The Bible: Something’s Screwy Somewhere: Part Two

Multi-millions around the world accept the Bible as the literal word of God, and as such it cannot be in error. However, an examination of Biblical texts strongly suggests, to those with open minds, that error, or as I like to phrase things “something’s screwy somewhere”, abounds.

I know I probably shouldn’t pick on God and the Bible as often as I do, but, you know, it’s so damn easy it’s like taking candy from a baby. God sure leads with His chin. Anyway, if I haven’t been struck down by lightning by now, I probably won’t be, so here goes another round. As per usual, all references are from the King James Version (KJV) of the so-called “Word of God”.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

Biblical Sightseeing

WTF? It takes forty years for the Chosen People to get from N.E. Egypt to the Promised Land (Israel) – it only took the American pioneers six months to get to their Promised Land across the Great Plains and mountain ranges and deserts by covered wagon - something’s screwy somewhere unless the Israelites just stopped to smell the roses and take in the local sights and scenery. Then you figure the distances travelled by Captain Cook and crew, Magellan, Columbus, and all those other seafarers in the golden age of sail. They travelled vastly greater distances in vastly shorter time frames. The more you compare the Exodus trek with other treks, the more anomalous it appears.

Biblical Generation Gaps:

One of the most idiotic themes in the Bible is that the innocent suffer because their ancestors were guilty of some sin or other in the eyes of God, whether it’s on the grand scale of humanity condemned to hardship and suffering because of Adam and Eve’s giving in to temptation (Genesis 3), or the examples of the sons and daughters unto the third, fourth even tenth generation being persona non grata to the Almighty because of an iniquity preformed by dear old great, great, great grandpa or grandma (Exodus 20: 5; Exodus 34: 7; Numbers 14: 18; Deuteronomy 5: 9; Deuteronomy 23: 2-3). That our loving, forgiving, merciful, compassionate Almighty would act in such a manner is anomalous.

Biblical Aliens: The Extraterrestrial Jesus

Several times Jesus admits he is “not of this world”. Check out John 8:23 and 18:36.

Biblical End Times

According to Matthew 24:3-14 and Mark 13:4-13 the signs of the end times are to be along the lines of wars; rumours of war; conflicts between nations and kingdoms; famines; pestilences; earthquakes, false prophets; deadly family feuds; worldwide distribution of the gospels;

So what’s changed in over 2000 years? Why would this be interpreted on being now, not then? That interpretation is highly anomalous, yet it’s what a lot of Right Wing Christian Fundamentalists would have you believe.

Biblical Geography

Though Biblical geography is good in general – no glaring oops like describing massive ice caps and glaciers, that’s no big plus seeing as how the various Biblical authors lived in the areas described by the Bible. I could write a totally unbelievable tale of BEMs (Bug Eyed Monsters of the extraterrestrial kind) on the Moon and yet get the lunar geography spot-on. Not that Biblical geography doesn’t have it’s oops moments, like why no physical evidence or remains of Sodom and Gomorrah; where’s Noah’s Ark to be found that hasn’t already been explored high and low?  And if the weather be part of geography, then having a global spell of very persistent wet weather for forty days and nights (960 hours) is highly anomalous, so much so as to be impossible. It’s called Planet Earth, not Planet Ocean, because there’s not enough of the wet stuff to make it so. Parts of Biblical geography are anomalous.

Biblical Hot Air

The Bible is chock-a-block full of prophets and prophecies, right up through and including the end of the world as we know it (Armageddon). Amazingly, all this soothsaying failed to note and log anything about global warming, climate change, etc., rather major issues in our times. The Bible is big on prophecy; the proof of the prophecy pudding is lacking. That’s an anomaly.

