Someone PLEASE Give These People A History Lesson!

You certainly Won't Get It From Family Research Council!

Literalists. Inerrantists. Fundamentalists. NONE of them take the Bible seriously.

And by "seriously" I mean serious enough to study it in the world of real history, to study it in context, to compare all translations and be able to answer the most glaring contradictions. But they won't. Never have and never will. Because to them, all of that is quite unnecessary. They want the lowest common denominator, the least amount of work, the words that come closest to their own opinions and attitudes.

They really are a lazy bunch of people. Spiritually lazy, anyway. Looking at the Bible from EVERY angle leads to questions and questions lead to more questions. It's almost never ending! Easier to have it spoon-fed to them.

Family Research Council's Tony Perkins proselytizes by using scripture without any historical or scholarly references.

Check this out:

Rome needed increased revenues, and Caesar knew how to get it. He first ordered that a census be conducted. He wanted a head count in order to apportion the amounts of money each provincial governor-like Cyrenius, governor of Syria-would be required to raise.

Then...

All this ordering and obeying, this saluting and receiving of salutes, this "hail caesaring" was necessary to bring millions of people together in their ancestral villages. And so Joseph, who was of the House and Lineage of David, also complied with Caesar's decree.

...Thus were Joseph and Mary brought into Bethlehem.

Read the whole conceptual mess here. The Census of Quirinius, as it was called, has been debated (and in some cases, debunked):

"The only enrollment arranged by Quirinius took place in 6 C.E., ten years after Herod the Great died. This census, made to gather taxes from Roman citizens, caused revolt in Judea but did not involve the population of Galilee, where Joseph and Mary lived..." (Ken Davis, Don't Know Much About The Bible, 1998)

In one day, people will bow down to images made of marble, plaster, concrete, plastic or inflatable poly-styrene depicting a baby in a tiny hay feeder and surrounded by his adoring (literally) mother, father, three men with crowns on their heads holding various gilt boxes, shepherds, sheep, an occasional donkey or cow, and an angel spreading a banner above the scene. This scene's authenticity is never questioned by the people who are bowing their heads.

It's a pastiche of "Christ's Mass" cobbled from two Gospels (not all four), but try telling that to the bow-headed people. It's Tony Perkins' duty to keep these people in check, so he gives out simple, but erroneous information with a backdrop of some historical artifacts. He also counts on people not reading the Bible or certainly not questioning it enough. One inkling of doubt will lead to another and another and another, ad infinitum. And with doubt, Perkins and his ilk lose power. Scholarship is their enemy.

One wonders if the Tony Perkinses, James Dobsons, Rick Warrens and Pat Robertsons have plans to lock up all the actual Biblical scholars, historians, archeologists and anthropologists. Is there a "reality" version of the Bible? If there is, I'm sure its well hidden.

Just a thought.