Very few books can set off a firestorm of discussion and harsh argument. The Bible is one. I recently have been sorting out my feelings about the book.
The Bible, contrary to those who take it literally, is not history, nor is it science. It was an effort by the people of the ancient Mid East to figure our their relation to the Creator and to one another. It is not literally true and that was never the intent. Those people understood something that we have forgotten. Stories. mythology, is written in poetic language. Poetry is how we talk about subjects that are almost impossible to talk about. Through poetic language, we can approach the truth, hint at it, create images, not diagrams.
The Bible is full of wonderful stories. Are they about people who really lived? Did those things really happen? Who knows? Probably some did and some did not and likely none of them are the step by step, historically accurate, but that is not the point. They are pictures of human beings struggling to understand their World and, as such, are true.
Ken Kesey, in his novel One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest wrote, at the books beginning, "It's the truth, even if it never happened, it's the truth." That's how I view the Bible.
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