Ever Wonder Why They Wrote The Bible?

[George Campbell]

2000-6000 years ago?

As we speak over 900,000,000 humans are starving or dying from complications of malnutrition...about one of every six on the planet. Ancient/primitive mankind spent most of his time searching for or raising the food he would consume to sustain his life. Some women ate their own children during especially hard times...Josephus the Jewish historian documented such cases. They saw the bones of many each day as they moved from place to place. Bands of savages roamed raping, pillaging and taking what others had worked for.

The whole scheme of religion was devised by those with power and wealth in order to maintain some similance of control. Think about it for a moment. Paper wasn't even invented till about 500 A.D. and in Asia when it was. Only the very elite and powerful had any access to papyrus and that fact alone determined what was recorded and why.

P.T. Barnum said, "There's A Sucker Born Every Minute" Religion proves he was right.

 

[Malleus_de_Philosophia]

I think part of the reason was control. Take example the 10 Commandments, to me they sound exactly like laws, and the other claims, such as no homosexuality reflect the social views during that time. I have to think though that Jesus was probably a real person and not a god but rather did something in addition to traveling around that got his name mentioned in the bible. Or maybe it was just a name the elite class chose. Either way, in the Old Testament god reflects brutality and such which probably resembled that day and age, while Jesus reflected kindness, which was probably what the people (i.e. the poorer classes subjected to the elite class) wanted. The elite class probably wanted compliance and if the poorer class tried to be compassionate and get to heaven, messages from Jesus and so forth, then that would probably enable the elite to have good control. Overall, I think it's about individual and group control; the individual gets fearful because the poor class would've believed the higher class and especially a god, while the group control is exhibited by everyone behaving the same and so any demands could have been enforced both internally and externally.

I think that perhaps the documented accounts of people along with god's aid plummaging lands was enforced by the lower class adhering to authority (legit power that the people willingly agree to). For the idea of authority, I turn to Max Weber's model of authority typology. One of them was a traditional authority, such as kings or queens, another was charismatic authority whereby a leader rises during times of struggle and the last is a rational-legal one where the leader doesn't have all the power and it's the model for democracy. I think the idea behind god was to establish traditional authority and the statement that god never dies ensures that there's no fear about a leader (i.e. charismatic leader) dying.

 

[Mr Cheese]

simplistic generalisations
produce
simplistic conclusions

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

2000-6000 years ago?

As we speak over 900,000,000 humans are starving or dying from complications of malnutrition...about one of every six on the planet. Ancient/primitive mankind spent most of his time searching for or raising the food he would consume to sustain his life. Some women ate their own children during especially hard times...Josephus the Jewish historian documented such cases. They saw the bones of many each day as they moved from place to place. Bands of savages roamed raping, pillaging and taking what others had worked for.

The whole scheme of religion was devised by those with power and wealth in order to maintain some similance of control. Think about it for a moment. Paper wasn't even invented till about 500 A.D. and in Asia when it was. Only the very elite and powerful had any access to papyrus and that fact alone determined what was recorded and why.

P.T. Barnum said, "There's A Sucker Born Every Minute" Religion proves he was right.

Don't be so modest: your post does a far better job.

 

[George Campbell]

Don't be so modest: your post does a far better job.

It's true...75 years of modesty. I was born in 1934 on a west TN dirt farm in an area of the country where half were forced to either accept welfare, charity...OR MOVE!

My family moved.

The one thing that stands out about the present generation, my three kids included...and this culture. They take one helluva lot for granted.

 

[Naveed83]

I highly doubt it was all originally put together by those in power as a form of control. Why would they go to all the trouble to create a religion and write tons of books on it just to control the masses? It would have been much simpler just using their power, wealth, and influence to build armies and law enforcers to force people into submission. No one is going to disobey when the primary punishment for everything is death or dismemberment.

