I guess I can tell you all what I have learned so far. The Bible as we have it today seems to have been written around the time of the Tyndale Bible c. 1522–1535. That has me confused, because I always thought the first non-Hebrew translation of the bible was the Vulgate of St. Jerome. That came out in 382 AD. I know when Christians debated their atheist and agnostic friends, Christians would often cite the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Dead Sea Scrolls were supposedly discovered between 1946 and 1956. The Israeli government has had sole custody of them since 1947, and they even fought a war over them. But in 2020 some of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and really probably all of them, are obvious forgeries. Though they look very authentic. You know I was watching on the History Channel once how governments have used religion to control its citizens for millennia. In ancient Rome they had fake statues that seemed to give milk like the goddess Artemis in her Diana of Ephesus statues. And birds that chirped when you submerged them in water to give you an answer, which was usually the answer the priest at that ancient temple wanted you to hear. Because he pulled a switch to make that happen when you weren't looking. I don't know about controlling people though. Some people, those that are evil I mean, need to be controlled. But there are other ways of doing that. Especially in modern times. Plus you know, if there is a God, he would just be the impersonal god of science. The god of Deism and the God of Spinoza, that Einstein believed in. (Of course Richard Dawkins says he thinks even that is nonsense. But he also says, how do you define God? Do you mean God is first law of thermodynamics or the law of gravity? Well, then there is a God because there is that.) Plus you know, in that 1988 sociology class I took they said Freud said there was always a functional equivalent for fundamental human needs like religion. He thought his theory of psychoanalysis could take the place of religion now. Some people back then thought communism could. And some Unitarians are even atheists. Did you know that? For some people stamp collection is their religion. For some it is the hippie movement and the law of love and peace. Or, I've heard of some people who in a fit of creativity jot down their own philosophy of life. Maybe just their ten rules. They call if the Law of Joy. And that becomes their religion.
How we know BIBLE IS 'OLD' Short answer: We don’t. We have much better reason to assume the text IS tampered with, or at the very least, that it may not be translated 100% correctly. We all know how changing one small thing can change the entire meaning of a text, and we all know that humans make mistakes. Long(er) answer: The first bible in printed form didn’t exist until 1454, and it wasn’t more commonly available until the 1500s. So, for 1500+ years, NO ONE in the general public even had access to scriptures; only religious officials were permitted to view and interpret them. Because of that, nearly every doctrine that is used today found its’ start somewhere in that 1500 year history that for the most part, was NOT to be questioned, often under penalty of death. It’s only in very recent years that we could dare question the translations or the motivations behind the translators and the religious officials who decided upon the “correct” interpretation. It’s only reasonable that we might need to take a closer look at such long held, possibly biased interpretations/translations. It’s only reasonable to assume when this information was so closely guarded from ANY criticism outside the clergy for centuries, that it might not be just. It’s unlikely that we’ve corrected for these all those centuries in the past few decades. The doctrines are all man-made. The decision between which books are canon and which are not was also determined by man, with questionable motives. There is nothing wrong with challenging the doctrines compiled by men who, for hundreds of years, could not be challenged. Only they were allowed access to the writings, and they only answered to themselves. https://www.quora.com/
Where to begin? Much of what you say you learned is inaccurate or misunderstood. The Tyndale Bible was the first English translation of the Bible. It was a big deal, because it provided a version which ordinary literate English speakers could understand. The first non-Hebrew translation of the Bible wasn't the Vulgate. It was the Septuagint--from Hebrew to Greek--under Ptolemy II in the third century B.C.E. It's called the "Translation of the Seventy because legend has it, it was the product of seventy Hebrew scholars working independently and they all supposedly came up with identical language. The Vulgate, the first Latin version, was largely the work of Saint Jerome. It had the limitations of being in Latin, which only the clergy and a few literati could understand, and for some errors in translation. For example, Jerome translated the passage where Moses came down