BIBLE - THE BIGGEST SCAM INTRODUCED IN HUMANITY

Q ho wrote the Bible ?

The story of God was written by men. But who is the most influential author of the book of all time? The answers are surprising - and will change the way you see the Scriptures.

Super interesting magazine, Issue 259 - DEC / 2008 - Text: Francisco José Botelho

E m somewhere in the Middle East, around the 10th century BC, a person decided to write a book. He picked up a quill, ink and sheets of papyrus (an imported plant of Egypt) and began to tell a magical story, unlike anything that had ever been written.

It was so strong, but so strong, that became an obsession. During 1000 the following years, other people continue rewriting, rasurando and compiling that text, which was to become the biggest best seller of all time - the Bible. She presented a theory for the emergence of man, brought the fundamentals of Judaism and Christianity influenced the emergence of Islam, changed the history of art - without the Bible, There would be no frescoes by Michelangelo or Leonardo da Vinci frames - and left us the basics of modern life, such as human rights and free will. But who wrote, after all, the most important book that mankind has ever seen? Who they were and what they thought these people? How they created the plot, and who dictated the voice and style of God? What's in the Bible It should be taken at face value , which today causes armed conflict? The traditional answer you already know: according to the Judeo-Christian tradition, the author of the Bible is the Almighty himself. End of story. But the truth is a little more complex than that.

The Own Church admits the divine revelation only came to us through human hands. The word of the Lord is holy, but it was written by mere mortals. As no remaining traces or concrete evidence of most of them, the key to finding them is in their own Bible . But it is not a simple book: Imagine the scriptures as an entire library, which stores texts assembled by time, by history and by faith. Incidentally, the term " Bible ", we use the singular, plural comes from the Greek ta biblia ta hagia- "holy books". Religious tradition has always maintained that each Bible book was written by a clearly identifiable author. The first five books of the Old Testament (which in Judaism is called the Torah and Catholicism Pentateuch ) would have been written by the prophet Moses around 1200 BC the Psalms would work King David, the author of Judges It would be the prophet Samuel, and so on. Today most scholars believe that the holy books were a collective work. There's a good explanation for it.

The stories of the BibleDerive from legends that arose in the call Land of Canaan, which today corresponds to Lebanon, Palestine, Israel and parts of Jordan, Egypt and Syria. For centuries it was believed that Canaan had been dominated by the Hebrews. But recent discoveries of archeology reveal that most of the time, Canaan was not a state but a land without borders inhabited by different peoples - the Jews were only one of many tribes who were there. Therefore, their culture and their writings were heavily influenced by neighbors as the Canaanites,

The s roots of the biblical tree back to the Sumerians, ancient inhabitants of present - day Iraq, which in the 3rd millennium BC wrote the Epic of Gilgamesh . This story starring Gilgamesh mentions a flood that devastates the world (and why some people are saved by building a boat). Noticed similarities with the Bibleand his writings on the flood, Noah's ark, the fact that Christ is human and divine at the same time? It is no coincidence. "The Bible was an open book, with the influence of many cultures," says the expert on ancient history Anderson Zalewsky Vargas, UFRGS.

It was between the ages 10:09 BC the Hebrew writers started putting this multicultural soup on paper. This happened after the reign of David, which would have unified the Hebrew tribes in a small and fragile kingdom around the year 1000 BC The first version of the Scriptures was written at the time and corresponds to most of what today are the Genesis and Exodus . In these books, the main theme is a passionate relationship (and sometimes conflicting) between God and men. But, early in the BeebliaSince there was a disagreement about the role of man and the Lord the whole story. That's because the main character, God, is handled by two different names.

In some places it is called by its name, Yahweh - translated into Portuguese as Yahweh Jehovah. It is an informal treatment, as if the author was close to God. Elsewhere, the Almighty is called Elohim, a respectful and distant title (which can be translated simply as "God"). How do you explain that? For fundamentalists, no conversation, Moses wrote all alone and used two names simply because they wanted to. Only an excerpt of the text narrates the death of Moses himself. This indicates that it is not the sole author.

