Wattpad 101: Your guide to the world of Wattpad

Is The Bible a "Good" Book?

Disclaimer: For my 100th chapter, I figured I'd put something up there that was sure to make a splash. What's more splashful than a talk about the highest grossing, most influential, most successful book ever written? This is bound to turn some heads and heat the blood, so let's just put a disclaimer here. This chapter doesn't seek to undercut (or glorify for that matter) the bible and what it means to people. This is simply an argument hoping to shine a little perspective in something that has been around a long time. Alright, let's get this over with. Pray for me, I'm going to need it. 

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Some time ago I wrote a chapter on page length and used the Bible as an example. The Bible consists of 66 "books" over roughly 800,000 words. Despite the modern trends in the computer era, books rarely exceeded 20,000 words back in the days before the printing press. Anyway, this statement ended up eliciting comments, more like arguments, and some of the arguments suggested a lot of people just don't know what the Bible is.

I won't confess to being an expert on the Bible, and I've hesitated to host this chapter for a while simply because there are people on both sides that get so very worked up if anyone even mentions it (the comment thread in question eventually got deleted). Wattpad 101 is hardly the place to discuss things like religious issues, but since several dozen people decided they wanted to discuss it here, I think presenting my point of view couldn't hurt either.

I'll approach this from a slightly different angle than you are used to. Specifically, I'm going to treat the Bible purely as a book. I'm not going to argue whether the Bible was written by God or not. This is a writing website, so I'm going to do something few people do, talk about the Bible based on it's literary merit. Whether you are a hardcore religious fanatic or atheist, I mean no offense. I'm not defiling your beliefs on either side of the spectrum. I'm simply offering a unique side to the argument you may not have seen before.

Full disclaimer, I'm not someone who believes in the Bible as a work of absolute truth. To make my arguments in this chapter, I will simply treat the Bible on the same merits as any other book ever written. Because I think if you put your prejudices and faith aside, and simply see the Bible as a book for a moment, you might find you can get a lot more out of it. Here's where things start getting a little offensive, my apologies in advance.

Now, I wouldn't find it at all surprising that most people on either side of the Bible debate have neither read the Bible, nor even know what the Bible actually is. Most people are just parroting the things they've heard. You either like to make fun of the Bible because it makes you feel smart, or you respect the Bible because it makes you feel spiritual. Of course, other people exist, but I'm referring specifically to the Atheists and Christians who feel the need to make these arguments online every time the Bible is mentioned. I see you there in the comments section. How you doing? Good? Already wrote a comment? Bitching me out? Yeah... figures...

To these Atheists, I'm betting you imagine crazy people thinking they talk to God or corrupt religious people selling their BS and making a profit on lies. You imagine a history of stupid people compiling together all of this crazy work of "fiction" in order to steal power and money from a stupid and unsuspecting public, a demographic that you yourself just happened to not be a part of. Unlike the majority of the human race, you are uniquely somehow more intelligent then all of those "sheep". How good for you.

To a believer, I'm betting you imagine people being spoken to directly by God, a group of special people who were "chosen" to "write the words of God" as he intended them to be written. Those words happen to contain the exact meaning you were taught they do, and that makes them indisputable facts that can't be argued with. The hundreds of offshoots of Christianity and Judaism all descending from different interpretations of the same book are lost on this fact.