DOES GOD LOOK LIKE YOU AND ME?

Does God look like you and me? (PART ONE of a two part article.)
CLICK ON THIS !

That is the question I am applying to my stern review of one of the most noticed and often unread books in our global community, and that book is The Bible.

First of all, let me clear up an important point:  I do have a personal bias. So keep this in mind as you read the article.  I am a guy who regularly goes to church, and I do actually read this bible, almost everyday, in Spanish and English. So each day I usually get through one complete page.

Let us translate the word "BIBLE."

So here is one version of what the word "bible" actually means:

Middle English, from Old French, from Late Latin biblia, from Greek, pl. of biblion, book, diminutive of biblos, papyrus, book, from Bublos, Byblos.
And here is a bit more along the same line:
Bi·ble  (b
n.
1.
a. The sacred book of Christianity, a collection of ancient writings including the books of both the Old Testament and the New Testament.
b. The Hebrew Scriptures, the sacred book of Judaism.
c. A particular copy of a Bible: the old family Bible.
d. A book or collection of writings constituting the sacred text of a religion.
2. often bible A book considered authoritative in its field: the bible of French cooking.

The Bible I am reviewing for this article is the said same book containing the scripture of the Old Testament, and the New Testament. It is the book that is used by the Christian faith based communities of the world.

My friend Sal Smario did a study of how many different versions of Christian faith church systems there are in the USofA, and he came up with 44,000 different types of styles, church groups, systems, whatever the right word is for describing Anglican compared to Methodist compared to Greek Orthodox. etcetera.

Forty-four thousand! That's a lot of variation interpreting one book's message(s).

You have to go into the Bible to gain some understanding about the content of this book. There are statements from this book that are used by churchy people to build entire philosophies of how to live life, what is wrong, and what is right.

Here is an example:

"All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching and rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that we may be thoroughly equipped for every good work" (2 Timothy 3:16-17)

The Bible is often used as a history text book, and roundly criticized as being historically inaccurate.

Okay, fine.

A historical point-of-view about how we get our different versions of history:

The Greek historian Herodotus is a source that is often used by scholars. Herodotus wrote around 488 to 428 BC, and the earliest known copy of his work dates from 900AD, so that's a time span of 1300 years, and there are 8 extant copies of this work that date from 900 AD, none before.

Okay, the Roman guy, Livy, he wrote stuff down around 59 BC to 17 AD, and the earliest copies that exist today date from 900 AD, giving us a time-span of 900 years from when he wrote to when the first known copy was made of his work, and there are 20 known original copies of his work that date from 900 AD, and none from before 900AD.

Now, to the Bible.

The New Testament section of the Bible, was started 400 to 100 AD, and the earliest existing copy dates at 130 AD, and the oldest copy dates from 350 AD, with a time span between the events depicted and the actual first copies of 30 to 310 years. There are 5000 Greek copies, dating from 130 AD to 350 AD, 10,000 Latin copies, also dating from around the same time, and 3600 copies from the early Church Fathers, like Saint Isaac (one of the desert Fathers of Syria, dating around 400AD.)

What is the point of all these dates and such? We place a lot of credibility on the writings of certain people about the times of certain periods of history, even though the earliest copies of their work are separated from them by many, many years. And we base this credibility on the anecdotal evidence they supply.

The Bible gets knocked for being historically fantastical, stupid and dumb, filled with superstitious, old-school culturally dogmatic narrow-minded strictures that oppress women, harness men with chains of impossible virtue, and suppress and terrify people into anti-scientific outlooks that defy common sense.

Well, interestingly, from the Old Testament, there is a specific reference to the fact that the Earth is round, a sphere, and NOT flat. This statement is made in Isaiah, 40:22. This book was written sometime around the 7th to 6th century, BC.

Curious, isnt' it?
FOR MORE BIZARRE, MAYBE MOST CRAZY, CLICK THIS LINK!

Here is another one that I like, and you can read it for yourself: "God stretches the sky over empty space and hangs the earth on nothing." (Job 26:7)

To help you understand why the Bible is so hard to pin down as a true book of record, hang in here with me while we examine some "facts" about this book of Job, in the Old Testament.

Now, some scholars believe the book of Job was written before any other book of the Old Testament, before the Pentateuch. Many conservative Bible experts think it was written during the reign of King Solomon. A few scholars state that it may have been written by Moses, or that the patriarch Job himself may have written this account of his experiences. Some scholars claim it is dated to 2000–1800 BC. If the book Job was written by Moses, it is probable he did so during his stay in Midian. These theories have no solid evidence to support them. We can say for certain that the book Job was written by an unknown author, and the exact date of the book’s writing is a mystery. Some believe its unknown author put it in writing as late as the second century BC. Others insist it must have been written about 450 BC., long after the Jews returned from being captives in Babylonia. Many conservative scholars place the writing of the book at the time of King Solomon, about 950 BC. This bunch claim historical evidence favors this date, called the golden age of biblical Wisdom Literature. Ezekiel (who wrote around 600 BC) mentions Job in  Ezekiel 14:14. Some scholars claim the book Job is dated to 2000–1800 BC.

Whatever.

The point is that long before our wonderful science helped us to understand that our Earth was in space, in a vacuum, a direct statement about this fact was written down by an unknown author under the pen name of Job, and that this statement made it into this very odd and weird book known as The Bible.

So, this strange book, the Bible, was written over a 1600 year stretch, and has approximately 40 different authors.

Okay, now to the main point of my article, as a focus of my review of The Bible, and that is the question, "Does God look like you and me?"

“Above the expanse over their heads was what looked like a throne of sapphire, and high above on the throne was a figure like that of a man. I saw that from what appeared to be his waist up he looked like glowing metal, as if full of fire, and that from there down he looked like fire; and brilliant light surrounded him. Like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the radiance around him.” (Ezekiel 1:26-28.)

“His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, and out of his mouth came a sharp double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance.” (Revelation 1:14-16.)

In the Old Testament, in the book of Exodus 33-20, and 33-23, the following admonitions are made by the author of this book, who, by the way, is supposedly none other than Moses.  Okay, so this following text is God talking to Moses:

"But He (God) said, 'You cannot see My face; for no man shall see Me, and live.'”

^" Then I (God) will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen.”

So Moses did see God's back.

In conclusion, The Bible is one big long story of corruption, murder, betrayal and temptation, to say just a little. And that's just what God did, let alone the stuff that everyone else got up to. God even let's his own son get murdered. I know this last set of statements might pee-off some people. And I get the why part of this. The Bible is very, very interesting, and my tiny little poke at it will NOT harm the content that reaches people and makes them think anew about the direction their own lives are taking.

See you in Part Two of my review of The Bible.

FOR REAL CRAZY, CHECK OUT THIS LINK:

http://www.thegodconsciousnessproject.com