Publisher's Synopsis
This book is not intended as an attack on Judaism or Christianity. Its goal is to open and share a new perspective on the Bible, based on 40 years of critical thinking and broad based research into the Bible itself, as well as a wide range of scientific/academic topics including branches of evolutionary biology, anthropology, history, current affairs, epigenetics, and the cognitive/psychological sciences and linguistics, among others. Notably, the role of metaphors in complex thought and language. It is not a specialized academic treatise, but a layman's attempt at a generalised, common sense understanding of the subject matter, as a basis for Biblical comprehension. It is based on making cognitive connections between and among apparently unconnected phenomena and academic disciplines. Nothing in the universe is unconnected from anything else; why then should apparently disparate bodies of knowledge not be connected?
Whether one is a believer, atheist or agnostic, one cannot argue that the Bible is probably the most important and influential of all books ever published. Much good has been accomplished through that influence. Conversely, a great deal more harm has been inflicted on the world and ordinary people through unjustifiable claims of supposed Biblical precedent, inspiration and even divine instruction. The Bible is written exclusively in the form of metaphors - parables, allegories, proverbs and the idioms of a by-gone age. The reader is shown how to interpret Biblical metaphors in a way which will show believer, unbeliever and agnostic alike the real significance of the Judeo-Christian Scriptures and their importance to mankind. Rational and factual explanations are provided for the following statements.1. The God of the Bible exists, but not in the form of an entity or supernatural anthropomorphic deity.
2. The concepts of God, soul and spirit as used in the Bible are metaphors in themselves.
3. Humanity is not a biological species, but a philosophy, a way of life for all of mankind's benefit.
4. The Bible is an ancient handbook of humanistic psychology, sociology and an exposition of ancestral worship and natural anarchy.
5. Institutional Judaism and Christianity are based on literal interpretations of abstract metaphors and therefore cannot claim to be based on an understanding of the Bible. They are based on the same level as a child's understanding of a fairy tale, as yet unable to understand or teach the moral lessons it contains.
6. Reading the Bible with comprehension requires appropriate language skills, such as a sound understanding of the construction and interpretation of metaphors, knowledge of how the meanings of words change very rapidly. Without these skills allied to critical thinking true literacy is not possible in any field, especially not when trying to unravel ancient 'mysteries' couched in the languages and cultural grammars of the day.
7. God is a metaphor, an anthropomorphism for the ancient wisdom system of mankind's evolutionary success. It pre-dates civilization and the written word. It is based on four concepts - God the Father, God the Mother, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost, not entities or beings. Genesis tells the story of the creation of unique individual consciousness, not the cosmos, solar system or the Biosphere or Homo sapiens. The creationist notion of the male having been created first, is a falsehood created by literal reading of and literal teaching about the Bible. It has been used to falsely justify the imposition of patriarchy and all its horrors.
9. The Bible is an indictment of civilizations' elitist economic and intellectual monopolism.
10. The authors of the Bible equate elitism to human-on-human parasitism, leading to mental and economic enslavement of the masses. Elitism is the satan of the O.T and the antichrist of the N. T.
