atheist - do you think men made up the bible?

Question

i wouldn't think they were that desperate to make up a reason for us to be here to make such a huuuge book. all of it lies? that's a bit ridiculous..

Answer 1

Of course they did. Where else would it have come from?
And don't say "God".

Answer 2

Men (plural) probably took down what had been oral histories for years and years, codified and mythologized them in the Bible. Those "begat" sections sure seem to speak to a transcribed oral historical tradition. All cultures have mythology intertwined in their histories in places.

After all, who believes that Emperor Akihito is a direct descendant of Amaterasu the Sun Goddess? Well, no one, because Hirohito explicitly dropped the idea of the divinity of Japanese emperors as part of the terms of surrender at the end of WWII. but doesn't that show how mythology can be intertwined with world events and policy? I'd be surprised if there was no mythology involved in the histories of the Jews covered in the Old Testament, really.

So, in answer to your question, even though I'm not an atheist, yes, I think men wrote the Bible--over long periods of time, incorporating many disparate stories and oral traditions.

P.S. An excellent example of the volume that can come from imagination is the father-son corpus of works on Middle Earth. JRR Tolkien wrote many, many histories of Middle Earth in pieces, individual stories, some obviously myth but written as fact. His son, Christopher, organized these into the Silmarillion and a 12 book History of Middle Earth that is MUCH longer than the Bible. The mythology inherent in Tolkien's work I see as a reflection of the mythology in sacred works such as the Bible. Without a spark of "faerie" to bring the stories alive, who would sit and listen to the long string of "begats?" Without a fantastic adventure, who would have latched onto the story of the little hobbit named Bilbo Baggins in the first place?

Answer 3

hi. Not an athiest, not religious, either. I believe there is a higher power we cannot envision, so we imagine that it must be human or humanlike.

I believe the Bible was written by man based on some truth and set to morals, not unlike Aesop's fables.

I believe the churches are a waste of time. He/She/It doesn't need me to leave my house to go to another house to wish really hard to be heard, like some cosmic lottery for which I have to pay 10%.

I don't believe the Bible is full of lies. Some literary license may have been taken here and there, possibly some embellishments, maybe even mushrooms, for all we know, but there is a foundation from which the stories stem. And they are selected for the Bible as teachings, are they not? Again, you could as easily become an upstanding human being by following Aesop.

Answer 4

No they weren't that desperate. But they knew that a lot of fools were. And they knew that they could tell these fools anything. So they make a book that explains everything as simply as humanly possible for their little minds. The book tells them what to do and how to act. Now the writers have control over the many many foolish people. They get the people to pack into churches and listen to some guy preach for an hour before passing around a basket for you to put your money in. To put it simply for your little mind, men wrote the bible because they like money. Religion is just the biggest money making scam of all time. Think about it. Did hunting/gathering societys have organized religion? No. Organized religion came about shortly after money.

Answer 5

The Bible is 100% aaccurate. It was written by men but inspired by God. The Holy Bible is one of the things that helps us beat Satan. Everyone is a sinner. It all started with Adam and Eve. They disobeyed God in the Garden of Eden by eating from the tree of good and evil. Everyone would live forever here on Earth if it wasn't for Adam and Eve. The Bible says they would've probably been alive today if they have not sinned. The wager for sin is death. This is why Jesus died on the cross to pay for our sins. We must repent our sins and ask Jesus for forgiveness if we want eternal peace. God also said in the Bible that soon, the peace between animals and people will be restored again. Everyone will love each other ad it would be like the Garden of Eden. Soon is a long time to us and it might not even be in our lifetime. To God, soon isn't a long time to him because he's eternal. Men didn't make up the Bible but they did write it. All the writings of the Bible were inspired by God. God really does exists. Some people get confused because they don't know where he came from. God is eternal meaning there is no beginning and no end.

Answer 6

Well, actually...It's not. The bible was written over many, many years by many, many people. It's not as though someone sat down and pounded the whole thing out all at once...

