefs are based solely on the Bible and are convinced beyond logic that they know more than they really do. Likewise, those who claim only the Bible as the basis of their belief don't appreciate that their belief is based not directly on the Bible, but on the interpretation of their leaders, which is often irrational and accompanied with an agenda.
The Bible was consolidated by early Christians to include only those writings that conformed to selected set of beliefs. With dozens of letters and gospels from a wide range of religious sects adopting some form of verbal conveyance of Jesus's teachings early Christianity was hardly monolithic. Those with the greatest influence became the judges and interpreters of "the faith." All others were deemed heretics, to be ostracized, and to have their "holy" scripture destroyed. Only political clout determine what was valid.
As an interesting sidebar many of the suras in the Qur'an that comment extensively about Jesus and his mother Mary were derived from early Christian beliefs that were excluded from the Bible. Muslims believe without question that the Qur'an is the direct word of God as told by the Angel Gabriel to Muhammad.
The most significant contraction that can be found in the Bible is it depiction of God. In the Old Testament God is portrayed as vengeful, jealous, and sometimes hateful. In the New Testament God is loving, forgiving, and benevolent.
Studying the History of the Bible and SAB provides significant evidence that the Bible is not likely the unerring word of God and should not be taken literally. The Bible is a study by one of many societies in the history of humankind that have tried to explain the meaning of life. It borrows heavily from oral traditions of religions that preceded its writing and excessively harmonized with religions with which it competed during formation. No evidence confirms statements in the Bible should have preference over similar professions in other religious works. A true understanding of the Bible requires objective study of the content on both these great websites, which is probably impossible for most people.
The fact that the Bible is probably not the unerring word of God, should not be a reason not to use it. Most people need some kind of moral guide. Much of the Bible meets that objective. Ignore those sections that demean or persecute another's beliefs or non-belief. Those other beliefs could align closer to the word of God. Thus far, NO EVIDENCE can confirm it, one way or another and more important, NO EVIDENCE confirms God speaks or has spoken to anyone. Without evidence one is relegated to accept unsubstantiated beliefs of one religion in preference to another, which has historically been used to justify genocide, slavery, sexual and racial subjugation, and many other practices that we all hope would be abominations and not the unerring word of God.
Lastly, many people identify themselves as Christians and claim no faith other than their personal interpretation of the Bible. We highly doubt that these people are capable of accurate interpretation of the Bible. Bouma-Prediger and Shapiro describe these people well. We have ONE Bible but hundreds of religious sects professing knowledge of the unerring word of God. We highly doubt that God's word would be that ambiguous.
Were we allowed to read the Bible as we do all other books, we would admire its beauties, treasure its worthy thoughts, and account for all its absurd, grotesque and cruel things, by saying that its authors lived in rude, barbaric times. But we are told that it was written by inspired men; that it contains the will of God; that it is perfect, pure, and true in all its parts; the source and standard of all moral and religious truth; that it is the star and anchor of all human hope; the only guide for man, the only torch in Nature’s night. These claims are so at variance with every known recorded fact, so palpably absurd, that every free, unbiased soul is forced to raise the standard of revolt.
Robert G. Ingersoll, Oct. 7th, 1879.
Click Here to read Some Mistakes of Moses.
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