Religion
In reply to the discussion: Should the Catholic Church Acknowledge the Destruction of Classical Pagan Culture? [View all]Humanist_Activist
(7,670 posts)ritual practices, etc. of several different tribes of Canaanites who were to be known as Israelites. Written between approximately 600 B.C. to about 120 A.D. or so, including the New Testament and the various Apocrypha and non-canon stories. If there is a larger narrative of the Bible, it would be a basic chronicling of the Israelites' religious beliefs from polytheism, through henotheism to monotheism. This narrative relates to the war god Yahweh, and how he is to be exalted above all other gods, to be worshiped alone by his chosen people.
That's the old testament. The new testament revolves around the figure of Jesus the Christ, the messiah of Yahweh, who is to savior of the world. The Gospels, depending on the time period we believe they were written in, are classic examples of myth and legend making, in the earliest, chronologically, the miracles are scarce, the elaborations on the stories hardly there. In the later ones, the stories are fleshed out, taking on forms more closely related to novels rather than histories, biographies, or journals, the miracles are numerous and extravagant, the resurrection story is more elaborate. Of course, being from independent authors with no access to source material, inconsistencies arise.
But this is a just a brief description of both the new and old testaments. If there is a message, its to worship Yahweh, and no other gods. Technically, even that isn't consistent(worship of Asherah was sanctioned for a time, being consort to Yahweh), but its the closest thing to consistency you are going to get.
Am I saying there is nothing factual in the Bible, no of course not, many of the places, people, and events may actually be portrayed with some accuracy, but that is no more impressive than the fact that Troy actually existed. These are people writing narratives, and you write what you know, usually the places around you, both near and far.
I will say there are themes in the Bible that are disturbing, for example, the moral of the story of Abraham and Isaac is rather appalling, Exodus chronicles that Yahweh has little problem with killing innocents to get what he wants, Jesus introduced us to eternal hellfire, Genesis has original sin. All of these are horrible ideas and beliefs. Then you have the poetry of Psalms, quite a bit of which can be beautiful, and other ideas, such as forgiveness, charity, etc. that are quite good. Hence the lack of consistency.
ON EDIT: There is one thing to make clear, the various books of the Bible are probably best taken separately, rather than part of a larger narrative, the original authors did NOT compose a Bible, they composed books within the Bible. It was, itself, cobbled together later by committee.