The Bible is apparently one of the best books, if not the best seller, of all time. I don’t understand why it’s not for sale in the mythology or fiction section of bookstores (or available in similar places in libraries). Simply put, the Bible is not credible as nonfiction and as a historically accurate record of those ancient times.
We all know the song from the popular American opera “Porgy and Bess” by George & Ira Gershwin & DuBose Heyward: The excerpts go something like this:
“It’s not necessarily so.
It’s not necessarily so
of the things that you need,
To read in the Bible,
It’s not necessarily so.”
“Oh, I take the gospel,
Whenever possible,
But with a grain of salt.”
“I’m preaching, I say a sermon for show,
It’s not nessa, it’s not nessa,
it’s not nessa, it’s not nessa,
It’s not necessarily so.”
To which I add, amen to that brothers and sisters!
The Bible, if taken at face value, is full of contradictions.
How is it that the same book we call the Bible, that one true word of God, simultaneously tells you to turn the other cheek and love your enemy, while advocating an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth? ?
I mean you have ‘do unto others…’ but it’s okay to execute witches (and many other unsavory types too, showing no mercy for gender or age). And there is certainly no such thing as equal rights for women in and according to the Bible. Slavery is okay with God and son (JC), as is beating or whipping slaves if they do a mischief.
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There are some pretty big unanswered questions that arise from various chapters of the Old Testament. There’s a lot of pretty incredible stuff in the Bible, especially the Old Testament. The point is, the moment you question the validity or accuracy of anything in the Bible (New or Old Testament), then that is the moment you need to recognize the logical requirement to question everything.
So where did Cain’s wife come from? I mean, if Adam and Eve fathered Cain and Abel, doesn’t that immediately suggest that the future of the human race is a bit in a reproductive situation for lack of additional female companionship? There is apparently no Biblical mention of additional women contemporary with the second (and firstborn) generation of humans. That’s a bit of an oversight, don’t you think? And if Cain and Abel had sisters without a name or mention, well, what about those taboos that prevent or limit inbreeding and, of course, incest? Surely an all-knowing God would have foreseen this.
If the human race begins with just Adam and Eve, where does all the diversity of human ethnic or racial types come from in such a relatively short period of time?
Then there is this story of the Tower of Babel. What was God (seemingly all-powerful) so afraid of?
How were all those individuals, all those souls, ‘saved’ before Christ? I mean, how did a Neanderthal caveman who lived 100,000 years ago get to heaven? Or, for that matter, someone who even lived in Old Testament (pre-JC) times?
Then we have Jonah and the whale (or big fish). Well, if you take that as gospel truth, then there is a bridge in Sydney Harbor that I would like you to buy for me, which is also very cheap.
Then there is the parting of the Red Sea setting. Moses may have been the one to wave his hands and arms and in doing so parted the waters, but God was directing the show and the action and ultimately has to take the blame for the slaughter (by drowning) of the Egyptian army. I am reminded of the phrase that ‘God so loved the world…’ – well, God certainly did not love the Egyptian army! Speaking of God’s love, you wouldn’t have wanted to be one of those upstanding citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah in those days, or to have been hanging around when Noah was building his Ark!
What about Methuselah who lives to be 900 years old? Of course he did! But if he did, then it’s ‘anything you can do, I can do better’ time. So my personal goal is that he’s heading for the 901 longevity award in the Guinness Book of Records!
Then there is the concept or character of Jesus Christ (JC), the presumed son of God. The children have Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny; tweens and teens have whatever pop idol is flavor of the month (or week; what’s in and what’s out changes fast), but adults have JC.
While there is little doubt in my mind that there really was a historical figure who called himself Jesus Christ (but there are those who would, and do, argue that JC was just as thoroughly mythological a figure as Zeus and Apollo, or for that matter Santa), and who was executed, I suggest that JC was still a person who was very human, she died and has remained dead ever since.