from Mount Sinai beaming or emitting rays קָרַן that Moses was "horned". The image of a horny Moses was preserved in art, notably Michelangelo's famous statue of the prophet. You are correct that the Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered in the caves of Qumran in 1946-56, are the oldest surviving manuscripts of entire books of the Old Testament. Your claim that Israel fought a war over them is highly tenuous. It's true that custody of the documents was disputed between Israel and Jordan and the Palestinian authority, but the Six-Day War was primarily fought over other issues. And you're correct that there have been forgeries. The Museum of the Bible (Green Collection) reported in 2020 that all 16 of the fragments ti had purchased had been discovered to be forgeries. Dead Sea Scroll Fragments in Museum of the Bible Are Fake Exclusive: 'Dead Sea Scrolls' at the Museum of the Bible are all forgeries But most reputable scholars are convinced that most of them are authentic. I'd be cautious about watching the History Channel. It could rot your brain. It used to be good, but has lately yielded to sensationalism and commercialism. Speaking of trying to control people thru disinformation, that channel has become as credible as Fox News--or maybe less so. In 2015, it made Brian Dunning's list of The Top Ten Anti-Science Websites.Updated: Top 10 Worst Anti-Science Web Sites For more of its "Decline and Fall", see The Decline and Fall of the History Channel Is the history channel a credible source? - California Learning Resource Network https://screenrant.com/fakest-history-channel-reality-shows-real/ It seems to have been taken over by Ancient Aliens (or at least by shows trying to convince us they've played a major part in our history.) It's true that unscrupulous ancients used their "state of the art" technology to try to dupe people into believing in their deities. Ancient Discoveries - Machines of the Gods Fake news isn't a modern invention, and charlatans go back a long way. Richard Dawkins is entitled to his opinions. I tend to trust the ones he bases on his own expertise of evolutionary biology, but when he steps outside his field to comment on religion and the Bible, I find his knowledge often to be questionable, as do many scholars in the field of religious studies. Like other New Atheists, he is essentially a fundamentalist, preferring a literal interpretation of scripture and religious belief to more thoughtful versions so he can use them as straw persons to attack. For another view, see Eric Reitan (2008) God is Not a Delusion.
Well, if Freud said it it must be so, eh.? I still find some of Freud's theories insightful, although his reputation has suffered in recent decades. As you say, folks have been searching for secular functional equivalents to religion at least since the French Revolution and Robespierre's deist Cult of the Supreme Being, a which was actually a cult of the nation-state..As you say, people have looked for meaning for their lives in all sorts of strange places. Psychotherapist Viktor Frankl, contra to Freud, thought the quest for meaning was an even stronger human need than sex. (Man in Search of Himself ; The Quest for Meaning). But he recognized that some paths to meaning are blind alleys: wealth, power, status, sensual indulgence, etc. Metaphorically speaking, I think these are false gods, and whoring after them has unfortunate consequences. I don't think that whatever a person chooses to make into his or her private god or religion necessarily works for the general or even the private good. A stamp collection may prove cold comfort when life becomes difficult, and doesn't offer much by way of moral guidance. Yes, I know that some Unitarians are atheists. I met with some of them last week at a Unitarian gathering which also included Christians and Jews. I also take regular monthly fellowship with a group of atheists. Good people who have a moral code similar to mine. They call it humanism. If it works for them, and keeps them dedicated to the common good, as it seems to, I'm all for it!
Yes, the so-called "higher criticism"of the Bible (aka, the historical-critical method), which denies supernatural inspiration, made a case for the Bible being not the Word of God, but the words of men with different agendas seeking God, at different times and places. This goes for both the Old Testament and the New Testament. It is one of the major points of division separating fundamentalist Christians from liberal and progressive ones--another being Darwinian evolution. In societies where the vast majority of the populace was illiterate, most people heard their scripture back in the day from educated clerics. And in the Middle Ages, the Church thought it would be better to keep it that way. During the Reformation, Luther made sola scriptura (only scripture) his slogan, and Protestants to this day adhere to that, for better or for worse. I can't say I've noticed and improvement in their understanding of the Book, or their love for their fellow humans.
