If God, Jesus, the devil, angels, and demons were all real, we still couldn’t rely on the Christian Bible as gospal (pun intended) — it was written by humans, specifically men, who could have misunderstood or invented things. Think of it like the Snyderverse in Man of Steel: Superman is portrayed as a brooding, violent character — but that’s not his true nature. In Batman v Superman, Batman is straight-up killing people — also not his normal characterization.

So even if much of the Bible reflects real events or real beings, parts of it could still be distorted, exaggerated, or entirely made up by the people who wrote it down.

  • agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works
    83·
    23 hours ago

    The Bible, and the Quran, and the Vedas, and every other religious text are human attempts to describe God. None of them are going to get it quite right in every detail, but you can learn a lot by cross referencing them to see what they agree on.

    • Flyswat@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      41·
      20 hours ago

      They contradict each other on many aspects. So either only is from God or none of them are.

      Obviously we cannot consider texts that were modified and are no longer like the originals (which we need to have for comparison) since we know parts of the text is not from God. Not knowing which part has been altered makes things worse.

      Preservation is a requirement prior to even considering what the text says.

      • agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works
        42·
        18 hours ago

        They contradict each other on many aspects.

        Yes, which is why I said to compare them to see where they don’t contradict each other.

        So either only is from God or none of them are.

        Never said any of them were from God. They’re all from humans attempting to describe God.

        • LillyPip@lemmy.caEnglish
          2·
          8 hours ago

          This doesn’t tell you anything if they were all derived from earlier stories – which, it turns out, is actually the case. We have the earlier stories as proof, in many cases.

          • agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works
            11·
            7 hours ago

            There are centuries of religious thought by mystics developing upon the texts inspired in part by those stories. The parts based on common ancient legends comprise a relatively small part of religious texts.

            And still, if anything that’s supportive evidence. The ancient legends that pop up again and again, that survive centuries of canonical revision, probably reflect deep and spiritually apparent features of reality.