There were no vacuum-sealed technologies to preserve paper for centuries.
There were no printing presses beforehand or until 1,000 years later. In other words, some 1,500 years passed between the day the first biblical author put stick to clay and when the books that would become the New Testament were chosen. (That's the same amount of time between the arrival of the Pilgrims on the Mayflower and today.) The first books of the Old Testament were written 1,000 years before that. At best, we've all read a bad translation-a translation of translations of translations of hand-copied copies of copies of copies of copies, and on and on, hundreds of times.Ībout 400 years passed between the writing of the first Christian manuscripts and their compilation into the New Testament. No television preacher has ever read the Bible. Moses carries the ten commandment tablets. When the illiteracy of self-proclaimed Biblical literalists leads parents to banish children from their homes, when it sets neighbor against neighbor, when it engenders hate and condemnation, when it impedes science and undermines intellectual advancement, the topic has become too important for Americans to ignore, whether they are deeply devout or tepidly faithful, believers or atheists. Rather, it is designed to shine a light on a book that has been abused by people who claim to revere it but don't read it, in the process creating misery for others. Newsweek's exploration here of the Bible's history and meaning is not intended to advance a particular theology or debate the existence of God. The Barna Group, a Christian polling firm, found in 2012 that evangelicals accepted the attitudes and beliefs of the Pharisees-religious leaders depicted throughout the New Testament as opposing Christ and his message-more than they accepted the teachings of Jesus. and Jim Castelli, pollsters and researchers whose work focused on religion in the United States. "Americans revere the Bible-but, by and large, they don't read it,'' wrote George Gallup Jr.
A Pew Research poll in 2010 found that evangelicals ranked only a smidgen higher than atheists in familiarity with the New Testament and Jesus's teachings. Their lack of knowledge about the Bible is well established. The Bible is not the book many American fundamentalists and political opportunists think it is, or more precisely, what they want it to be. Climate change is said to be impossible because of promises God made to Noah Mosaic law from the Old Testament directs American government creationism should be taught in schools helping Syrians resist chemical weapons attacks is a sign of the end times-all of these arguments have been advanced by modern evangelical politicians and their brethren, yet none of them are supported in the Scriptures as they were originally written. With politicians, social leaders and even some clergy invoking a book they seem to have never read and whose phrases they don't understand, America is being besieged by Biblical illiteracy. This is no longer a matter of personal or private faith.
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