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Originally Posted by 0311
Case in point, I was reading this interesting National Geographic article about the Gospel of Judas, and it talked about Mary Magdeline being married to Jesus, and most of the other gospels wrote her as a prostitute instead because they were jealous.
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Dude, that is a very interesting and illuminating point. I'll probably get linched for this but as you say some of gospel writings had Mary Magdeline as a prostitute but some of the other ones had her as a disciple, or if not a disciple then as a very close follower and confidant of Jesus. And some people have proposed she was Jesus's wife or at least mate but I don't think any of the other gospels actually come out and say this. To a lot of christians it's scandalous to think of her as his wife but at the time the Roman Catholic Church was formed it was just as bad to think of her as a disciple!
What gospels to choose and how Mary Magdeline should be portrayed was a very concious and purposeful decision of the early Church formers. If Jesus was to be looked at as Divine (and I submit that there is much evidence that how Jesus should be looked at was ALSO a purposeful decision) then he certainly couldn't have a girl friend! But likewise a female could never be considered to be worthy of being a favorite follower of the Son of God on Earth!
Now, may the lynchings begin...
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Originally Posted by 0311
You could have ten seperate writers describing their own accounts of the same event, and they will all turn out differently according to the beliefs at the time, and the author's own emotions....
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Absolutely. And the thing is if you take into account that so much of the old testament expecially (at least the stories) is retellings of other ancient stories that the authors co-opted but then changed to fit their "agenda" and all those other things you mentioned you begin to see why it just shouldn't be taken as literal in many cases. The story of creation was borrowed. The story of Noah. The list goes on. Although as a history major (ancient history) I will say that the there is a lot of history to be found there, you just have to take it with a grain of salt.