I suggest that there was a very charismatic character, who, unfortunately, could have been mentally ill. Our mental institutions or asylums are full of people who sincerely believe they are this person, or that person, or a reincarnation of this or that historical figure, but in reality, they are totally delusional. I’m sure this syndrome is not unique to this era. There have been many charismatic religious figures throughout the centuries who, in another time and place, if they claimed to be the Son of God, would have attracted a large following and an almost mythological aura. Maybe JC was just in the right place, at the right time, with the right personality to pull off the charade; in fact, JC probably sincerely believed his own story. I am not an expert on what exactly JC said about himself, or has been alleged to have said. Maybe he didn’t make any claims and it was just others who embellished him as something he never claimed to be. If that’s the case, then of course he wasn’t mentally ill. I just want to say that I’m sure mental illness existed some 2000 years ago, then as now, and it’s possible that JC could have suffered to a greater or lesser degree, assuming he made some extraordinary claims about himself. Regardless, the bottom line is that JC was the son of a man and a woman, not the Son of God.
Therefore, there was no virgin birth, was there? Come on, pull the other one. Where is the true objective and conclusive evidence? Was there a qualified doctor on site to witness and testify to this supposed miracle? Now if the virgin birth account is accurate, which I doubt, then JC had no biological father. Therefore, all of his genetic material came from his biological mother (virgin). With that being the case, JC should not only have been a woman, but probably a clone of her mother! Since the authors of the relevant Biblical books could hardly have been aware of modern genetics, her ‘oops’ is understandable, but it’s an ‘oops’ nonetheless.
Now someone is bound to mention that there is such a concept in biology known as parthenogenesis. That is, a female that normally reproduces sexually gives birth without the benefit of any sperm to fertilize her eggs. Unfortunately, this does not occur naturally in mammals, although it has been artificially induced in laboratory mice and rabbits. If the biblical virgin birth was the result of natural parthenogenesis, something medical science denies is possible, then it was an event so rare that it has never happened before or since, or if laboratory techniques were far more advanced at the time. then, even in relation to current medical technology. However, because there is always a slight change, however incredibly slight, from a natural parthenogenesis event, then the alleged virgin birth cannot be said to be a genuine miracle and as such offers no proof of the existence of God.
If God or His scribes wished to make clear the central ideas and events and chronology of the ‘end of the world’, Revelation, Armageddon, the Rapture, the Second Coming, etc., He or they failed, miserably. Any dozen Biblical scholars will give a dozen different interpretations of ‘end days’, from the literal to the metamorphic. Revelations, it seems, was intended for those of that time; that it was intended for generations far removed from those times is apparently not the case according to biblical scholars. If you’re not going to make your point, well, what’s the point? How many hundreds upon hundreds of times have biblical scholars prophesied the end of the world, or the end of days, or Armageddon, or the Second Coming, or the Last Judgment (choose the appropriate phrases) based on the Bible verse? Well, we’re still here! In fact, we are still here, both because of the reliability of the Bible, or the word of God, and/or the competence of so-called biblical experts. So next time some bible-thumping fundamentalist tells you that ‘the end is near’, take said message with a proverbial grain of salt and don’t lose any sleep over it!
Take a lesson from history: here are a couple more flies in the Biblical ointment.
Can the Bible really be a true historical account? Not likely. It is written by a multitude of authors, over eons of time, and has undergone dozens of translations. I like an analogy of a line of twenty people: whispering a sentence in the ear of person number one and having that person whisper that sentence to person number two, therefore person number three, and so on. Ask person number twenty to then relate the sentence to you. Most likely, there is little similarity between what you originally whispered and what you finally heard after twenty translations.
God maybe and JC probably are historical figures, as are all the other characters in the Old and New Testaments. Apparently many of the texts within the Bible were not written until many decades after the fact. What does that tell you about the reliability of the texts being literally accurate? History is a very inaccurate science, irregular at best, and the further back in time you go, the more irregular it becomes. Historians often have difficulty documenting and agreeing on the who, what, where, when, and why of events 200 to 500 years ago. So how can we trust events from 2,000 to 5,000 years ago?
Anyone can make up or embellish stories and write them down, and often does. Our bookstores and libraries are full of books labeled ‘fiction’. Can anyone absolutely state that those who wrote the various testaments, chapters, and verses of the Bible were not making them up as they went along, or at least making things fatter? Humans at best like to embellish stories and tell little white lies (lies even) and at worst make up pure fiction (disguised as truth) for their own purposes.
Ultimately, as has been pointed out many times, history is written by the victors. Perhaps it would have been interesting to have the Adam and Eve side of the story instead of God’s version of events!
