Let’s be honest. ALL historical books are influenced by the opinion and beliefs of the writer. Whether written today or thousands of years ago, and have often fictional parts woven in to make it look more authentic. A "non-fiction" book written about the 2nd world war, written by an Englishman differs from that written by a German, even if they are about the same battle. A Russian or Japanese writer would have many different interpretations as well, especially if they are second or third hand stories retold by "researchers" doing their best to be 'neutral". That's the way it is. The ancient books face the same problem, no matter how you "slice" it. Many old "historical" tales are retold tales that existed before written language even when "history" was passed on through storytellers, poems and dances. Distortions and alterations are the result. Many of us probably participated in the game of giving a person, in a group, a story who then would whisper it to the next person and so on until it had passed through every body with the result that the original story was not even recognizable form the original. Thus we can argue about, who wrote what, about Jesus time but you can be sure that every writer put their stamp on the story. That's why the stories are not the same and give thousands of scholars’ headaches to tease out the truth and nobody can say for certain they found it.
To circumvent the above difficulty, Christians say, although the bible was written by humans they were guided inspired by God so it is the unquestionable Word Of God,(that begs the question why use humans, and not produce the book him/herself, chiselled in stone on a mountain for example). Since it is easy to demonstrate (denial won't hack it) that there are some 400 contradictions and flaws in the narratives, starting with Genesis 1 & 2 (discussed often enough here), easily explained above that Humans wrote the bible because "God does not make mistakes” In the new testament we find the same problem. The stories are biased by the opinion of the writers.
Did Jesus exist? We will never know for sure. No matter who we quote or listen too. There are some things we can dismiss or verify. Was there a Tower of Babel? Probably yes, we might have found some remnants. Is therefor the bibles account 100% correct? Not on your life. Can we scientifically show the approximate age of the Earth? or the universe? Yes. Can we measure the speed of light? Can we measure how far stars are away by a simple "parallax method"? Yes. Did we find that some stars are so far away that it takes many more years for their light to reach us than 10,000 years? Yes we did. Those are FACTS we can apply to our narratives. Was there a big flood? most likely, Did a comet destroy a tribal settlement? most likely, but the details are questionable and often fictional. The logistics quoted by the defenders of a young earth are demonstrable false (we see stars much older, as explained above). The "logistics" quoted for all breathing animals to be fitted n the ark are impossible and begs the question why not just save Noah and his family and recreate all the animals again after the flood? The bible stories do unquestionably contain some historical happenings but they are distorted and changed through the retelling and many translations and therefor cannot be taken literally.
We can learn from some of the wise and useable parts and so learn from history and disregard those parts which obviously do not fit our current situation because of scientific discoveries we have made and are still making.
To circumvent the above difficulty, Christians say, although the bible was written by humans they were guided inspired by God so it is the unquestionable Word Of God,(that begs the question why use humans, and not produce the book him/herself, chiselled in stone on a mountain for example). Since it is easy to demonstrate (denial won't hack it) that there are some 400 contradictions and flaws in the narratives, starting with Genesis 1 & 2 (discussed often enough here), easily explained above that Humans wrote the bible because "God does not make mistakes” In the new testament we find the same problem. The stories are biased by the opinion of the writers.
Did Jesus exist? We will never know for sure. No matter who we quote or listen too. There are some things we can dismiss or verify. Was there a Tower of Babel? Probably yes, we might have found some remnants. Is therefor the bibles account 100% correct? Not on your life. Can we scientifically show the approximate age of the Earth? or the universe? Yes. Can we measure the speed of light? Can we measure how far stars are away by a simple "parallax method"? Yes. Did we find that some stars are so far away that it takes many more years for their light to reach us than 10,000 years? Yes we did. Those are FACTS we can apply to our narratives. Was there a big flood? most likely, Did a comet destroy a tribal settlement? most likely, but the details are questionable and often fictional. The logistics quoted by the defenders of a young earth are demonstrable false (we see stars much older, as explained above). The "logistics" quoted for all breathing animals to be fitted n the ark are impossible and begs the question why not just save Noah and his family and recreate all the animals again after the flood? The bible stories do unquestionably contain some historical happenings but they are distorted and changed through the retelling and many translations and therefor cannot be taken literally.
We can learn from some of the wise and useable parts and so learn from history and disregard those parts which obviously do not fit our current situation because of scientific discoveries we have made and are still making.
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