It is believed that the passages that speak of Yahweh are the oldest, written in a time when religion was less formal. They contain a revealing passage: before the world was, "Yahweh not shed rain upon the earth, and neither was the man to till the soil," it indicates that the first version of the Bible, the man was not just a creation of God - it plays an active and vital role in the whole story. "In this report, the man is co-creator of the world," says theologian Humberto Gonçalves, the Ecumenical Center for Biblical Studies,

By the name you use to refer to God (Yahweh), the author of these passages has been dubbed Yahwist. But the other author, who lived around 850 BC, is nicknamed Elohist. More serious and religious, he wrote quite a different story. Unlike the God-Yahweh, who made the world in a single day, the God-Elohim took 6 (and rested on the 7th). In this story, the creation is a unique act of God, and man appears only on the 6th day, along with the animals.

Some time later, the two reports were mixed by anonymous editors - and the narrative of the Elohist, more behaved, ended at the beginning of the scriptures. Starting with that incredibly simple and powerful phrase, notorious even among those who have never read the Bible , "And in the beginning, God created heaven and earth ..."

In 589 BC, Jerusalem was razed by the Babylonians, and much of the population was captured and taken to the current Iraq. Decades later, the Jews were released by Cyrus master of the Persian Empire - a conqueror "clarified" that had religious tolerance. Gradually, the Jews returned to Canaan - but with his faith transformed. Now the Jewish priests rejected polytheism and said that Yahweh was the only and absolute God of the Universe.

"Monotheism may have come from contact with the Persians. - their religion, masdeísmo, preached the existence of a good God, Ahura Mazda, in constant combat with an evil God, Ahriman This notion is reflected even in the Christian idea of ​​a battle between God and the Devil, "says Zalewsky, UFRGS.

The final version of the Pentateuch appeared around 389 BC At that time, a religious called Ezra led a group of priests who have radically changed Judaism - starting with their scriptures. they edited the previous books and wrote most of the books Deuteronomy, Numbers, Leviticus and also one of the highlights of the Bible : The 10 Commandments.

In addition to affirming monotheism without a doubt ( "Love God above all things" is the first commandment), the reform led by Ezra and imposed strict religious laws, such as the prohibition of marriage between Jews and non - Jews. Some of the laws found in Leviticus are similar to modern ethics of human rights: if a stranger comes to live with you, not the maltrates. She loves him like one of you. "

Other passages, however, describe a Lord belligerent, vindictive and bloodthirsty, ordering the extermination of entire cities - women and children included. "If religion preaches compassion because the sacred texts have so much hate?" Asks the American historian Karen Armstrong, author of a new and provocative study of the Bible. Experts say the violence of the Old TestamentIt is the result of centuries of war with the Assyrians and the Babylonians. The authors of the holy book were influenced by this atmosphere of hate, and then came the stories in which God shows quite violent and even cruel. The writers of the Bible were venting their anguish.

P or around the year 200 BC, the canon (set of sacred books) Hebrew was already finished and began to spread throughout the Middle East.

The first complete translation of the Old Testament is that time. It was made at the behest of King Ptolemy 2 in Alexandria, Egypt, the great cultural center of the time. According to a legend, this translation (from Hebrew into Greek) was performed by 72 Jewish scholars. So it is known as the Septuagint . Besides the Greek translation, also emerged versions of The ntigo Testament in Aramaic language - it was a kind of lingua franca of the Middle East at that time.

Two centuries later, the Bible in Aramaic was pumping: She was the most widely read in Judea, in Samaria and Galilee (Provinces that make up the current Israeli and Palestinian territories). That's when a young Jewish man, great character of this story, began to stand out. Like Socrates, Buddha, and other thinkers who changed the world, Jesus of Nazareth left nothing in writing - the first texts on it were produced decades after his death.

And Christianity was born persecuted: Because they refuse to worship the official gods, Christians were considered subversive by the Roman Empire, which ruled much of the Middle East since the 1st century BC It was in this climate of fear that Christians began to put on paper the stories of Jesus, which circulated in Aramaic and also in Koine - a Greek dialect spoken by the poorest. "Christians wanted to understand its origins and discuss their identity problems," says theologian Paulo Nogueira, the Methodist University of São Paulo. To do this, they created a new literary genre: the evengelho. This term, which comes from the GreekEvangelion ( "good"), is a kind of religious narrative telling the miracles, the teachings and the Messiah's life.

