Hello~ The questions about the Bible being a book of history vs. a book stories and parables have been around for many, many years. Since, at this time, we really don't know for a fact, the debate rages on. To some, the Bible is the word of God and they take it quite literally. One example is that one Christian sect, The Seventh Day Adventists, take the bible as a literary recount of how god created the heavens and the earth in exactly seven days, just as all Jews, Muslims & Christians were taught as children. I was educated in a religious school and was shocked in 5th grade when one of my classmates (I even remember her name) answered the teachers question by saying that Adam & Eve was just a story. The teacher explained many of the 'old testament sagas were just stories handed down to symbolize and explain how we got hear, on earth, and what has been happening since the beginning of that time. There are today a great many believers, not just Christians either, that believe it is The word of God and that the stories are true. Many other cultures have similar stories or myths that have many of the same elements as the bible, such as great floods, pestilence, wars, plagues and so on. This can be used by one person to say "See! The Bible is true! Other cultures just did not quite get the story right, but we did". This is countered by the believe that cataclysmic events may in fact have happened over the millenia, and different cultures have indeed put their own twist on things. Somewhere in there science has at times found a very comfortable place, but as of late science & religion seem to be finding more themselves more and more at odds. Science prooves why certain stories happened, and we have evolved to know certain parts of the Bible are not correct, like authorizing the selling one's daughter into slavery or stoning people to death because of the way they farm their land or the way they dress. I remember once on a trip in the Arizona Desert it had rained hard, but for a very short time. When the sun came out there were three full rainbows in the sky, each a little brighter and clearer than the next. I remember thinking to myself that day; I can see why a thing of such beauty would need to be attributed to a greater force than ourselves! I mean ...just look! Even though I know what scientifically causes rainbows I could not deny that it was a spiritual moment for me. So as time goes on, science debunks more and more of the Bibles stories and this makes literal believers quite unhappy. There are increasing numbers who admit that at least some of the Bible must be true and some of it's parables used buy early man to explain the inexplicable. This debate will always be there for us to partake in, because man, in all his greatness, is not perfect and we will never be able to scientifically explain everything that happens, so there must be a god. With scientific knowledge growing exponentially it makes this a volatile time to be part of the planet, whether is was created in 7 days or 700 billion years. A very exciting time indeed. When I hear the bickering between science & religion I often thing of a deep statement made by a simple man who had suffered a horrible injustice. It was Rodney King and he said "Why can't we all just get along." Amen, Rodney. Amen.
Gerald
