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Word Gems 

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return to the main-page article on "Bible"

The traditional or orthodox answer here is that the Bible – a term meaning “books” – is a collection of inspired documents, written in several languages, over 1500 years, by 40 different writers, representing a few different cultures.

But this isn’t the best definition. It needs a little work.

The answer concerning the exact nature of the Bible might fill libraries, and it has. However, we can know some things and offer a general outline.

The following identifying items concerning the character of the Bible are presented in no particular order:

Some of the Bible enjoys good historical and archeological basis. There’s a core of actual occurrence to it. See the notes on the Exodus.

However, just because certain events, in broad outline, might enjoy historicity, this doesn’t mean that all of the dialogue or teaching or lesser happenings surrounding these main events took place. This was filled in by others, others with an agenda.

things that the real God would never say or do

There are many sayings or teachings in the Bible, purportedly from God, that the real God would never have said.

Editor’s note: How do we know this is true? We can know it’s true by the same touchstone of truth which might direct any spirit-led person. “Test the spirits” the Bible itself teaches, listen to the "still small voice" leading us into truth. See the many articles dealing with this principle.

But some of the errors here are so egregious, so blatant, that one does not need to be a great psychic to know the difference. We speak here of the commands, by the purported Old Testament God, to smash the brains of babies against rocks, or the sanctioned rape of middle-school aged little girls, or the killing of every person – old people, women, and children – a total genocide of unapproved cultures. See the associated articles.

heed and fear

The so-called God of the Old Testament is a sociopath, heartless, often devoid of the milk of the smallest human kindness. He impales his enemies on elevated stakes, makes a show of them, just as the tyrant kings of nearby nations did; "heed and fear" is his primary educational program with no time for any drivel such as appealing to reason and higher sensibility. He doesn't really want justice so much but is enamored with vengeance, a favorite word in his limited vocabulary. Like a cheap comicbook villain, he blusters too much about his fiery wrath and the need to beware.

This "God" doesn’t know his own mind, is often prone to error, frets about it, just can't get it right, readily blames his subjects for what he should have known in his omniscience, but then, with much chagrin, admits to mental shiftiness. See the many examples in the Old Testament of this god's "regret".

In the aftermath of blunders, he's wont to wipe the slate clean, "kill everyone" is his default setting, tamper with the crime scene, destroy the evidence of bumbling, bad press for his image of omni-this-and-that.

unconflicted

He condemns human sacrifice, but then, later, unconflicted, his big idea is to save the whole world by the human sacrifice of his own son. So we are told.

Well, all this is utter nonsense, but it's sold a lot of black books for a long time.

Historian Will Durant, in his Story of Civilization, offers observation regarding this troubled "God" of Israel (as reprinted from an earlier writing):

no pacifist nonsense for him

... this god makes no claim to omniscience: he asks the Jews to identify their homes by sprinkling them with the blood of the sacrificial lamb, lest he should destroy their children inadvertently along with the first-born of the Egyptians; he is not above making mistakes, of which man is his worst; he regrets, too late, that he created Adam, or allowed Saul to become king. He is, now and then, greedy, irascible, capricious, petulant: "I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy to whom I will show mercy." He approves Jacob's use of deceit in revenging himself upon Laban; his conscience is as flexible as that of a bishop in politics. He is talkative, and likes to make long speeches; but he is shy, and will not allow men to see anything of him but his hind parts... He will have no pacifist nonsense; he knows that even a Promised Land can be won, and held, only by the sword... To gain successes for his people, he commits or commands brutalities [in wholesale quantities, atrocities repugnant to the sensibilities of any cultured mind; he cannot see cause for uptightness regarding smashing babies' skulls against rocks] ... he slaughters whole nations with the naive pleasure of a Gulliver fighting for Lilliput. Because the Jews "commit whoredom" with the daughters of Moab he bids Moses: "Take all the heads of the people, and hang them up before the Lord against the sun"; it is the morality of Ashurbanipal and Ashur. He offers to show mercy to those who love him... but, like some resolute germ, he will punish children for the sins of their fathers, their grandfathers, even their great-great-grandfathers. He is so ferocious that he thinks of destroying all the Jews for the worshipping of the Golden Calf...

• Editor's note: Durant is very tongue-in-cheek sarcastic: "this god ... is not above making mistakes, of which man is his worst."

This Old Testament 'God' of the 'infallible' Bible commands the troops: 'Kill everyone - old women to infants! - except for the little middle-school girls! Keep them aside as your sex-object play-things!'

Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy:

... Jehovah destroys all living things on the Earth by flood, but somehow manages to also find the time to specifically execute one individual man for letting his semen spill on the ground when having sex... he inflicts hideous plagues on Egypt for not letting the Israelites leave, despite the fact that it was he himself who "hardened Pharaoh's heart" ... [he] makes it allowable to beat a slave to death and, after rumors that Israelites have worshipped a rival god, orders faithful Israelites to kill their friends and relatives, leading to the death of 3,000 people... [he] takes vengeance on the people of Gath by giving all the men a fatal dose of hemorrhoids... In Deuteronomy he orders the Israelites to utterly destroy the people of the cities that he bequeaths to them as their "inheritance," commanding them "not to leave anything that breathes alive" ... He also gives the Israelites power to utterly destroy the Canaanites and exterminate the people of Og, advising with regard to captured women and children [thus]:

"Kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known a man intimately. But keep alive for yourself all the young girls who have not known a man intimately."  (Numbers 31:17,18)

kill the little girls - later

The troops are offered, as perk for battle victories, captured little girls of middle-school age as sex-object play-things - but all the rest can be quickly disposed of. The little girls would be killed later, when they no longer amused.

What are we looking at in all this farcical buffoonery and atrocity, this charade and misrepresentation of the real God?

The writers of these documents have 'created God in their own image.'

The angry-small god of these writers is entirely fabricated, mirroring the god or gods of the surrounding nations; moreover, a straw-god emulating the writers' own perverted egoic hearts.

There is so much rubbish and pious prevarication going on here; so much inventing of a straw-god to serve the political agenda of certain power-ambitious writers.

But, let's move on to other areas of "what the Bible is."

Some of the biblical documents represent the channeled insights of shamans of their day. They knew things and saw things well beyond the zeitgeist of their particular cultures. See discussion in "The Wedding Song."

Some of the writers, with psychic abilities, ones who had received authentic messages from heaven -- like Jeremiah -- perceived the will of God, understood and condemned the immoralities of their societies, just as those with psychic abilities sometimes do today.

Some of the biblical documents were forgeries, and known to be forgeries, even in their own day. See the articles.

Some of the biblical documents quoted or excised whole sections of Egyptian and Babylonian writings.

Some of the biblical documents heavily borrowed from earlier Gnostic writings.

Some of the biblical documents were political hit-pieces designed for character assassination of competing thinkers. See the Thomas-John debate.

Some biblical documents gained approval due to their conformity with the agendas of power-mongers, while other documents, promoting human freedom and dignity, were suppressed and destroyed.

Just as the so-called Old Testament god could never represent the spirit of the real God, so too there are many items in the New Testament errantly ascribed to Jesus and Paul, statements which these real personages would never have said or supported. See the articles.

Summary:

What are we really looking at in this congeries of competing books and self-serving doctrinal presentation?

We live in a world awash in totalitarian propaganda. It is so prevalent that almost everything we hear is tainted with deceit. This occurs even with the internet and instant fact-checking.

How much more likely would this have occurred in ancient times, with little to no editorial constraint, among those seeking to gain political power over the illiterate masses? It would be incredibly naive to assume otherwise. And, indeed, there are books written on the subject of biblical documents as forgeries.

Let us recall, too, Dr. Diana McDonald's assertion that every ancient-world work of art under her review served as "visual propaganda" for some Dear Leader; never as "art for art's sake". Likewise, we need not seriously doubt that this same untoward dynamic of truth-suppression would infect the production of so-called holy biblical documents. Very little, to none, of it would represent the authentic mind of God.

What are we looking at in what has become known as holy 'biblical documents'?

Probably, after the societal chaos engendered by the Babylonian captivity, the priests of Israel, intent upon creating and solidifying power for themselves, wrote or edited or approved certain "biblical documents" and sold these to the people as "the word of God." Political agenda became the guiding hand. Virtually all of the art of the ancient world, just referenced, served to provide basis, cosmogony, and legitimacy for some Dear Leader's power-grab. In similar form or fashion, that's what's really behind most of these Old Testament or Torah "bible documents".

Likewise, after the death of Jesus, with so much power over the masses to be gained by commandeering the name of Christ, the new and growing Rogue Church, over time, wrote or edited or interpolated or massaged or approved or forged New Testament "bible documents" and sold these to the illiterate people as the holy infallible "word of God"; again, all this legerdemain, to fabricate a cosmogony, the divine right of Blackrobes to rule over the world as agents of the most high.

sanctified, set in stone, by much time; but only in our world

High crimes, adorned with the passage of millennia, take on respectability. Civilization is built around it; money and careers are invested, no matter the sordid origin. Few care, or question, anymore. But the Bible cuts no ice in the coming real-world.

the underlying forces which created the Bible have not gone away

We find, in principle, the same fake-news polluting society today, the constant lying, the never-stopping lust for power -- and the long-ago production of the "bible documents" were created in this same disingenuous spirit, and for the same reasons. It's always the same reasons.

Nothing has changed; on planet Earth, run by the dysfunctional ego, nothing can fundamentally change. Societal mass-change is not possible right now. For most, this will occur only in a dark place of mandated introspection.

The "beast and false prophet" -- brute force and propaganda -- have always dominated this immature and wayward world, and wherever there is influence and control to be gained over the unwary, you will find these two assiduously working -- absolutely guaranteed. They're not able to stop.