Most of the written gospels centuries 1 and 2 disappeared. At that time a "book" was a jumble of loose papyrus, rolled up in the form of parchment and can be easily misplaced and lost. But some gospels were copied and recopied by hand, members of the Church. Until around the 4th century, took the codex format - a set of leather bound sheets, ancestor of the modern book. The problem is that, at this stage of the game, generations of copyists had already introduced changes to the original texts - either through carelessness, whether on purpose. "Many mistakes were made on copies, mistakes sometimes changed the meaning of the texts. In certain cases, such errors have also been deliberate, according to the theology of the clerk," said the priest and theologian Luigi Schiavo, the Catholic University of Goiás . Want to see an example?

You know that famous scene where Jesus saves an adulterous about to be stoned? According to experts, this passage was inserted into the Gospel of John by some scribe, around the 3rd century This is because, at the time, Christianity was cutting its umbilical cord with Judaism. And stoning adulteresses is one of the laws that the priests - Jewish writers had put in the Pentateuch. The introduction of the scene in which Jesus saved the adulteress goes the idea that the teachings of Christ had overcome the Torah - and therefore Christians need no longer comply to the letter all the Jewish teachings.

Judging by the last book of the Bible Christian the Revelation (which describes the end of the world), the fear of having his "edited" narrative was common among the authors of the New Testament. In verse 18 reads - is a terrible threat: "If anyone makes additions to the pages of this book, God will punish you with the plagues described here." This threat reflects well the mood of the early centuries of Christianity: A true theological turmoil, with lots of sects defending different ideas about God and the Messiah. The sect of Docetists, for example, believed that Jesus did not have a physical body. It would be a spirit, and his crucifixion and death would not pass - literally - of optical illusion. Already the Ebionites believed that Jesus was not born Son of God, but had been adopted, as an adult, the Lord. The first attempt to organize the chaos of Scripture occurred around 142 - and the charge was not a cleric, but a wealthy merchant ships named Marcion.

The Bible according to Marcion

E le was born in present - day Turkey, went to Rome, he converted to Christianity, became an influential theologian and decided to set up its own selection of sacred texts. The Bible Marcion's was very different from what we know today. That's because he sympathized with Christian sect now vanished, Gnosticism. To the Gnostics, the God of the Old TestamentIt was not the same as sent Jesus - in fact, the two deities would be mortal enemies. The Hebrew God was monstrous and bloodthirsty, and just controlled the material world. But the spiritual universe was dominated by a good God, the father of Jesus. The Bible edited by Marcion only contained the Gospel of John, 11 letters of Paul and any page Old Testament. If Marcion's ideas had triumphed, now the stories of Adam and Eve in Paradise, Noah's ark and the crossing of the Red Sea would not be part of Western culture. But around 170, Gnosticism was declared prohibited by the ecclesiastical authorities, and the first editor of Bible Christian eventually excommunicated.

Rome, hitherto worst enemy of Christians, was surrendering to the new faith. In 313, Constantine the Roman emperor allied to the Church. He intended to use the growing strength of the new religion to strengthen their empire. For this, however, I needed a united and strong faith. Constantine's pressure led the most influential Christian bishops to attend the Council of Nicaea in 325 to put order in the house of God. Here the canon of Christianity arose - the official list of books that according to the Church, really were inspired by God.

"The choice was also political. One group said its power and authority over others," says Luigi priest. This group was the apostolic Christians, who gained power by allying the Roman Empire. The apostolic were, so to speak, "ruling party." And so defined what would come, or be eliminated, the Scriptures.

And les chose evengelhos of Mark, Matthew, Luke and John to represent the official biography of Christ, while the inventions of Docetists the Ebionites and other sects were excluded, and their authors declared heretics. The texts excluded from the canon gained the name "Apocrypha" - a word that comes from the Greek apocrypha, "Which was concealed." Most apocryphal lost - after all the scribes of the church were not interested in recopy them for posterity. But with the emergence of archeology in the 19th century, pieces of these texts were found in the sands of the Middle East. This is the case of a controversial text found in 1886 in Egypt. It is signed by a certain "Maria" that many believe to be the Magdalene, a disciple of Jesus, present in various parts of the New Testament. The gospel attributed to it is well feminist: Magdalene is described as a figure as important as Peter and the other apostles. In the early days of Christianity, women were accepted into the clergy - and were even considered able to make prophecies. It was only in the 3rd century that the priesthood turned male monopoly, which would explain the censorship of the apostle and his testimony. In fact, it seems that Magdalene was not a prostitute - an idea that would have arisen by an error in the interpretation of the holy book. In the year 591,

