Here is my understanding of what the Bible really is.
1.Early people (families, tribes) guessed at how the world worked. Mystery is the result of ignorance (not knowing).
2.People used dreams, fantasy, imagination and put together a kind of theory (mythos) about why things happened.
3.Children would hear these stories growing up. Each family and tribe and ethnic group ended up hearing similar stories.
4.Explanations pointed often to invisible "persons" (who eventually became what we'd call gods) doing things and interacting with humans and thus causing events, disasters, scenarios that served as the "why" of the unfolding. In effect, there were no alternative explanations.
5.Super heroes (invisible, of course) were fun to conjecture about. So, the stories grew more organic. In the same way the Illiad or the Odyssey was built from constant retelling; so too local mythos was colored by new ideas and better storytellers accretions.
6.Once the nation loses track of the FACT that it is only a made up story they are telling; it becomes a kind of HISTORY. Often a factual event became more "interesting" by mixing it with heroic colorings.
7.The early Semites were no different in their mythos. These stories were more or less similar among different tribes (since they grew into multiple familes from earlier families of smaller sizes.) The roots of characters, events and times were commonly shared.
8.The event of being torn away from their homeland by deportations from invaders (Babylonian destruction and forced immigration) split these homogeneous people into separate groups.
9.Some remained behind and some were taken away and exposed to new ideas and different stories and altogether strange explanations for how the world works. see: Ahura Mazda.
10. The "good" ideas drove out the bad and the deported people gradually changed their historic understandings by updating them with the new ideas from the surrounding people.
11. Upon repatriation (returning to their homeland) generation now lived who had not been exposed to the old stories; they knew only the updated versions.
12. The stay-behind groups now encountered the updated groups. Arguments resulted. Stories didn't quite mesh. An outside agency of arbitration became necessary to set matters straight about who did what and why.
At this point a peculiar and singular event pops up into view. Whenever people disagree about something important to them they appeal to some source of arbitration. What, exactly, would prove who was right and who had it wrong? Voila! Anybody seen anything written down?
It is out of arguments that apologies are born. Or, should I say Apologia. Writings appear to corroborate one's viewpoint and writings appear to refute the other guy's viewpoint. Orthodoxy is born by having a permanent record appear one can appeal to the way one settles a pronunciation argument by grabbing a dictionary.
The often different versions of the same story becomes a patchwork compromise document to make both parties partially right and end the discords. Two creation accounts, two versions of Noah's activities, these are the efforts of a middleman (redactor) to sew two patches together and make one garment worth wearing.
So too in the time following Jesus' death. Stories circulated everywhere as each viewpoint was told by word of mouth. Questions, arguments, counterarguments always end up calling for an arbitration process. Voila! Things get written down and attributed to the highest authority possible to prove who is right and who is wrong.
The Council of Nicea was the new (Christian-sympathizer) Emperor of Rome Constantine's idea to settle these sorts of orthodoxy fights. Rulers want peace and taxes paid. Without peace there is no security. So, eventually, somebody had to decide which of the stories about Jesus would become offical and which would become heresy. The point was to stop the bickering.
If you read about who made these choices and what kinds of men they were (politically) you discover why we have the Bible we have today.
You get out of a political group the very thing the majority of the group decides they want to obtain. The APOSTLE'S CREED has been with us ever since. The Apocrypha is so named as a result. The "lost" books are a result.
It is all the result of imagination, arguments, arbitrations and traditional points of view melting together to prove somebody is right and somebody is wrong.
THE BIBLE is layers and layers and layers of these things. That is why it is mostly incomprehensibly boring gibberish. Further, that is why the greatest genuis in history in each generation devotes their full intellect to patching up the leaks. The long history of usefullness in manipulating masses of gullible people is too good to ignore. Scripture is a powerful weapon to rally people to do your bidding and to lable your enemy as worthy of contempt and annhilation.
New generations of children are born completely naive to all of the above. They are told a very carefully edited story by their parents and made to think it is THE only viewpoint worth believing.
Thousands of different variations on those same stories continue. They all differ slightly according to tastes and customs. We call those different tastes and customs DENOMINATIONS.
Sadly, the majority of people whose lives are controlled thereby are witless to the manipulation of their mind because they are unwilling or too lazy to explore the actual history of the very book (scripture) that controls them.
Besides, all the singing and back-slapping and grinning feels good. You are always on the winning team. Gosh, it feels magnificent to be absolutely convinced you are right and everybody else is a fool.
How do you know? The bible tells you so.
Terry