Biblical Characters

There are no independent, verifiable documents, statues, pictograms, stele, inscriptions, grave sites, or any other historical or archaeological evidence that yields any additional credibility to the actual existence of various famous Biblical characters like Adam & Eve, Cain & Abel, Abraham, Joseph, Moses & Aaron, Noah, Solomon, David & Goliath, Jonah, Methuselah, Joshua, and a host of others. You just gotta take the Bible’s word for the reality of these individuals. It’s like the only reference to Homer & Plato, Aristotle & Socrates, Pythagoras, Euclid & Archimedes, was in an ancient Greek school primer for a beginners’ reader and that’s it. Would the very real existence of these half dozen ancients be given any real credibility given just a reference in a lone text? What makes the Bible a special case then? If Biblical characters are as really real and as really the VIPs they are made out to be, then it’s highly anomalous that there just is no other independent confirmation of that status.

A Biblical Piece of the Action

Both the Bible and the Koran are as two peas in the same monotheistic pod. They collectively have influenced billions upon billions of people – whole societies in fact. These texts therefore somewhat remind me of the “Star Trek: The Original Series” TV episode ‘A Piece of the Action’ (aired January 12 1968) where an entire alien society was in the manner of the Bible/Koran subservient to a ‘religious’ text – in this case a book about Chicago gangsters in the roaring 1920’s. That’s what the aliens patterned their culture after. I’m sure that episode was a deliberate dig at the influence our religious texts have on us. But I consider it anomalous that much of the world’s culture is centred on minor variations on and of a single religious text.

The Biblical Face of God

We’ve all seen images of God, from stained glass windows to Michelangelo to Hollywood. The anomaly is that it’s all make-believe. Unless I’ve missed something somewhere along the line, no where in the Bible is God’s physique noted; no physical description exists. He’s not described as white, somewhere between middle and old age, with a very long flowing grey-white beard and long flowing grey-white hair who looks entirely human. The popular image is that the image of God was created in Zeus’s image. Zeus was the model as Zeus’s image was widely known from statues, pottery, etc. For all you know, God could look extremely alien, or for that matter pass you on the street without you blinking an eye.

You Can’t Trust the Bible

We’re used to current events being set down in the here and now. Journalists, camera crews, microphones, tape recorders, etc. will give you today’s events on today’s evening TV news broadcasts. Reviews of recent events will be covered in your weekly magazines. But if I were to write a new biography of say Alexander the Great, you’d know that it could not be 100% spot-on since there’s no way to interview old Alex or those who knew him. Many a document, monument, inscription, etc. from that era would now be lost or destroyed. But when you read your Bible, do you think of the text as you would the evening news bulletin or weekly magazine news roundup, or, as you would my biography of Alex, someone who died way over 2000 years ago?  If the former, you’re sadly mistaken, for those who penned Biblical texts describing Biblical events can no more be trusted for 100% accuracy than my new biography of Alex, and for a similar reason. Words were put to paper long after the facts of the matter transpired. And as for Biblical quotations, well, no tape recorders existed back then, so take any pithy sayings with a very large grain of sodium chloride. Trusting in the Bible is an example of rather strange and anomalous human behaviour.

Our Father, Who Art in Heaven, Twiddling His Thumbs

 Presumably, at the close of the Old Testament, God has retired to His throne room and penthouse in Heaven, and that’s where He’s been couped up for way over 2000 years now. The question is, what does God do with His time up there in La-La-Land? Even if He eats and sleeps and goes to the bathroom and taken daily heavenly showers and trims His beard weekly, that still leaves a lot of hours for – well what’s the answer? Perhaps He stands at the Pearly Gates greeting new arrivals, or conducting Heavenly orientation sessions for new arrivals. Maybe He plays chess with Jesus or the archangels. Perhaps He conducts graduate classes in advanced Christian theology. Perhaps He ghost-writes articles for religious-themed magazines; watches those hellfire and brimstone televangelists on YouTube, or maybe once a year takes on the role of playing Santa Claus – no mortal could fill those shoes. Like Santa, God needs to keep a list and check it twice to find out who’s been naughty and who’s been nice to ensure that only those with the Right Religious Stuff enters through those Pearly Gates! It remains however that what God does with His spare time is an anomaly that has never been adequately explained.

Conclusions

This little exercise is barely scratching the surface that exposes that God’s infallible word, as recorded in the Bible, is anything but. It is riddled with fallacies, errors, enigmas, anomalies, and a potful of similar synonyms.