As far as ridiculous? People being swallowed by whales, being turned into pillars of salt, not being allowed to wear clothing woven of two fibers, living for 900 years, being born of a virgin impregnated by an angel...you see where I'm going with this. All more than a bit ridiculous.

So in answer to your question. Yep. Men made up the bible. The sillies...

Answer 7

well....men did write the bible.....but whether or not they were told by God to do so, or made it up is unknown.....

but there's a very good reason to make up the bible....just think of all the people that believe in the bible.....it's absolute control.....religion was and always will be about control.....back then, kings and queens always had to keep a good relationship with the church since the majority of the people went to church, the bishops had an insane amount of power

and the bishop today is a celebrity and a political figure.....

if religion was created by man, then id say it may be the greatest and ingenius plan to control the population

Answer 8

The supposed "historical facts" don’t even line up. Like the wrong prophet with the wrong king at the wrong battle and it was first written down years after the fact. That’s is historical fiction. The setting maybe a historical fact, but what they said happened is fiction. We don’t know who wrote the gospel, The first one Mark was written at least 30 to 60 years after Jesus died. Matthew and Luke had a copy of Mark with them when they wrote their books. John was deliberately written to fill in the gaps and the arguments that the new christian faith was having. These are stories passed on for years and years before written down. None of these are first hand accounts even though they are written that way.
Every religion has their spin on it, but try to find the facts. The conclusion is that there is little in the bible old or new that is fact. It mentions places that are real, but that’s about it. You can walk the streets where Jesus carried his cross, but did he really carry a cross? I try to find sources out side the bible that mention the same thing the bible does. Like the census that was talked and why Joseph went to Bethlehem. No record of it ever happening outside the bible. This is not the stone age. There was all kinds of trading with other countries. Something should have been mention somewhere about this massive disruption of the economy. Anyhow, we base our faith on the stories of Jesus in the gospels. It they can not be proven as fact, even by the Roman empire, then faith is based on fiction?

Answer 9

It's not one book, it's many. Some of the 'single' books of the Bible suggest more than one author - Isaiah, Ezra and Nehemiah being written in more than one language, Genesis with its different emphases and words for God (and different accounts of the same events in the same book).

It wasn't formalized into a 'single book' until the fourth-century Council of Nicaea. Even today, Catholic and Protestant Christians have (marginally) different versions of the book.

The Bible is a mess. And it's a mess because little bits of it were written a little at a time, in wildly different circumstances, at very different times, with different audiences and different points to prove and axes to grind. Compare the author of Numbers to Paul, or the Preacher in Ecclesiastes to John (any of them).

To use a simple example: When was Jesus born? Matthew says he was born when Herod ruled. Luke says when Quirinius was governor of Syria. Herod was dead for a good ten years by the time Quirinius took over. Is it a deliberate lie, whichever one of them is mistaken? Perhaps not. Maybe just a hearsay issue, or perhaps a deliberate embroidering of the truth to make one of their narratives a little tighter, and to make Jesus' birth a little more like the prophecied King of the Jews.

Answer 10

The Bible is a collection of sacred Scripture.
The Christian Church decided what to keep & discard.
Sacred Scripture is whatever mankind has deemed holy.
Holy means given from God or set apart for God.
There are all kinds & types of literature in the Bible:
Myth, History, Law, Songs, Sayings, Prophecy, Fiction, etc.
Taken together it/they span 2000 years of religious thought.
All scripture is useful for teaching (St. Paul).

Answer 11

all religions where developed to help man explain what he did not understand. your religion tells you that you worship the one true God and that God is all knowing. so do most other religions. the bible was written by those who truly believed what they were writing. the biggest part of any religion is believe. if a supreme being exist would it not make sense that he/she would make it possible for as many in the world to believe? even if they have to believe in different ways. if the end goal is for man to live in peace and as Christians say to be Christ like to care for this planet and all its inhabitants don't you think a all knowing God would want as much different help as possible do accomplish this on earth?
YES MEN DID MAKE UP THE BIBLE AND RE WROTE IT AND EDITED IT. THAT DOES NOT MAKE IT WRONG OR QUESTION THE EXISTENCE OF GOD