Oddbean

@49b604ac Lots and lots in the bible that's, well, odd to deplorable. The bible story book my parents gave me to read as a child scared the bejeebus out of me, with its lurid picture of Abraham preparing that altar on which to sacrifice Isaac.

@49b604ac And more than one imprecatory prayer calling for vengeance on one's "enemies" — but at the same time, passages commanding the exact opposite. It's a smorgasbord of many different texts written over many different periods of time.

@f884fa2b indeed, it is a complex, and also a "curated" subset of things written at different times for different purposes, and often much later than events claimed to be described. It's also very easy to do prophecy when the "past" prophecies and the later fulfillment are both authored at the same time ;).

@49b604ac That's right. The four canonical gospels are a case in point: written a generation or even two generations after Jesus, though many believers take them to be eyewitness reports of what he did and said. And so many accounts — the creation narratives in the book of Genesis as a case in point — are interpreted as if someone saw and recorded actual historical events, when what's being written is mythology.

@f884fa2b the gospels in particular are the most problematic literature. Clearly they were written after at least the main events of the Judean wars, and yet place their historic Jesus in the quiet period before, so yes, maybe closer to two generations removed. Yet, the principle antagonists are other Jews and Jewish institutions; Harod, the temple, etc, all of which Rome wiped clean, and the Romans themselves are portrayed mostly as just "these nice guys over here" at most caught in the middle.

@49b604ac I think they're problematic because far too many people reading and citing them do not know that they are indeed literature, and, quite specifically, theological literature making theological points, not historical writing reporting on historical events as seen by eyewitnesses.