I put this subject under Philosophy not Religion because I personally don't care to recognize "religion". In my book, religion is man trying to understand (and please) some unknown "being" and using "assumption" to accomplish it.
The Bible is the best selling book of all time, and interesting enough, the least read (per copies sold), and definitely the most misquoted and most misunderstood book ever. Entire RELIGIONS were started, based on this book, and thousands of churches exist today, with "paid preachers" to make it all another nice way to do "business".
Religions prey off people's fears and there is no shortage of that. Translators had to "adapt" the original Bible to fit their culture, and to make it understandable to the reading audience. It is likened to a momma bird chewing up a worm and then feeding it to it's young.
Hence preachers gallor. So if the Bible contained TRUTH, they would have to explain "what truth". Well, it turns out that TRUTH can not be paraphrased.
For this thread we will use an online Hebrew interlinear Bible
http://www.scripture4all.org/OnlineInte ... _Index.htm to see what we can figure out about what the original Bible actually said. Some may wonder why only the Hebrew, well, maybe we can do a Greek one later, but it is the Hebrew that things got so confused...even for the Jews, as they also have Rabbi's making a "living" and must do a good "business". It is no different than having sociopaths dictate what we aught to "think", and interesting enough, many sociopaths in power go to some kind of Church.
What should be noted here is that the Bible itself says to never sell copies of itself.
And that no one is to be paid for teaching it (to avoid lying preachers). So you see, right there, humanity is guilty of not doing even the basics of what they aught. Like the 10 Commandments they are judged by the very thing they hold fast.
So the Bible can be a very interesting topic when looked at "logically". Most societies are in existence today because of the Bible's civil laws (thou shalt not murder, steal, etc) and the greatest RULE to live by...The Golden Rule, came right out of this book. So we have to admit that it does have value. Why there are even dinosaurs mentioned in it.
And that the world was actually a "globe". How did anyone know that back then?
To start, let's look at the opening verse...Genesis 1:1
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth". This is the modern Bible translation which is on the right of the online Bible. Now look at the online Hebrew Bible..what does it say?