Is The Bible fiction?

Is the Bible just another fictitious story book that was made up by humans? Why or why not?

You’ve already been given some objective evidence that answers that question, I think.

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Is the Bible just another fictitious story book that was made up by humans? Why or why not
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Thanks. He asks a good question and is partly right, but I think you might want to look elsewhere for a more scholarly critique.

This man, like the one about the odd Bible verses, doesn’t seem to be addressing even Biblical themes in all of them (and one of them, the one about Jesus “ultimate sacrifice,” addresses a sermon trope, not something found in the Bible).

Denis Lamoureux’ Coursera on Evolution and Faith does a great job of recognizing that the Bible does use myth, though–and Noah is one of them. It’s an ANE mode of communication–God used themes that were myths, with ANE motifs (a single male founder, etc). Denis Lamoureux, Instructor | Coursera

so, this man asks some good questions, but doesn’t really reason with knowing the nuances, or even the Bible–so he comes to some of the wrong conclusions. Myth is there, but doesn’t mean that it’s valueless. @Dol Dr Lamoureux and @Vinnie can help a lot. Pete Enns ( You searched for myth - Pete Enns) and Kenton Sparks (God’s Word in Human Words) do a more detailed analysis. Rachel Held Evans’ “Inspired” is a good illustration, too.

Finally, C S Lewis rejected the Bible because it was typical of myth, but then accepted it, as he found elements of “true” myth. I think that his description of myth was “a story that once you’ve heard it, you realize you’ve always known.” “Surprised by Joy” explains some of his thoughts there, though it’s mostly autobiographical.

Good questions!

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Of course it is, apart from possibly in one regard, Incarnation.

The OT is pure memetic evolution of the highest order with regard to the character of God, aligning with natural human morality which has always been there. For some reason it took thousands of years for God to catch up with our idealized selves. Idealization that goes back to the earliest records of civilization.

As for the fiction of the Bible, where is the non-fiction? Attested by history? Science? For the 165 BCE ‘Book of Daniel’ for example?

We yearn so much for the one possibility, we make the myths, the fiction, support it. On the road to Emmaus.

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This is very well put. It’s only by realizing what is not true (and communicates another meaning in context) that we can appreciate what is.

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Dear me Randy! You are young and smart, please tell me I’m wrong! I.e. not about your age and intellect, but in outlining the situation as I have. Please critique! Kick the tyres.

The Bible is a collection of texts from diverse genres with multiple authors (many of whom were not composing something original, rather they were recording authoritative oral texts that already existed) compiled over hundreds of years in multiple languages and in diverse cultural contexts. To write with the premise that it is “a book” that can be lumped under a single modern Western category (“fiction”) is profoundly ignorant.

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So far so good.

Hmmm. For a start, authoritative in what way? With provenance? Like the Counsels of Wisdom? And oral texts are actual texts written to be read out loud, no? So what we have are the late, C6th-2nd BCE final edits of the confluence of texts and oral traditions, going back to 1500 years to Akkad and beyond, way beyond.

An acquaintance wrote elsewhere

Some of the oral history of Australian Aboriginals is thought to go back 37,000 years; the creation myth of Budj Bim the volcano god whose teeth became lava that spat from his teeth and flowed to the sea. Geologists say the the last time that volcano erupted was 37,000 years ago. And Aboriginal stories of sea levels rising and islands disappearing correlate with known sea level rises 7-10,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age.

With no distractions from television and the internet oral history may be impressively durable.

The Burckle Crater formation, if accurately dated, that inspired ANE flood narratives was only a thousand years before them.

And when I assented to the OP proposition, it was to fiction in the broadest sense, as stuff we make up, like commercial law. Not to belittle the texts.

Authoritative in the eyes of their community. My point is that the authority did not come from the “author” (transcriber/recorder) in the eyes of the community because our modern concepts of authorship don’t apply to transmitted oral texts.

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Vague memories of Varanus priscus and Procoptodon likely go back even further.

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One difference between fundamentalists and other Christians in my opinion relates to the type of Goddess they worship. Mainline Christians worship a Platonic god, as implied by Klax while fundamentalists worship an anthropomorphic god. Platonism was roughly contemporary with the ideas related to Yahweh now being a universalist god with a universalist plan of salvation.

Many texts in the O.T. make clear that Yahweh was perceived as but one of many gods, perhaps one of 70 and they also make clear that some of these other gods could kick Yahweh’s ahem, presence out of their territories and the Hebrews along with him.

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