Originally Posted by ironbender
Originally Posted by RockyRaab
Since you brought it up, baldhunter...

What began as a mass of ever-embellished verbal stories in Aramaic and other languages is finally collected in about the year 600, with about a third of them being discarded or rejected before being written down in ancient Greek. Later dubiously translated into ancient Latin and even more centuries later into Chaucerian English, early German, and other languages. Then continually revised, re-translated, abridged, and essentially re-written from scratch.

Until today, we are told to accept it word for word. (Coming soon: The Bible in Ebonics!)

But it’s the WORD OF GOD, they say. So is the Quran, the Talmud, as well as the texts of Buddhism, Taoism, and at least a dozen other “isms” of the thousands of other religions practiced in history and around the globe. Is yours the one and only “right” religion? Yes, say the believers of each and every one of them. Is your book the one and only word of god? Yes, say the believers of each and every one of them.

Does that mean the Bible is a “greatest hits” or reader’s digest abridged version?
grin


IMO, the bible was, and in it's many variations, is a political document meant to settle all the Christian tribes' differences at the time it was written and create a stronger, more coherent church. Remember at that time that Christianity was so strongly committed by the various branches of the religion that they were willing to go to war to defend their version of "christianity"... As luck would have it, at that particular time there were leaders wise enough to see the timing was right to assemble the various teachings of Jesus Christ before they were totally lost... the politics came in when they had to compromise with all the different religious sects' leaders who believed strongly that their "version" of the facts that had been passed down through tradition and retelling of the tales was the accurate one... the compromise was difficult and took quite some time before the politics of the writing was settled. Considering the battles that were waged during the meetings to discuss this world altering mission to get this book written, it is a miracle it was ever written at all...

Never underestimate your ability to overestimate your ability.