Is the Bible the Word of God?

About the turn of this century there were over a hundred studies made, and published, which questioned the historicalness of Jesus. Was Jesus a real historic person or was he a myth? One of the most famous books on the subject was Albert Schweitzer's "The Quest of the Historical Jesus." The book was first published in 1906. Schweitzer concluded that, "The Jesus of Nazareth who came forward as the Messiah, who preached the ethic of the Kingdom of God, who founded the Kingdom of Heaven upon earth, and died to give His work its final consecration, never had any existence." (p. 398).

History and scholarship tell us that Jesus was not a god but a myth; a Jesus of Nazareth did not live at the time that Jesus is said to have lived, and no one at that time did the things that Jesus is said to have done. We now know where the myth of Jesus came from and how it originated.

The discovery of the truth about the New Testament is one of the greatest miracles of the modern world. It is as if there were a God and that God had said: "Enough of this myth that has caused so much hate and trouble, so much war and persecution, so much torture and suffering in the world! I will put a stop to it before it destroys the entire earth."

What were the "miracles" that revealed the truth about the origin of the myth of Jesus, of Christianity and of the New Testament?

In December, 1945, there was discovered in upper Egypt a group of 52 Gnostic scrolls that dated from about 148 A.D. These first scrolls tell about the conflicting doctrines and the uncertainty in early Christianity.

In 1947 there was another unbelievable discovery. In Qumran, on the shore of the Dead Sea about 15 miles from Jerusalem, another great number of ancient scrolls were discovered. These scrolls are known as "the Dead Sea Scrolls." The impression given the public was that there were only a few scrolls found, just those found in the first cave. But there have been discovered hundreds of scrolls, these scrolls are about a thousand years older than any previously known copy of the Bible, and they contain all of the books of the Old Testament except Esther. There are also other scrolls that date almost a hundred years before Jesus of Nazareth is said to have lived. They contain almost every myth in the New Testament; they contain "The sermon on the Mount", and other bits of goodness and wisdom attributed to Jesus. They do not contain the evil sayings of Jesus. Those have been added later.

These old scrolls simply destroy the credibility of the historical foundations of Christianity by proving the New Testament evolved from the uninspired, historical, writings of man.

These scrolls have not been honestly presented to the public. It is strange that what God seeks so forcefully to reveal, the men of God are so determined to conceal!

Religion is big business, and those who hold positions of profit and prestige in that business will not allow mere truth to become a threat to religion.

What kind of a God do you think there would be if there were a God? A God would be just, kind, good, helpful, intelligent and wise. In short, God would be all the things the Bible God is not. A true God would be better than the best of us, not worse than the worst of us.

If there were a God there would not be war, there would not be evil, there would not be starvation, overpopulation, pollution, misery, religion, plague and disease; there would not be dogmas and doctrines and creeds. There would be no need to believe foolishness and there would be no fear of thinking. Why even science, philosophy and reason would be respectable--if there were a God.

Honestly now! Who could worship a God like the God of the Bible? Not a thinking person! Certainly not a kind and gentle person, not a just person nor a loving person. It would have to be a frightened person. A person so afraid that he doesn't think, he just falls down and grovels before a tyrant. Only a coward could blindly worship the murderous, bloody, vengeful tyrant that the Bible describes as "God."

I will NOT worship such a God!

I cannot and will not believe in such a God. It is a lie. It is a blasphemy and a slander against the very idea of God.

The Bible is not the word of God!

With a God like the God in the Bible we don't need a Devil. When we look at the Bible we must seriously question if we have not been misled into worshiping the evil elements of nature instead of the good. We must seriously question if belief is not the wrong end, and doubt the right end, of religion. After all, it has always been the kindest, the gentlest, the most moral and the most respectable people who have eaten deeply of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil--the very tree the Bible demands that we avoid.

Or, has the world advanced so far that what seemed good to those who wrote the Bible is seen as evil now? Let's think about that! If the Bible is not the word of God, and of course it is not, then let us consider who did write the Bible and why.

The Bible was written by primitive priests, but those primitive priests were the learned men of that day. They were the thinkers and the lawgivers. They derived their authority by claiming to speak for God. Primitive people are easily fooled, and often the old priests fooled themselves--just as honest ministers fool themselves today.

The priests who wrote the Bible stood upon their tippy-toes and reaching just as high as they could reach, they drove their spike. That spike is the Bible. It represents their best knowledge, their best morals, their most advanced understanding and world view. It was as high as they could think! And they thought it was as high as anyone would ever be able to think. So they drove the spike of their knowledge just as high as they could reach and they called it "The word of God."

That spike, that was as high as those old priests could reach, is less than knee high to modern man. Humanity has advanced during the thousands of years since the Bible was written and our modern knowledge and higher moral understanding, tells us that the spike, the Bible, is not "the word of God."

Today we desperately need a new God -- a God that is NOT an insult to our intelligence -- a God that is as great as the endless cosmos. We need a just God that does not have chosen galaxies and a preferred life form -- a life form that is told to slaughter other life forms. We desperately need a God that commands that we think, instead of believe and worship. We need a God to civilize us, not one that makes us savages.

But we must not be as foolish as the old Bible priests. We must not drive another spike, create another Bible, and say "believe." How soon would future generations find our highest morality brutish, our best intellect childish, and our world view primitive? How soon would our children's children again be divided, with future orthodox preachers insisting that our book is "the word of God," and some future heretic saying; "it is the ravings of ignorance."

We must not hold back future generations at our level. Let us stand upon our tippy-toes and make our mark, but beside that mark write "Question and Grow." Our best knowledge today is NOT the word of God, and the best wisdom of people who lived and thought thousands of years ago is not "the word of God."

There is one fact which wise men and heretics have always known, which philosophers and scholars have known for generations, a fact that even theologians know today, a fact that frees the mind and drives away the awful fear. The time has come for the victims to know that fact also:

The Bible is not the word of God!

From a 1983 lecture by Emmett F. Fields, entitled, "Is the Bible the Word of God?"
Special thanks to Steve Edgerton for contributing this piece.