The Tanakh (Old Testament) and later the Bible were probably put together primarily as a way to gather all the knowledge of Judaism and Christianity in easy packages, instead of relying strictly on oral tradition. Much easier trying to tell a story from a book/scroll then from memory basically. It wasn't until later when it was used as a way to control others. Sort of an unintentional side effect of putting everything together in an easy to use (manipulate) package.

The other unfortunate thing is no one seems to get the true messages presented in the Bible half the time. If they did, I have a feeling we'd be living in a slightly better world.

 

[imaginaryme]

That's what happens when one doesn't understand the gospel of Batman. A man is mortal, can be killed, can be corrupted; but a symbol - a symbol can stand forever. That's why the Romans made the Bible their tool, they knew about Batman. Thing is, they used the words of the prophets without understanding prophecy. The Bible tells its own story. The oldest book is Job, so why is Genesis first?

Agenda.

 

[Riverwolf]

Much of what exists in the Tanakh was created as a reaction to Mesopotamian mythology. The early Hebrews wanted to distance themselves from that culture, so they wrote several mythologies that were direct or indirect counters to those stories, and wrote a set of laws that countered those laws. At least that's the theory.

 

[Valjean]

The bible wasn't so much written as compiled. Naveed speculates that it was an encyclopedic compilation of Jewish knowledge, but were this so the bible would have hundreds of books in multiple volumes.
I believe the bible was compiled by a committee, which carefully chose those books reflecting their particular take on Jesus and Christianity/Judaism, in an effort to promulgate orthodoxy.

 

[ZooGirl02]

I have honestly suspected for some time now that the Bible was written by well meaning individuals who truly believed that a god was telling them to write certain things down. I believe they honestly believed that they were guided by some deity and that they needed to write these things down for some reason. Now, perhaps that reason was because they wanted to preserve their culture or perhaps they simply felt like it would encourage morality. I honestly don't know if they had other reasons besides the idea that they simply believed that a deity was telling them to write this stuff down.

 

[RomCat]

I believe that if everyone on this earth
followed the teachings of Scripture perfectly
there would be no hunger, strife or suffering.
It is because we are sinners that these things
exist.

 

[yourhopeboundheart]

I highly doubt it was all originally put together by those in power as a form of control. Why would they go to all the trouble to create a religion and write tons of books on it just to control the masses? It would have been much simpler just using their power, wealth, and influence to build armies and law enforcers to force people into submission. No one is going to disobey when the primary punishment for everything is death or dismemberment.

throughout history we've seen exactly how many people disobey when the punishment is death or dismemberment. revolutionists have made a name for themselves over and over again as being resilient through torture and fear of death. (hell, jesus didn't let a little thing like the threat of a torturous and humiliating execution keep him from preaching his message.) yet when weighing the pesky problem of revolutionaries the powers that were, perhaps, kept going back to the drawing board to determine how they could make their threats more intense, an afterlife would do it - provided there were consequences for the actions in this life. problem solved, for a lot of the population. what they weren't counting on is that the revolutionaries would evolve ever still in their commitment to freedom, even if it meant they would be tortured for all eternity.

I believe that if everyone on this earth
followed the teachings of Scripture perfectly
there would be no hunger, strife or suffering.
It is because we are sinners that these things
exist.

it's really nice that you think this, but honestly i doubt it. first of all, "following the scripture perfectly" insists that we behave in ways that are contradictory. and second, hunger, strife, and suffering are things that affect every living organism on the planet and have since life arose. i really doubt that one book written by dozens of authors over centuries is cohesive enough to have solved a problem that has been going on naturally for millions of years. but we will never know, because we're all sinners and we obviously cant follow instructions.

 

[cablescavenger]

I believe that if everyone on this earth
followed the teachings of Scripture perfectly
there would be no hunger, strife or suffering.
It is because we are sinners that these things
exist.

16% of the worlds population will never follow any scriptures, because they are non theist, but being religious does not give anyone a monopoly on being good.

