Hitch is dead

I agree with that Phat. The thing though is that on a forum like this there isn't much point in using personal experience as a rational. My personal experiences are only meaningful to me and certainly not to an atheistic community. Personally I have learned a great deal about my faith from the scholars including some non-Christians, particularly Hitchens and even from Dawkins. (As people I kinda like Hitchens but I find Dawkins unpleasant.)The first thing though when reading the scholars you have to realize that the Bible in it's entirety is written by people like you and me. Also each book of the Bible has to be examined on it's own merits, the culture at the time, the genre it was written in, the understanding of what the author intended to be understood, the possible self interest of the author and so on. Also as Christians we have to internalize the message of Jesus particularly when He says the the commandment to love others as we love ourselves is the one command that is the basis of the whole narrative, and that we should understand the entire Scripture through that lens.In recent years we are experiencing a sea change in Christian theology. There is so much early material now easily accessible via the internet. There have been new discoveries of ancient documents, and particularly the Dead Sea Scrolls.People like N T (Tom) Wright who have spent a life time exploring all of the material available in the original languages as well as studying the work of the scholars/theologians over the centuries. He has anew book which is really well done that he has co-written with Mike Bird. The New Testament In Its World IMHO if I could have only one book to help me understand the Scriptures this is the one I would choose. Also there is the Richard Bauckman book that I mentioned in another post.Hope this helps.

Well, that is a looser definition of fiction than what I would use and it isn't consistent with the wiki article on fiction however, with your definition then that is true enough.The implication that I took from the original post was that the whole thing was a work of fiction such as is Harry Potter.

Well, first there is no such thing as "the whole things" when it comes to the Bible and it is not even as close to being a unitary thing as the Harry Potter Series. The Bible is a creation of several different committees designed primarily as a propaganda tome specific to the particular flavor of Christianity involved.Each Canon is different.

I have said in numerous posts that the Bible is a library off 66 books involving many authors and that each has to be understood in their own time and culture. I'm not sure why you felt the need to point this out.I was simply saying that none of the books were written to be understood as fiction the way Harry Potter was.

The embellishments in the bible are as fictional as those in Homer. Since they are embellishments of (believed to be) original stories they were known at the time of writing to be fictions imposed on that original narrative.So just like ringo said in Message 350: with its embellishments and its mythologies thrown in, which are in fact fictional ...

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It is on (in) no way "obvious" that the Bible was intended as non-fiction.

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Since the authors' intents with their fictional embellishments of the originals cannot be known it really cannot be "obvious" that anything in the bible, the gospels included with all their fictional embellishments, were intended as non-fiction.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

But that is simply silly. The stories show all of the characteristics of folk tales including the classic techniques that latter became the Saturday one reelers, the continuing cliffhanger that will get the folk back in next Saturday.Nor is the Bible 66 books. Some are but the shortest is but 5 books (almost all fiction) and the largest over 80 books.To quibble over whether a story is fiction or fable or folk tale or propaganda is just silly. The stories were written as entertainment or to sell a political or cultural history or to document laws or power bases or tribal aliances and if making stuff up made the story better the authors made stuff up.

Let's look at the story of the feeding of the 5000. I think that there is a strong possibility that there were actually a lot fewer people there than that suggests. Who knows? That is an embellishment but if the miracle did happen as is written then that embellishment does not make it fiction. Certainly there are embellishments in the Bible but that is the way they emphasized points they wanted to make. We still embellish accounts of events today, though agreeably to a smaller degree. Actually I don't think that there were many embellishments in the NT. There certainly were more in the OT. However that isn't the point.The NT was clearly written to be believed. It was a whole new wife of life, with a new way of looking at things that they based their lives on. It was dangerous and many lost their lives for it for the first few centuries. Most of it was written within the life times of many that were part of it all. There was nothing to be gained by fabricating the whole story but a great deal to be lost.

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Let's look at the story of the feeding of the 5000. I think that there is a strong possibility that there were actually a lot fewer people there than that suggests. Who knows? That is an embellishment but if the miracle did happen as is written then that embellishment does not make it fiction.

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There is also a good chance that it never happened, and the real origin is Elisha feeding 100 (2 Kings 4:42-44). That would make it fiction. We don’t know where the Gospel writers got the story from at all.

