The Bible

I saw a sign on a Christian Evangelical Church as I drove through Wisconsin today that reminded its congregation to "Read the Bible Every Day." Well the more I read the Bible and read what scholars know about what the Bible says, when it was written, by whom and why, I have come to believe this is very poor advice if one wants to keep the flock together.

The Old Testament, as anyone who has read this before knows, is full of mythological fairy tales filled with magic, violence, power, vengeance, favoritism, lust and random restrictions on things that are punishable by death or worse. Perfect for a movie script, but certainly not for theology. Even Jews have come to believe that the stories are there for guidance, inspiration, metaphorical meaning and to set certain standards of behavior. The mainstream Jews since the early 1st century if not before, do not profess that the tales are true.

I recently read the book Zealot, by Reza Aslan, which I highly recommend. It is an attempt to gain a better perspective on who Jesus of Nazareth really was and what he stood for. I cannot recreate it here of course, but as with several other books by similarly dedicated theological scholars, he points out the innumerable flaws in the Bible and in our current understanding of it.

He mentioned a couple of points that I had never really realized.

1. The concept of writing accurate history based on facts is a concept that is only a few centuries old. Prior to this, perhaps because history was mostly recounted for entertainment in oral form, tales of the past were elaborated upon in order to make them more powerful or to make a point relevant to the listener at the moment of the telling. This is similar to the way great story-tellers relate history today. That tradition has been handed down to them over the eons father to son. The stories of the Bible, old and new testament, are no different. The myriad inconsistencies in both Testaments between books can be reconciled by looking to whom the audience was. Matthew spoke to the Jews who lived outside Jerusalem who were less familiar with the Jewish Law, Mark spoke to Jews in Rome and Luke to the Jewish Greeks, though other than perhaps Luke, none of Matthew, Mark or John were written by their namesakes. Each book elaborates on the ones that came before. Mark was first, over 30 years after the crucifixion, is shortest and simplest and probably based mostly on oral testimony and perhaps a few written documents. Matthew and Luke are reasonably contemporaneous, another 20 years or so later in time, and include much of Mark, but both add: 
1. Some parts not in Mark that are relatively consistent with one another called as a whole by scholars Q since they seem to come from a single separate source material other than Mark.
2. The birth story, inconsistent, but critical to the messianic myth stories upon which their audiences may have relied.
3. Some completely ridiculous additions to answer questions and place blame for Jesus' crucifixion on the Jews rather than Romans, which would not have sat very well with any of the target audiences.
2. Authors often wrote under the name of a more famous person. Sometimes because that person could not write, but often because they were a follower and wanted to give the revered leader credit. While so authored, the writer was probably reasonably true to the beliefs of the stated author. In addition to Matthew, Mark and John, the epistles of the illiterate Peter and James, many of Paul's writings fall into this category. Several were written well after Paul's death.

So, bottom line is that most, if not all, of the Bible is a forgery and all of it certainly is made up and adjusted so as to push forward the messages that the writer wanted to push.

Even in the best of circumstances, Paul's theology, written by a man who never met Jesus, is completely irreconcilable with that of Jesus and those who did know him personally, Peter and his brother James. James became the leader of the church in Jerusalem after the crucifixion. James referred to Paul as the enemy, called him before him several times, dressed him down for his preaching and sent preachers to the churches Paul wrote to in order to fix the message Paul was professing. 

The Romans preferred the message of Paul. All of the "christian" leaders called to Rome for the Council of Nicea were Romans, not Hebrews. So, Paul is in and others were out.

Are we Christians? Are we really Paulians? Are we Biblicans? 

I for one, anymore, am none of the above and have been for quite awhile. I am just not sure it is wise for those in the evangelical christian movement who control the Biblical message to encourage their followers to read it themselves lest they find out the truth. Woe to the religion if this happens. 

So SHHHHHhhhhh!!! about all this OK?