I am an atheist but have started up a charity and been on the board of a few charities too.

You do not need religious scripture to tell you to be a good person, you just get up and do it.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

16% of the worlds population will never follow any scriptures, because they are non theist, but being religious does not give anyone a monopoly on being good.

I am an atheist but have started up a charity and been on the board of a few charities too.

You do not need religious scripture to tell you to be a good person, you just get up and do it.

16% seems rather low to me.

 

[cablescavenger]

I always thought of it as an early moral guidance book, you can see why it might frighten people into behaving.

 

[cablescavenger]

16% seems rather low to me.

It is the number of agnostic and atheist.

 

[Quagmire]

16% of the worlds population will never follow any scriptures, because they are non theist,....

False connection here. There are plenty of atheist/ agnostics who derive at least some of their personal moral code from religious texts.

I am an atheist but have started up a charity and been on the board of a few charities too.

I've been working in the non-profit world for more than 20 years, and I can tell you from my own experience that most of the secular non-profits I've dealt with were at least somewhat scam-ish. Some were scams outright.

The best, most efficient, and worthwhile charities I've dealt with were being run by independent churches or local church ecumenical organizations.

You do not need religious scripture to tell you to be a good person, you just get up and do it.

I agree you don't need to rely on religious scriptures to develop a genuinely moral personal code, or to "be a good person". The problem as I see it, in and outside of religion, is that a lot of people equate "good" with "whatevers good for me".

 

[Skwim]

The one thing that stands out about the present generation, my three kids included...and this culture. They take one helluva lot for granted.

And whose fault would that be?

 

[cablescavenger]

An atheist does not believe, therefore to assume they take moral guidance from scripture is perhaps stretching it. At least we are on the same page with not having to be religious to have a moral code. My own personal belief is that lack of religion provides you with the tools to build a stronger moral code, because it would be more influenced by accepted societal norms, instead of religious norms.

I am unsure of your claim about non religious charities being scams, as you offer no evidence.

I know religious people do a lot of good work, and believe all charity work is worthwhile, and I can also say that in my instance they were not scams, and if that was your inference, then I am sorry for you.

 

[URAVIP2ME]

2000-6000 years ago?
As we speak over 900,000,000 humans are starving or dying from complications of malnutrition...about one of every six on the planet. Ancient/primitive mankind spent most of his time searching for or raising the food he would consume to sustain his life. Some women ate their own children during especially hard times...Josephus the Jewish historian documented such cases. They saw the bones of many each day as they moved from place to place. Bands of savages roamed raping, pillaging and taking what others had worked for.
The whole scheme of religion was devised by those with power and wealth in order to maintain some similance of control. Think about it for a moment. Paper wasn't even invented till about 500 A.D. and in Asia when it was. Only the very elite and powerful had any access to papyrus and that fact alone determined what was recorded and why.
P.T. Barnum said, "There's A Sucker Born Every Minute" Religion proves he was right.

How do you know paper [papyrus] did not exist before the Flood ?
Anything perishable would have been dissolved by the flood waters.

According to Romans [15v4] the Bible [instructions coming from God] was written for our learning [education] that through the comfort of the Scriptures we might have hope. -2nd Timothy 3vs16,17.

The 'comforting hope' of seeing the end times of all badness on earth before Jesus ushers in global Peace on Earth toward men of goodwill.

Please notice that Jesus never said the food shortages or famine was coming from God [Act of God], but that the bad global situation of Matthew 24 and Luke 21 were part of a composite 'sign' of the bad news on earth, or 'woe' on earth [Rev 12vs9,12] that would exist before the start of Jesus messianic [1000-year] reign over earth.

In other words, Jesus forewarned us so we could be forearmed and keep spiritually awake or on the watch because Jesus will involve himself into mankind's affairs by surprise.

-Mark 13vs 32-37; 1st Thess 5vs2,3.