I was born and
raised in a King James, Southern Baptist brotherhood. Saturday night
was prep time for Sunday, and Sunday mornings and evenings were spent
in church; also, Wednesday evenings and all other unscheduled times
the church was open, i.e., visiting Missionaries, Revivals, etc.
Today, I could
be described by several tags, but would prefer Possibilian or
Skeptnostic. How did I arrive here? There was no “One thing or
event” that brought me into this arena, it was a series of many
questions and experiences.
At an early age
I began to wonder about stories contained in the “Christian User
Manual,” (the Inerrant, King James Version of the Word of God). One
of my first questions pertained to the Bible itself. It seemed to be
a collection of ancient stories compiled during a short period of the
geological time period during which Modern Man has existed in a
traceable history. The chronology of the main events seemed to be
separated by hundreds of years; Noah (2500BC), Abraham (2100BC),
Jacob (2000BC), Exodus (1300BC), David (1010BC), Jesus (35 CE), etc.,
none of which were recorded into a final written form for hundreds or
thousands of years. The Old Testament was not canonized (adopted and
closed to the addition any other material) until 550BC. The New
Testament did not begin to take shape in its current form until three
centuries after the crucifixion of Jesus. Again, none of these
stories were written by the “first” person, they were all
authored by people who were not present at the events and usually
many decades and centuries after they occurred.
When you
purchase a set of encyclopedias, you normally subscribe to an Annual
Edition, an updated single volume in an effort to keep the reference
information as current as possible, and to correct any discrepancies
made in the original editions of the encyclopedias. Sometimes these
discrepancies consist of new information or discoveries that supersedes the original edited texts of the encyclopedias, others were
to correct errors that were overlooked in the original proofing
process. Although the Bible was canonized with numerous discrepancies
and contradictions it has never been significantly changed or updated
for thousands of years. New translations from various sources are
reborn every few years, however, most of these translations are
produced by groups or persons who desire a translation that fits
their particular theology. Its original stories, admonitions,
commandments, etc. of ancient cultures has not been altered,
consequently, it has been interpreted in as many differing ways as
there are religions who use it as their basic information guide.
Many of the
stories contained in the Old Testament have been found to exist in
many much older writings by earlier cultures. The Biblical account of
Noah and his Ark filled with animals, exists in an earlier account of
the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh, composed about 2500BC, contains a
flood story almost exactly the same as the Noah story in the
Pentateuch; in Greek Mythology, Deucalion, like Noah, is warned of a
flood by Zeus and Poseidon, and builds an ark to save a multitude of
creatures; the Hindu Lord Vishnu orderd King Manu to construct a huge
boat filled with animal and plant specimens of all forms, to escape
the Great Deluge. Many cultures possess stories to address the
natural curiosity that children have about where everything came from
when sea shells can be found on hill and mountain tops, coupled with
stories of great floods.
Today, countless
stories such as these continue to abound. Images of Mary, Jesus, and
many Saints found on bagels, potato chips, biscuits, tree trunks,
windows, cloud formations; tears and drops of blood from statues,
persons who claim they have seen or talked to heavenly hosts of some
sort or another, etc. Many of these are very old and have developed
complicated stories of miracles related to them. Even in these modern
sophisticated societies, supernatural stories grow and grow, and most
of this has happened during the past 50 to 100 years. When you have 2
to 4 thousand years to develop a story its aura will take on more and
more of the unexplainable and supernatural qualities.
The nucleus of
all ancient stories begins with an event that is unexplainable, but
requires some sort of answer, reasonable or not. Superstitions were
the order of the day and imagination had little or no bounds when it
came to providing answers to questions by early cultures. Without the
ability to produce an accurate or written record for these events,
stories existed first in an oral tradition for hundreds of years
before they were ever written in a form that could be codified.
During these hundreds of years the stories were retold and passed on
by several generations and cultures who modified the stories to meet
their contemporary need for that particular information. Stories that
were begun to describe an event did not end with the same accuracy of
that original event.
Just as in
today's game of “Secrets” where the first person tells a secret
or story to a second person, who in turn passes the story on to
another person, and is repeated several times with several people.
The last person in line then reveals what he understood to be the
initial story. Very seldom does the final version even resemble the
initial story generated in the beginning.
Oral traditions
possess the same inherent flaw, they have a way of producing a new
life for the original story that may or may not resemble any truth of
the original story. This is especially true when 2 or more languages
are involved and the story is very long and detailed.
An evolution of
truth.
