Is it in the realm of possibility that man wrote the bible and lied it was God inspired?

Answer 1

I don't think that every single author of every book in the Bible woke up one day and said, "I'm going to write all this stuff (some of which could get me killed) and lie about it being the inspired Word of God, just because I'm living in the ancient Middle East and I have nothing to do besides herd goats." No, that's pretty unbelievable within itself.

I do think that everyone wrote about their own experiences with what they perceived to be God, and probably added a little bit of their own opinions in there as well. Later, other men formed a council and made a choice about which ones of all the ancient texts were "God Inspired" and which ones were not. Basically, they probably chose the writings of the men that best fit their agenda.

After all, since religion is created, maintained, and written by man ... it must be fallible, to some extent. I asked a question regarding that yesterday. I honestly don't think that the Biblical authors had any malicious intent -- but probably most would horrified if they were around to see what their words have been twisted to mean, including JC himself.

Answer 2

Have you considered the reliability of the bible? Ignore for the moment the whole notion of God and just think about the book's content.

Investigation by even the most skeptical will also reveal that there exists NO SINGLE SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY that has been shown to prove error, factually or doctrinally, in the Bible. There is lots of speculation and hypotheses, but not a single verifiable fact. If you or anyone should discover one, you will become quite famous. Yet, since recorded history, no one has offered it up and entered their names into the history books. Instead what we have is pseudo-science pandering to the masses, as in the recent John Cameron tomb of Christ debacle.

As a simple experiment, try turning your objective intellect towards the argument that no book, comprising 66 “mini-books”, written over a period of 1500 years by 40 vastly different authors, having an outstanding literary internal consistency and coherency, could be written by mankind alone. Add to that the survival of the book’s ancient manuscripts, numbering in the tens of thousands, over thousands of years and yet these manuscripts remain over 98% textually pure. How this possible, when compared to all the other ancient writings are so few in number? For instance, the Dead Sea Scrolls contain all books of the Old Testament, except Esther, and have been dated to before the time of Christ. Now consider Julius Caesar’s Gallic Wars. Only ten copies written about 1,000 years after the event are in existence. In comparison, there are over 24,000+ New Testament manuscripts, the earliest one dating to within 24 years after Christ. How can we objectively and rationally explain this book, the Bible, especially in light of the claims I have made above?

The above alone is enough of a reason to consider the bible to be a very extraordinary book. Yet, the Bible also validates its divine authorship through fulfilled prophecies. An astonishing 668 prophecies have been fulfilled and none have ever been proven false (three are unconfirmed).

An honest study of biblical prophecy will compellingly show the divine authorship of the Bible. Further, archeology confirms (or in some cases supports) accounts in the biblical record. No other holy book comes close to the Bible in the amount of evidence supporting its divine authorship.

Answer 3

The realm of possibility is vast. To probe its reaches is beyond human ability.
That being said, the Bible contains predictive prophesy that has come to pass which is a singularity. That sets it aside from all other man-made literature, indicating an origin that can move outside of what we know of as space and time.
If you can get a copy of the Koran that Thomas Jefferson had, it had prophesies in it that did not come to pass which put it in the same category with all other literature as human inspired.

Answer 4

I'm sure there were exhaustive tests to prove which scrolls extant at the time of the council of Nicea were and which were not inspired by God. Otherwise they'd have to admit the whole damned book was no better than Grimm's Fairy Tales or 1001 Arabian Nights or the Qu'ran or any other work of moralistic fiction.

And that's all the time I've got for sarcasm tonight.

Answer 5

No. 40 different men of vastly different time periods and cultures "wrote" the Bible with very detailed prophecies hundreds of years in advance of the fact. The Bible still has only one message throughout inspite of the many different "writers" and every prophecy has come to pass so far. It has been time tested by believers and has held true throughout time. Only God could orchestrate all of that and only God's Word could be "fresh every morning" as the Word is to the soul of those who Know the Author.

Answer 6

One person said that there were, what, 668 fulfilled prophecies in the Bible. But, anyone can write a prophecy and anyone else can say it was fulfilled.

Extensive and intensive examinations have shown that the Book of Mormon is just as complex as the Bible, yet, you seem to have no problem attributing it to the mind of a nineteenth century farmer with a third grade education. I don't see how the Bible is any different.

Answer 7

The Bible is the Word of God.

Answer 8

No. All those authors. All that amount of time. Such a large book. So many many followers. I doubt it could have been done and deceived so many. Why would Jesus go through torture and die in front of witnesses for something that's false? The disciples and many others have done the same. Why chance death for something they knew was untrue. The Bible is real, true, and accurate.

Answer 9

This is not possible for many reasons. Far to many to list here.
But the short answer is this.

To believe that, you have to believe that Jesus was a liar and therefore the false profit. That can not be possible because he DID voluntarily go to the cross believing that he was the Christ. It would not make any sense for Jesus to be a false profit and still go to his death.

Jesus is not a lunatic and a liar. He is the Son of God and he freed you from your sins if you’ll just bring your self to believe it.

Answer 10

No, that's just crazy talk. It is far more likely that an invisible, all-knowing, all-power God used several guys as puppets to write down his laws, that this being magically made a virgin pregnant (I can hear the Barry White music in the background as I envision him getting ready for this), that he sent his son here to free us and die for our sins and then resurrect him (but who here hasn't had one of those pecky resurrecting zombie problems), and that he chose his followers to please him by slaughtering billions of people through the ages in his name. I mean, come on, where's your head? Oh, wait, on second thought...