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Old Testament 40 authors and 66 books over 1,500 years
New Testament 15 authors, 27 books in a 50 year period
Both old and new testaments have 63,700 cross references, 1,817 prophecies which have been casted, of which most have come true to the letter, without zero errors.
There have been people in touch with 'the Other Side' all throughout history,, and claiming to know the future - why should organised religion be different? Prophecy is hardly a new phenomenon.
The OT is reminiscent of screenplays, though I wouldn't go that far. The NT is fairly dry and non-dramatic in comparison. Whatever the case, the opinions of the two 'unyoked' parts put together are of every shade of opinion and belief.
???
The New Testament is very dramatic. The Old Testament--have you read Numbers?
I see the Bible notably the Old Testament as a struggle by the Jews to get out from under the thumb initially of the Canaanites and then later of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, et. al by constructing these fabulous tales of being Yahweh's chosen people above all the other races they were rubbing shoulders with circa 3000-0 BC. Much of it was Jewish sages attempting to establish an identity for their people by telling their tribesmen about how special they were, stories of how many people they had conquered (all fiction of course), how in spite of their infidelity their god always returned to save them and to make them victorious over their enemies, etc. etc.
If you want one word to describe the Bible it would be "propaganda".
Old Testament 40 authors and 66 books over 1,500 years
New Testament 15 authors, 27 books in a 50 year period
Both old and new testaments have 63,700 cross references, 1,817 prophecies which have been casted, of which most have come true to the letter, without zero errors.
Zero errors? So the Jews now rule the world under one religion, and they were never in Babylon?
Your cross references and 'prophecies' are because many of the later works are based on the earlier ones, so Jesus fulfilling OT 'prophecy' is evidence for a fictional character being invented out of the OT.
The Bible is a lot of things, but it's not a screenplay.
Written by dozens of authors over thousands of years, so no one sitting in a room planning it out in advance.
Written before the invention of photography, much less motion pictures.
Full of mutually exclusive contradictions.
It's more like a collection of god fan-fiction through the ages.
Not centrally planned? ..What about the Council of Nicaea? Read the apocryphal books and compare the rhetorical & literary styles to the highly edited &consolidated works included in The Bible.
Not centrally planned? ..What about the Council of Nicaea? Read the apocryphal books and compare the rhetorical & literary styles to the highly edited &consolidated works included in The Bible.
Your other three statements are correct.
The Council of Nicaea was late. Even before the basic form of the gospel we now have was created in the second half of the second century AD, many of the various texts would have been created across the Roman empire with no central planning, and even as Rome started to become the major power in Christianity, there were still other centers trying to influence doctrine, such as Caesarea and Alexandria.
At the risk of being labelled the anti-christ, I want to explore another related topic. Although if I was the anti-christ, I would probably not limit myself to a fairly obscure forum website, (everyone uses social media these days) anyway...
It seems to me that the Bible could be an ancient screenplay with all the associated dialogues, scene changes, plots and twists in it. I can imagine a bunch of screenwriters all sitting around in a room and making up the story outline, drawing up the storyboard, and then working out the characters and their dialogues. If it is one, then it has certainly been a hot series.
Bearing in mind that the Bible (NT) was written long after the events which are described, what other explanation than the above could there be?
As most of the NT is letters (genuine and faked), no, but there is a theory that the Gospel according to Mark (or just the passion part) was a play. The gospels and Acts are allegorical, written in a style used to write fiction, with the gospels using the figure of Jesus as an authority figure to teach what the various sects believed. For this, they used both the Old Testament and classical literature like Homer, with Luke probably using Josephus as well.
I agree one could compare the gospels and Acts with a screen play, but I doubt there was a group of screen writers creating a story line. It was probably independent individuals amending earlier gospels to 'correct' what they saw as errors.
I agree one could compare the gospels and Acts with a screen play, but I doubt there was a group of screen writers creating a story line. It was probably independent individuals amending earlier gospels to 'correct' what they saw as errors.
.... or, if not to make corrections, perhaps to make improvements or enhancements to the evolving story line?? But still a story, nonetheless.
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