DangerousTalk

Many Christians are surprisingly ignorant about some of the basic facts concerning the Bible. When I talk about these facts, I mean that these are things that really aren’t in dispute even among Christian Biblical “Scholars.” This isn’t coming from some atheist like me who is critical of the Bible, it comes from religious believers who have looked at the evidence and have accepted these facts and facts.

The Bible which was written by multiple anonymous people decades after Jesus was alleged to have died and those accounts have been re-written by yet more anonymous people to suit their agendas. Contrary to popular opinion among most mainstream believers, we have no idea who wrote the Gospels. We do know that it wasn’t Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. Those were simply the names assigned to the books. The Gospels are anonymous! The Gospel of Mark was the earliest Gospel and Matthew and Luke plagiarized from Mark and another Gospel account which has been labeled “Q.”

The Gospels were edited over and over again by anonymous scribes. These various scribes changed the Gospels sometimes by accident and other times on purpose to suit their agendas. We know that whole verses were added and probably some were subtracted. The often quoted “He who is without sin, cast the first stone” story in John 8 for example was almost certainly added centuries later.

Another important fact that Christians need to realize is that there is no singular message of the Bible. The Bible is not one book by one author who has one message he or she wants to get across. The Bible is series of books written by many authors over a large period of time. Each author had their own agenda and was writing for people living in a particular time and place to address particular issues of that time and place. So when Christians try to tell you that the main point of the Bible is X, they don’t know what they are talking about.

Filed under: Biblical Scholarship, ignorance, Religion, the bible