Who Wrote The Bible And Why It Matters
In the recent Huffington Post Blog article entitled Who Wrote The Bible And Why It Matters, by prof. Bart D. Ehrman, what we have should more appropriately be portrayed as Prof. Ehrman's Confession of Ignorance. While I have attempted on a number of occasions to communicate with Bart Ehrman -- to portray him as a Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies, would be like portraying those people who make burgers at McDonald's, as fine cuisine chefs -- which is why I often portray the body of biblical scholars as pseudo-authorities. Quoting from The Prodigal Son And The Theist/Deist Perception Of Creation:
Deists such as Thomas Paine often portrayed the literal text of the scriptures as being untrue and not historically accurate. And when we pose the question: What does the Bible state? The Apostle Paul portrayed the scriptures as the "letter that killeth" (2 Cor 3:6) and "Jewish fables" (Tit 1:14) -- stating that the written text of the scriptures was purely allegorical. In the article An Inconvenient Truth the fact is presented that the purpose of the scriptures was to preserve and conceal the esoteric knowledge within the garb of allegory to protect it from the unenlightened carnal believers and their pseudo-religious leaders (see An Inconvenient Truth). The enlightened few have always pointed out the countless inconsistencies which were purposely inserted into the literal text of the scriptures which the critics portray as being so numerous and unbelievable to a rational minded person, that is was pointed out by the Church Father Origen when he portrayed the literal text as virtually worthless -- i.e., “Scripture contains an unhistorical element in-woven with the history, in order that the worthlessness of the latter may drive us to seek the spiritual meaning” (Origen quoted under Origen Adamntius; The Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics). Further explaining in De Principiis that: “Where the word found that things done according to the history could be adapted to these mystical senses, he made use of them concealing from the multitude the deeper meaning; but where in the narrative of the development of super-sensual things, there did not follow the performance of those certain events which were already indicated by the mystical meaning, the scripture interwove in the history the account of some event that did not take place, sometimes what could not have happened; sometimes what could but did not.” And that the carnal mind of both the blind believer, as well as the skeptic critic, both attempt to ignore these important inconsistencies (see Inconsistencies Purposely Written Into Body Of Scriptural Text), and attempt to read the scriptures as an historical account, inhibits them from perceiving and understanding the great truths that lie concealed beneath the allegorical texts. And in the proper application of the scriptures as the Key of Knowledge, the Church Father Origen writes: “But all the narrative portion, relating either to the marriages, or to the begetting of the children, or to battles of different kinds, or to any other histories whatever, what else can they be supposed to be, save the forms and figures of hidden and sacred things? As men, however, make little effort to exercise their intellect, or imagine that they possess knowledge before they really learn, the consequence is that they never begin to have knowledge".What does this mean? What it means is that "...all the narrative portion [of the scriptures], relating either to the marriages, or to the begetting of the children, or to battles of different kinds, or to any other histories whatever", do not at all pertain to historical accounts of man's more distant past -- but rather, to the Forces and Laws that are presently working within man's own mind and being. Why? How could Origen who was called the prince of Christian learning second only to the Apostles themselves, state that the historical interpretation of the scriptures is "worthless"? And that what is presented in the written text as marriages, the begetting of children, and the many various wars and battles are not at all historical -- but rather, an allegorical portrayal of the Forces and Laws working within one's own mind and being? The answer is this: A truly spiritual people have no need of an historical account in their search for Truth -- but rather, their primary concern is to tap into the Inner Source of Knowledge which the disciples portrayed as the True Prophet. And because man's pseudo-authorities of this world remain virtually ignorant of the profound reality portrayed in Origen's statement that "...As men, however, make little effort to exercise their intellect, or imagine that they possess knowledge before they really learn, the consequence is that they never begin to have knowledge" -- indicating and confirming the reality that the Source of Knowledge already dwells within man -- in his failing to understand the Cosmology of his own mind and being, the vast majority of pseudo-intellectuals merely alienate themselves from the True Source of Knowledge within themselves that remains a perpetual enigma.