The Bible is without a doubt the most famous book in the world.  It is also the best selling book in the world; or I should say, the best selling non completely read book in the world.  I'm sure I could say with certainty that more than 80% of the people that own a Bible have never read the whole thing from Genesis to Revelation.  Yet, people accept it as the divinely inspired word of God, and proof of his existence.

I myself see no divine inspiration in the Bible whatsoever.  The Bible is just a book, and a poorly written book at that.  It contains too many errors, contradictions and fallacies to be considered a reliable source for proof of God's existence.

If the Bible was divinely inspired by God, why is it so unclear?  Some people say that you have to know how to interpret the Bible to get an understanding of it.  Why would the Bible need to be interpreted?  And if it does need interpreted, why do people have such different interpretations? You would think that an all loving God would want his word to be perfectly clear, and everyone who read it would understand it exactly the same.

Most atheists look at the Bible and see the same errors and same contradictions; thus, that is one reason they are atheists.  Christians say that atheists are blind to the word of God, and if they were to come to know God, then their eyes would be opened and the Bible would become clear.  So how come Christians can't agree among themselves with what the Bible says? You can point out the same errors or contradictions to 20 different Christians and you will get many different explanations for them.  

Because Christians are in such disagreement on how to "interpret" the Bible, they're also in disagreement on how to worship their savior, resulting in Christianity to branch off into many different denominations and sects.  There are probably better than 200 different major and minor denominations of the Christian faith, and I would say that is a conservative guess.

The Bible has also been translated into many different versions.  I think there are about 50 different versions of the Bible (English translation) in circulation today.  If there was only one Bible ever written, why are there so many different versions?  Christians would say that some of the words (original Greek or Hebrew) in the Bible have different translations into English.  If the Bible was divinely inspired by God, and knowing his word was going to have to be translated into different languages, why didn't he inspire the authors to use words with only one possible translation?

Paul said in 1 Corinthians 14:33, "For God is not the author of confusion...".  If that is the case, why is the Bible one the most confusing works of literature ever produced?

© 1998 Derrick Miller