The Bible was written for 2 specific purposes: to show that the founder of the new religion, Christianity was
divine and had the authority from the Mighty God himself.
The second one was that the preachers and writers wanted to picture this founder appealing to the followers of the existing pagan religions. Therefore they adopted the nature of their gods and incorporated them into their founder and accepted many of their concepts as spoken or approved by Jesus. Naturally when the Bible took its final shape, there was nothing strange in it. And it seemed very familiar. And the founder was humane and loving but a god at the same time.
It was St. Paul who gave an interpretation to the crucifixion. May be the women who saw the poor, good
preacher carrying the heavy cross and moving slowly to the mount felt that he was carrying their sins and suffering for their shortcomings. But the doctrine of redemption originated in the mind of St. Paul who gave a new meaning to the ignoble suffering and death of Christ. He postulated that Jesus died for the sins of humanity as desired by the Father-God himself. Well, it was a master stroke and the whole edifice of Christendom is based on this weak, utrue pillar.
I cannot understand how the punishment meted out by the government of the period become an atonement for the sins of others? He did not volunteer it, but was forcibly taken by the soldiers and crucified. Is there a more stupid argument than this? Christ never even imagined this. He was a Jewish reformer and good one at that. He lived and died a Jew. He never wanted to establish a new religion. But one sprang up after him as in the case of almost all strong preachers in history.
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As I mentioned before, even a
religious preacher in India becomes a god and people start to venerate him a little after his death ascribing so many miracle to him. There is no wonder then that Jesus Christ, a good preacher of the Jews, became the son of God. Nor is there anything abnormal in the abundant miracles we see in his name. Any religious book contains innumerable miracles. If we believe that the Bible is true because of them then, we have to accept that any other religious book too is true and authentic like the Bible and God--revealed. This will lead us to absolutely contradictory truths about what God himself is and what he has said or done or what He wants man to do in this earth to gain eternal life or emancipation from the bondage of the body or whatever. .
All the religious books have taken the present shape in their own way. We cannot say this is true or that is untrue. Each one may have some moral principles for the peaceful co-existence here and the beyond. There is nothing specially special about any such book including the Bible.