Who Wrote the Bible?

Like many, I was brought up in a religious home. My parents were both devout Catholics. I see this as just being the workings of fate.

Thinking it would be of great benefit for me, they even sent me to a Catholic grade-school. Perhaps they figured the nuns and priests there could do an even better job of 'beating me into submission' than they could do themselves.

One of the things they always did at their Masses was to read selected excerpts from the Bible. They even had some very devout people come up to the pulpit sometimes to read these selected passages. I guess this was supposed to be some sort of honor, but to me it always seemed as if they wanted various 'common people' to do these readings so as to make it appear even moreso that this is all what the 'common man' should wholeheartedly and unhesitatingly 'believe'.

At some point I decided that since all these people kept insisting how important it was, being 'God's Word' and all, I would just go ahead and read it for myself instead of relying on some selected snippets. Mind you, this was the 'approved' version which was said to be 'totally correct and factual'.

As I read, and read, and read... I started to get the feeling that there might be something wrong with my powers of comprehension and understanding.

To begin with, the entire idea that the God which we were supposed to adore, venerate and 'worship' is a 'loving God' seemed to be an entirely different 'entity' from the concept of this God I was getting from reading the Bible for myself. I mean, what kind of a 'loving God' orders whole nations of peoples - men, women and babies, to be slaughtered - JUST BECAUSE they do not feel any need to 'worship' this particular version of 'God'? Unfortunately, I kept getting the feeling I was reading something that could have been written by Lenin or Stalin!

So, I began wondering, just where the heck did this book that so many 'swear to' as being Absolute Truth and the words of 'God' come from?

It appears many others have had the same questions, and not just 'recently' either.

One of the best explanations as to how the Bible came to be is one given by Laura Knight Jadczyk in her mini-series Who Wrote the Bible.

In chapter 1 of this series whe writes:
"The Bible is an Extraordinary Book: A book which claims infallibility; which aspires to absolute authority over mind and body; which demands unconditional surrender to all its pretensions upon penalty of eternal damnation, is an extraordinary book and should, therefore, be subjected to extraordinary tests.

But it isn't.

Neither Christian priests nor Jewish rabbis approve of applying to the bible the same tests by which other books are tried.

Why?

Because it will help the bible? It can not be that.

Because it might hurt the bible? We can think of no other reason.

The Truth is that The Bible is: A Collection of Writings of Unknown Date and Authorship Rendered into English From Supposed Copies of Supposed Originals Unfortunately Lost."

OK, to be honest, while I had my doubts as to the authenticity of what I was reading in the Bible as a youth, I didn't see anywhere near as well as I do at the present time. All I really had then were vague feelings that something was just not 'right'.

Also from the article -
"Recently, Richard Dawkins, author of the Blind Watchmaker, suggested that religion was a virus.

Dawkins argued that the widespread presence of religion —despite its lack of obvious benefits—suggests that it was not an evolutionary adaptation. [...] Society provides a breeding ground for the “virus” of religion by labeling children with the religion of their parents. Children, in turn, absorb these beliefs because they are conditioned to do so."

What I have Observed over the years is that few are capable, or even interested in, escaping the 'conditioning'!

And yet, most people will also swear that they "CAN NOT be HYPNOTIZED... so, don't even try!"!

Go figure!