Who says they fabricated the whole story?
The greatest lies contain much truth.There were also many things to be gained by fabricating the whole story, or parts of it:
-food, shelter
-money
-power
-respectThere was minimal to lose by fabricating the story, or parts of it:
-your life - but the likelihood of this was incredibly low - about the same risk of "losing your life" in almost all aspects of life, then.
-people may yell at you, so you just move on to the next town and try againIt's the same sort of risk assessment many snake-oil salesmen face throughout history.
Many still do it today (televangelists) - many things to be gained as well as a great deal to be lost.They do it today.
They did it hundreds of years ago.
They did it thousands of years ago.There have always been people who like to embellish storytelling in order to gain whatever-they-can from it.I'm not trying to say "therefore, the Bible must be fake!"
I'm just trying to say that the line "There was nothing to be gained by fabricating the whole story but a great deal to be lost" is really a non-starter. Just think about it for a minute instead of making assumptions.

The Gospel accounts are pretty much a biography of a portion of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Everything would either have to be understood as historical, legendary or as a parable. The feeding of the 5000 is in all 4 Gospels and these Gospels would have been compiled while a dwindling number of Jesus' contemporaries were still alive.If the feeding of the 5000 was a fabrication it would throw the whole Gospel into disrepute. They could however understand that the number 5000 was a number that simply represented a large group. That way of representing things was normal for them.The Christians of that era were counter cultural and persecuted. There wasn't money, prestige or power in what it was they were doing. They were being taught to give away their money, be humble and eschew the privileges of power which they didn't have anyway. Their adversaries held all the power whether it be the Herodians, the Levites or the Romans.

If you tighten your definition enough, you can claim that almost anything is non-fiction. You're comparing apples to orange groves. With a vast number of different authors writing in different styles and with differemt intentions, there may well be parts of the Bible that are comparable with Harry Potter. There may also be parts with a germ of truth and parts that are mostly true. But it's ridiculous to pretend that it was all "intended" to be taken as fact.

Alternatively...

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The collection
If one is looking for a motive for participation in the early Christian church, one need look no further than the collection. It was Paul's promise to "remember the poor" that apparently allowed an agreement between him and the "pillars" in Jerusalem (Galatians 2:9-10).
In his letters, Paul gives instructions to several churches to prepare a collection for Jerusalem in anticipation of his arrival (1 Corinthians 16:1-3, 2 Corinthians 8:1-15, 2 Corinthians 9). Paul thanks Philippi for their aid (Philippians 4:10-19) and mentions a contribution for Jerusalem made by Macedonia and Achaia in Romans 15:25-28.
It was apparently while delivering this collection that Paul was arrested in Jerusalem, and it is claimed he mentioned it at his trial in Acts 24:17.

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Paul of Tarsus - RationalWikiStill a 'tax' collector it seems.

Of course it wasn't all intended to be taken as fact. The creation accounts were mythology meant to express a philosophical view. The historical accounts retained a great deal of self interest such as justifying genocide by blaming it on Yahweh. The Psalms were largely laments buttressed by encouraging words, Jesus used parables etc.I think that in a way Job can be compared with Harry Potter. Apparently in the original languages it reads very much like a play to be performed. Both books have a subtle underlying message that is there for the readers if they choose to think about it that way but neither is meant to be taken literally.

Paul was collecting funds to be delivered to the church in Jerusalem. The reason of course was that the followers of Jesus in Jerusalem were severely marginalized and as a result required financial help from the Greek church and what then was called Asia Minor. This is hardly a motivation to get on board with the movement. The church in Jerusalem was impoverished and the church in the gentile world, (including members of the diaspora) was being asked to give sacrificially to help them.In neither case would it be an incentive to join the Christian movement, and would in fact be a disincentive.

I guess I didn't make my point clear. There were still those around who witnessed the 3 years of Jesus' ministry and would know if the story of the feeding of the 5000 was a complete fabrication then the whole account would be brought discredited.Interestingly enough the account is in all 4 Gospels. As it is in Mark, it makes sense that it would be in the other synoptics but the fact that it is also in John, one of the eyewitnesses, is interesting.