Ian McKellen says Bible should have Fiction Disclaimer

[Terra Nullius]

@#$%!@ Kiwis!

I swore I was gonna have the good sense not to post in this inane thread.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by MMC
It has been well established that the first 3 Gospels were written by Matthew the tax collecter (also know as Levi); Mark, Peter's scribe and travelling companian; and Luke the physician.

No. The earliest copies of various books do not carry the names of the authors. In fact, they don't even have names. The names were added later. As such, there is no evidence of who the authors were. However, biblical scholars widely held that they weren't the disciples Mark, Matthew, and Luke. John was written by a man named John of Patmos - the same guy who wrote Revelation.

Originally posted by MMC
They were all written around roughly the same time, about AD 40 - 60.

The first book, Mark, was written around 70CE, based on earlier, lost, sources. John was written around 120CE.

[Ramo]

Gospel of Biff

[Guynemer]

Originally posted by Ramo
Gospel of Biff

Christ, I love that book.

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


The first book, Mark, was written around 70CE, based on earlier, lost, sources. John was written around 120CE.

The latest date any serious scholar thinks John was written was 120 AD. 'critical' scholars place the writing of John as being 90-120 AD. One of the earliest fragments of the NT is of John (and dates to as early as 90 AD).

Jon Miller

[St Leo]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly
Those authors who are identifiable may or may not have
wintessed the events they write about, but at any rate
were a bunch of illiterate peasants from a minor
outpost of an ancient empire, who were recalling the
events 25-50 years after they supposedly happened,
and were doing so because they had a very specific
agenda.

New Testament

Also, this book, which some people claim to be literally
true, contradicts itself repeatedly.

Both

On the other hand, it contains enough sex and violence
to make a Grand Theft Auto game look like a children's
bedtime story -- so, enjoy!

Old Testament

[MarkG]

(this looks like the closest thing we have to a movie thread)

saw it last night, it was decent transfer of the book imho
it would be interesting to see which little details from the book were omitted (like this piece about Miteran being responsible for pyramids in the Louvre)...

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Agathon
There's nothing wrong with the Bible, just with the people who believe what it says.

We need to strip the vote from them. That'll sort out the world's problems.

I doubt it would even make a dent in most worldwide problems. Apart from homophobia I don't see many world wide problems that are effected much by the particular opinions of people who believe the bible as literal.

For comparison, don't forget that most people who believe in the koran as 100% literally true already don't have the vote and that disenfranchisement hasn't done much to rid the middle east of problems.