I often converse with people who are strong believers that the Bible, cover to cover, is the "word" of God. I personally do not believe that, and there are many reasons why. Mostly, I suppose, I don't believe it because neither Jesus nor Paul believed it.
On several occasions, Jesus violated the Sabbath. Mostly he cured people on the Sabbath, but he also instructed his disciples to get the group food from the fields on the Sabbath. The Pharisees were appalled. Jesus pointed out that God would not want people to avoid doing good things on the Sabbath, like pulling an ox from a ditch or feeding the poor.
Jesus and Paul both quoted Old Testament writers incompletely, editing out the parts extolling violence and exclusion, and retaining only the peaceful and inclusive part. The Old Testament contemplates that the Hebrews are the "chosen people" and all others are unclean. Jesus and Paul both clearly believed that all people on earth are "Chosen" people under God. That was extremely difficult for Jewish hierarchy at the time to take. It seems a difficult concept for many "Christians" today.
While Hebrews were unique and special in the eyes of the Lord, Jesus explained that those who follow Him are chosen to serve everyone else. We are to wash the feet of all others. We are to serve. We are not better than anyone else. In fact, it is our job to care for "the least of these."
Paul makes it clear that there are no special days; no special foods; no special anything. God does not care about such trivial issues. All rituals are simply man-made for man's personal satisfaction. Paul did ask us to respect others for whom a day, food, etc. is ritualistically important. God is the love in your heart for others. Both explained that one's connection to God is personal and direct.
Honestly I do not even understand why believing that the entire Bible is true is important to people. The Old Testament is just a history, and an admittedly embellished one at that. The stories of the Hebrews, handed down verbally over time, were written down after the Judeans (now known as Jews) were kicked out of Judah (capital city Jerusalem) and exiled to Babylon. To keep the exiled Jews' spirits up, and keep them feeling chosen despite their predicament, the stories were written down so as to show that if they do what their God says, good things happen, and when they do not, bad things happen.
In the early years, the Hebrews had no king. God was their king and he resided everywhere there was a tented temple set up according to the rules. Moses, Aaron, Joshua, etc, down through Samuel, were merely successive interpreters of what God was telling them. The demise of the Hebrews began when they decided they wanted a human king. Samuel tells God this is what they want and God's feelings are hurt. God explains that this is a bad idea and that human kings will be selfish and power hungry. He, of course, was right.
Saul, the first king, was good. David was beloved, but imperfect. He ordered one son killed so that his most beloved son could succeed him. Solomon was wise, but he began the years of increasingly bad kings. There were 13 tribes of Israel, each with different parts of Canaan, the Promised Land. One of the tribes made up of the descendants of Judah (the Jews) lived in Jerusalem. They demanded their own king. The other tribes became known as the Israelites and they demanded their own king. Then the two sets of descendants of Israel began to fight one another. God became an after-thought.
The Babylonians invaded and the Jews (not the rest of the Israelites) were exiled, just like when it all started, but not in Egypt this time. Eventually, the Persians beat the Babylonians and sent the Judeans back to Judah. You would think they would have learned, but of course they did not. They created a king, a hierarchy of Godly people and a path to God that had to go through those holy folks. The Romans invaded and eventually (in 70 AD) destroyed Jerusalem and kicked the Jews out again.
Why are the ancient theological mythologies and musings from a failed and defeated society, whose philosophy Jesus tried to fix, so important to modern followers of Christ? I have never understood this.
I suppose the main appeal is the idea that God created everything. Jesus refers to God as the creator, but does not mention that he did it in either of the two ways it is portrayed in Genesis. I think the fact that there are two creation stories is, at a minimum, evidence that they are just stories.
If you want to believe that God created everything, fine, but there is no logical reason to need to believe that it happened in 7 days, or in a Garden somewhere. By the way, the second creation story, the Adam and Eve story, is the Hebrews' story of their own holy beginning, not of all humans. There clearly were other humans in the story living in a town called Nod, where Cain went after killing Able. The most unsung member of the family, though, was Seth, who is actually the father of all Hebrews. Noah down to Abraham are descendants of Adam and Eve's third son, Seth. Just a side note I think is kinda cool.
So, could there be a higher power contributing to the evolution of humans? Who really knows? If you believe that, go ahead, but this does not conflict with science and there is no reason or logic behind contemplating that the world began only a few thousand years ago.
Oh well.