In the evolution of the Bible, they have appeared several macho trexos - and suspects. This is the case of a passage attributed to the apostle Paul: "Let the woman learn (...) with all subjection not allow the woman to teach or to have authority over a man (...) because Adam was formed first. then Eve. " It is likely that Paul never written these words - because, at the time in which he lived, not preached Christianity submission of women. It is believed that this part has been added by some scribe around the 2nd century.

After the conversion of the emperor Constantine the axis of Christianity has shifted from the Middle East to Rome. But, to complete the Romanization of faith, missing a step: translate the word of God into Latin. The mission fell to the theologian Eusebius Hyeronimus, which would later be canonized with the name of St. Jerome. Under Pope Damasus orders, he traveled to Jerusalem in 406 to learn Hebrew and translating the Old and New Testament. It was not easy: the work lasted 17 years.

Then came the Vulgate , the Bible Latin, which is still the official text of the Catholic Church. That is their own Bible that everyone knows. "The Vulgate was the foundation of the Church in the West." Explains Luigi priest. She is so influential, but so influential that even his translation errors have become classics. When translating a passage from Exodus describing the prophet's face Moses, St. Jerome wrote in Latin: cornuta this facies yours,ie "His face had horns." This strange detail was taken seriously by artists like Michelangelo - his famous sculpture depicting Moses, today exposed in the Vatican, is decorated with two beautiful corninhos. All because Jerome stumbled into Hebrew word karan , which can mean either "horn" and "ray of light". The correct translation is in the Septuagint : the prophet had the illuminated face, not horned. Although such errors, the Vulgate absolute reign over the Middle Ages - for centuries, no other translations.

The only way to spread the holy book was copy it by hand, a task performed by monks copyists. They rarely leave the monastery and spent their lives copying and cataloging ancient manuscripts. But, sometimes also they were getting into the play the role of authors.

The post falling the Roman Empire, much of the ancient Greek and Roman literature was lost - it was thanks to the work of copyist monks books as the Iliad and the Odyssey came to us. But some of them were half rogues: interpolate used texts in Scripture to please kings and emperors. In the 15th century for example, Spanish monks exchanged the term "Babylonian" by "infidels" in the text of the Old Testament - a trick to attack the Muslims, who fought with the Spanish possession of the Iberian peninsula.

series scripture

T udo that changed after the invention of printing in 1455. Now nobody depended on scribes to multiply copies of the Bible . So the major focus of changes in the sacred text has become another: translations.

In 1522, Pastor Martin Luther used the press to publicize mass his translation of the Bible , which had made direct from Hebrew and Greek into German. It was the first time that the sacred text was poured into a modern language - and the new version has brought many changes that have caused the Church. Soon after a Briton, William Tyndale, dared to translate the Bible into English. In the New Testament , he translated the word ecclesiaBy "congregation" instead of "church," the preferred term by the Catholic translations. The change in this word was a challenge to the power of the popes: as a Protestant, Tyndale had his differences with the Church. Result? He was burned as a heretic in 1536. But today his work is a reference for the English versions of the holy book.

The Bible has come to our language in 1753 - when it was published his first complete translation into Portuguese, made by the Protestant King James. Today, the official translation is considered by the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil (CNBB) and launched in 2001. It is considered simpler and more colloquial than previous translations. Since then, the BibleHe won the world and languages. It has been poured into more than 300 languages and remains one of the most influential books in the world: every year are published 11 million copies of the full text and 14 million only in the New Testament .

After so many centuries of versions and contraversões, there is no consensus on the right way to translate it. Some seek closer translations of the meaning and the original time - such as the passages translated from the Hebrew by David Rosenberg linguist's work The Book of J, 1990. Others believe that the Bible must be modernized to attract readers. The linguist Eugene Nida, who poured the Biblein the 1960s, he went so far as to translate the word 'sesterces "the ancient Roman coin, for" dollars ". In 2008, two equally bold versions are shaking the Scriptures: the Green Bible ( "Green Bible", yet no version in Portuguese), which highlights thousand passages related to ecology - as the moment that Job talks about the animals - and the Illuminated Bible ( "Bible Illuminated" in English) with ultramodern design and photos of celebrities like Nelson Mandela and Angelina Jolie.

