The Bible is not a history book. So what is it?

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     Too many people read the bible like it is a modern history text book. Sure, there are some parts of some books, like Kings, that read like a historical account.  But there is widespread use of the Gospels like they were historical accounts like we would see in a modern high school text book.  What is wrong with this?  Well even a modern high school text book is biased and written to make a point.  Don't you think the Nazis would have written a different account of the war in their text books? But regardless, the Gospels are far removed from this.  I can prove it.  Look at your bible. Is it written in English?  Then the New Testament is a translation of a of an account of Jesus spoken in yet another language.  Or perhaps you actually read it in the original Greek.  Jesus didn't speak Greek.  He spoke Hebrew.  Greek trained scribes took collections of stories and compiled Mark.  Which was in turn taken by more Greek trained scribes who compiled accounts passed on through word of mouth with the source that led to Mark into Matthew and then Luke and John. But these scribes had a point to make and they wrote the Gospels to make their points with the various bents present in the four accepted Gospels.  John, in particular, takes great liberties with putting the stories into the context of an argument for the divinity of Jesus.  So we know the stories are not histories in the modern sense.  What are they?  They are really their own kind of literature.  Most scholars classify them as ancient biographies written to prove a point.  This is because they begin with a genealogy and have an account of events in Jesus's life.  They weren't simply meant to be biographies, they were meant to tell events in Jesus's life and make a case for his divinity.   "That is, they were called “gospels” because they were designed not simply to tell the life of Jesus but to proclaim Jesus as the Messiah, the Lord, the living, crucified, and resurrected one." They were very much propaganda of the time: propaganda defined as "the particular doctrines or principles propagated by an organization or movement. "
     If we read the gospels this way, there would be no quibbling over sentences.  There would be no red letter underlining of Jesus' words.  Because those words are not first hand.  Even in the unlikely event that someone witnessed the events and happened to be literate enough to write them down, they were an English translation of a Greek approximation of Jesus' Hebrew words.  But I think it is pretty safe to say that even this is terribly unlikely.  But people believe they are divinely inspired.  This may be true.  "Holy men of old wrote," we get from 2 Peter.
     2 Peter goes to great lengths to say that they are first hand accounts, not made up stories, and that the men who wrote the scriptures were directly inspired by God. "
NIVESVNASBKJVHCSB
20Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation of things.20knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation.20But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation,20Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.20First of all, you should know this: No prophecy of Scripture comes from one's own interpretation,
21For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

   Why would "Peter" (or the person writing in the school of Peter) say this?  He is trying to justify scripture for the fledgling movement well after it was written.  And of course the church saw fit to include it in the collection of books in the bible. But with Peter 1 and 2, not without considerable debate.  And this debate has been going on ever since. Peter is believed by many biblical scholars to have been written many years after Peter's martyrdom in 65 or 66AD.  According to bible.org, "The rejection of Peter as the writer of 2 Peter is by far the most common opinion today. In fact, the view of the pseudonymity of the epistle is almost universal" Pseudonymity meaning written by another claiming to be Peter.
     So where does this leave us?  It may cause some to be disillusioned with the bible.  But this is only true if you have been reading it as a history and have not accepted it for what it is, a collection of books, some historical, some poetic, some eschatology, some Gospel messages, some instructional letters from a pastor.  It is a rich library of different types of writing.  But I think this leaves us with a willingness to understand those different types of writing and search them for the meaning they were trying to convey.  Not to put to fine a point on it, you have to take the bible with a grain of salt.  And search it for overarching themes.  Themes like love your neighbor, God is good and just, people are worthy of your time, and Jesus was just about the best thing to happen to the Jewish people since sliced bread. 
     It is themes and not particular commandments or rules that we are to look for in the bible.  Interpretation is so varied that anyone can make a case for or against even the most "obvious" instructions in scripture. I really hate when people get into debates about the text.  Or worse, when their debates are not even backed up by the text. It's like listening to a bunch of school children quibble over Shakespeare.
     At any rate, we should read the bible and love the bible but know Adam and Eve weren't actually a couple living naked in a garden with God walking through it.  We should take the point of the stories, look at the overarching themes.  We should compare phrases in scripture to the words used in other areas of scripture and see if the comparison in the different contexts is enlightening.  See if there are different interpretations of pericopes (groupings of scripture). This is what they teach you to do in seminary.  You either come out disillusioned or absolutely in love with the text.  I for one, can't think of a better way to spend my time than diving into some scripture, with a good commentary at my side.  And there are good commentaries and there are propaganda tripe.  So I recommend doing your homework on them.  Erdman's Bible Dictionary and The Interpreters Bible Commentary are great resources in my opinion. At any rate, enjoy your time in the scripture.  It is the lifeblood of a new birth that happens every time you pick it up and read it properly.  It is a love story that has a much better ending than Romeo and Juliet - where you are the beloved.

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