The Bible is a collection of fairy tales written by illiterate goat herders back in the Bronze Age. The Catholic Church cherry picked which fables to include to mind control non-thinking tithers. (???)
Oddly enough, the Bible contains no mention of fairies, pixies, leprechauns, elves, sprites or the like. By definition, a fairytale is a tale about such creatures told to amuse children. I'm sure you would agree that the Bible is hardly written for the amusement of children. Nor is it a highly implausible story told as an excuse for something, but an accurate representation of human history. The Bible is a historical work. It is more than just a book, it is a library of books spanning several genres, around 40 authors, written over roughly a 2000 year period!
How one could be illiterate and write is beyond me, but one can hardly say that writers of the Bible were unintelligent men even if they weren't all highly educated. We have Moses who would have received the finest Egyptian education. He wrote down 5 of the Bibles 66 books. David indeed started as a Shepherd, but by the time he was writing much of the Psalms, he was the King of Israel. Solomon had wisdom that surpassed any who came before or after him (with the exception of Jesus), with his contributions to the Bible being Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Songs of Solomon. Luke, the writer of Luke and Acts was a doctor. Peter was a fisherman. Paul was a tentmaker. Yet these men managed to turn the world upside down and silence the greatest minds of their time. Add to this that it is likely they spoke at least 2 if not 3 languages, something the UK government would die for when it comes to todays students!
It is also odd that one would use "Bronze Age" as a means to undermine the Bible as if people living in the Bronze Age were somehow unintelligent. I suppose the Egyptian Pyramids are a collection of childrens blocks built by uneducated sand-dune-dwellers?
It is a common misconception that the Catholic Church formed the canon of the Bible. The Bible canon that we have today was well established by the end of the 1st century AD. Peter refers to the letters of Paul as scripture and we can reconstruct 99% of the New Testament writings from the quotes of early 2nd century church Fathers. Many believe that the Bible canon was decided at the council of Nicea by Constantine. Interestingly, the Bible canon was never actually discussed at the council and Constantine had no voting power. If you wish to see what they did discuss, you can find it all here.
Whilst it is true that many do cherry pick which parts of the Bible to follow and some have even distorted the original text, we have enough manuscriptual support (more than that for the existence of Julius Ceasar or Socrates I might add) to conclude that not only is the Biblical text reliable, but that the original spirit of the Bible is alive, well and set in stone. To quote Bart D. Ehrman (a New Testament textual critic):
How one could be illiterate and write is beyond me, but one can hardly say that writers of the Bible were unintelligent men even if they weren't all highly educated. We have Moses who would have received the finest Egyptian education. He wrote down 5 of the Bibles 66 books. David indeed started as a Shepherd, but by the time he was writing much of the Psalms, he was the King of Israel. Solomon had wisdom that surpassed any who came before or after him (with the exception of Jesus), with his contributions to the Bible being Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Songs of Solomon. Luke, the writer of Luke and Acts was a doctor. Peter was a fisherman. Paul was a tentmaker. Yet these men managed to turn the world upside down and silence the greatest minds of their time. Add to this that it is likely they spoke at least 2 if not 3 languages, something the UK government would die for when it comes to todays students!
It is also odd that one would use "Bronze Age" as a means to undermine the Bible as if people living in the Bronze Age were somehow unintelligent. I suppose the Egyptian Pyramids are a collection of childrens blocks built by uneducated sand-dune-dwellers?
It is a common misconception that the Catholic Church formed the canon of the Bible. The Bible canon that we have today was well established by the end of the 1st century AD. Peter refers to the letters of Paul as scripture and we can reconstruct 99% of the New Testament writings from the quotes of early 2nd century church Fathers. Many believe that the Bible canon was decided at the council of Nicea by Constantine. Interestingly, the Bible canon was never actually discussed at the council and Constantine had no voting power. If you wish to see what they did discuss, you can find it all here.
Whilst it is true that many do cherry pick which parts of the Bible to follow and some have even distorted the original text, we have enough manuscriptual support (more than that for the existence of Julius Ceasar or Socrates I might add) to conclude that not only is the Biblical text reliable, but that the original spirit of the Bible is alive, well and set in stone. To quote Bart D. Ehrman (a New Testament textual critic):
"It would be a mistake. . .to assume that the only changes being made were by copyists with a personal stake in the wording of the text. In fact, most of the changes found in our early Christian manuscripts have nothing to do with theology or ideology. Far and and away the [sic] most changes are the result of mistakes, pure and simple—slips of the pen, accidental omissions, inadvertent additions, misspelled words, blunders of one sort or another.”
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