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What was the strategic purpose of bible when it was being written? (lemmy.world)
submitted 4 days ago by Live_Let_Live@lemmy.world to c/atheism@lemmy.world
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[-] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 2 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Depends. I'd say giving identity to a group of people applies to the whole bible. Other than that, the bible consists of various books from different times. Especially the New and Old Testament have been written in widely different environments, for different purposes (and they're both collections and not written consecutively by one person).

The Old testament is telling history and heritage of a tribe. (Sometimes with made up stories. Because the point was to hand down a good story so people "know" where they come from and how ther relate to other things in the world.) Giving them identity as a group. A lot of that has to do with tribalism. At the same time being god's favorite justifies slaughtering and robbing other tribes. (Still applies as of today, by the way...)

The New testament is a bit more complicated. The world was more complex at the time of the Romans. And it's been written by several different people who did not even live at the same time. I mean there are lots of things in there. It's about salvation, ideas about ethics, it's a collection of nice/random stories, sometimes someone retold them or put their own spin on things... And it's also not factual or anything like that. Though I think some of it mimicks telling the tale of some figures of history. But it wasn't ever a book about history. It's always mixed with fiction. We have proper records because the Romans kept records. While all of the bible hasn't been written at the time of the events, but it's more writing down stories that have been handed down and retold several times to the point where they don't really depict reality. Or they're straight made up for some motivation. Or continuing some narration from earlier authors.

this post was submitted on 03 Nov 2024
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