confessions of a conflicted christian #2

Blasphemy: The Bible is man's work, not God's Word.
Well, in a physical way, that's true. Except for the 10 commandments, everything else in the Bible is acknowledged, even by Christians, to be written by men - from Moses for Genesis to David for Psalms to Paul for much of the New Testament.

The Bible as we know it today comprises 66 books written over several millenia. The first official collection of the Bible occured in the 4th Century AD and was amended again just a few decades later. The history of the Bible is long and varied:


Wikipedia puts it succinctly:

Many people who identify themselves as Christians, Muslims, or Jews regard the Bible as inspired by God yet written by a variety of imperfect men over thousands of years.

Note the phrase "written by a variety of imperfect men" - consider what that implies.

But Christians aren't saying that God physically wrote the Bible himself, simply that He guided every word. There are several problems with this claim:
1. We share the Old Testament with the Jews. If the Bible is really the Word of God and to be taken literally, as many Christian advocates will have you do, then this commonality with the Torah is a problem. Are we simply 'modern' Jews - i.e. Jews but slightly different? Or are we radically different? If so, how so? Simply saying that we believe in Jesus while Jews don't doesn't tell us anything. So what if Jesus is the son of God? Do we therefore throw away the Torah? If not, why not? What is the radical difference?
2. Jesus never wrote anything down. This ought to be a real shocker. If God really did come down as Jesus and if everything he wanted to tell us is in the Bible, why doesn't he just rewrite the Bible as it ought to be written? At least the Quran is a transcript of what Muhammad taught - word for word, in the original language that the Prophet used.
3. There are many books inspired by God. Even if we ignore the many holy books of the different religions, there are many, many books written by Christians since the beginning of Christianity that are professed to be inspiration from God. Of late, for example, there is the Gospel of Judas:













So, which ones do you believe? On the church's authority? Which church?
4. When Jesus came, many of his harshest comments were directed at the teachers of the Law. To quote Luke 20:46-47:

"Beware of the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and love to be greeted in the marketplaces and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. They devour widows' houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. Such men will be punished most severely."

Or Matthew 5:20:

"For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven."

So, what do you believe? And why? How can you be better than your pastor? How can you be more holy than your priest?

Apologia:
So, I have my doubts about the inerrancy of the Bible. And yet, it contains the story of Jesus. Can his story be made up? I may not believe the Bible and I do believe in Jesus. This will seem strange but I will explain more in future blogs.