The Bible turns, but one thing does not change: each person or group of people, plays in a different way - sometimes with wrong purposes. In the 21st century, fundamentalist pastors try to ban the theory of evolution teaching in US schools, and the Church itself accepts Darwin's theories from the 1950s leaders like Pastor Jerry Falwell advocate the return of slavery and stoning of adulterers, and the Middle East extremist rabbis use excerpts from the Torahto justify the occupation of Arab lands. Because? Why is the Bible , say the radicals. That's not it. Today, the main scholars argue that the Bible should not be read as a manual of rules literal - but as the story of the journey, tortuous and full of mishaps, the human being in search of God. Because this is, after all, the true meaning of this tree watered stories there 3000 years by hundreds of hands, heads and hearts of men: the belief in a transcendent sense of existence.

FIELD OF END.

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Our opinion

Looking historically, the Bible is a collection of writings (which are neither chronologically) the group was able to impose his vision of God, an elite who believed in one God and imposed their religion for the rest of the population.

How this selection process can be considered divine and definitive ? How could a conclave made up of men decide infallibly that some writings belonged to the Bible and others not, if there is no coherence between the Gospels ??? The more you study the Gospels, clearer become the contradictions between them.

Regarding the definition of the personality of Jesus in Luke's Gospel says that "Jesus is a savior humble as a lamb"; in Matthew's Gospel says that Jesus is a sovereign majestic and powerful who came "to bring a sword and not peace."

Regarding the origin and birth, Matthew says that Jesus was an aristocrat, if not a legitimate king and law, descendant of David, through Solomon. Already in Mark comes to the poor carpenter legend. In Luke although Jesus was a descendant of David's house, it was of a lower class.

Just read the Gospels and make a comparison, do not agree even to the date of Jesus' crucifixion.

We take as our own, the words of Henry Lincoln : What gospel would CORRECT? What would be WRONG? Or BOTH are wrong ?

"The Book of Revelation," must have been placed last intentionally, serving as a threat to no one decided to add anything to the Bible. With so many hands moving in the texts, it is no wonder that even the sacred books of the library are not sorted chronologically.

"One thing is the people who were writing would like to see, another thing is what existed in reality."

We live forever under a partial communication, incomplete communication; non-training information; Non-transformative; BUT conformative !!! This is the Mass Culture!

The Bible is a book as old and as data the confidence of all is not it? It is considered by society in many countries and thousands of people in the world as a holy book. Even our calendar is calculated from the death of Christ, however, how many physical evidence we have it all? How true and accessible documents we have around the world about what is said in the Bible?

Well, in this case, the answers are difficult to answer. Now, just one more question. How often do you actually read the Bible? Have you noticed how the temperament of God throughout the Old Testament? Well, in this case we have to check in what we think and expect from God, why in the case of the Bible, there portrayed God is a jealous God, spiteful, bigoted and extremanete authoritarian. It is a being who does not forgive, do you think the woman is a waste, like that of animal sacrifices to their whim,

Analyzing all this ideology, we can conclude that the Bible says nothing about the fact spirituality. Now think, as the people of this God could spread love and have only good feelings if its creator is full of revenge, authoritarianism, jealousy, etc?

The Bible says: "... And God said, Let us make man in our image and likeness ...". That means we have the same feelings he instinctively. And there is no excuse, because Jesus said he had come to destroy the God's laws but to fulfill them.

Now reflect, who is most like you? The biblical God with vengeance, possessive jealous, authoritarian or you realemte believes in love, solidarity, empathy and like all beings?

If you think it is more for the 2nd option, you actually find yourself here, because we believe only in the truth and that all are equal, with defects and different qualities, but each with their different personal skills, but no one or nothing is better than anyone and we all have our Divine portion Us!

Many argue that the cruel things that the "saints" were in God's name that relates the Old Testament was passed, and the laws of the Old Testament are not for today.

I ask then: Why the Tithe Act which is the Old Testament churches claim to be followed today?

Convenience and hypocrisy I answer!

Now judge for yourselves!