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Comment by cambaceres | Hacker News Reader

The Bible was written 300 years after Jesus lived, so some of these things might have been confused...

1. “The Bible” is not one text and is actually a collection of books each written by different people at different times over the course of centuries. Most of these books were written before Jesus was even born.

2. The books probably relevant to this discussion—the Gospels—are generally believed to have been written before the turn of the first century. Some argue that Mark and Luke were written as early as the 50s, 20 years after Jesus died. [0]

[0] https://jimmyakin.com/2018/11/when-was-the-gospel-of-mark-wr...

the path from oral tradition in some languages (Aramaic, hebrew, then also greek and latin) to writeups in various languages (greek, latin, then some hebrew) to what we happen to hold in our hands today is a bumpy ride, which in and by itself makes clear that "the bible" is a temporary and local consensus which has changed in the past and will evolve in the future.

the books we see today are translations of heavily copyedited and consolidated writeups of oral traditions.

scholars like Bart Ehrmann have been very helpful to see that whatever the word of god was, it's deeply hidden behind the words we hold in our hands, and the.words are by no means a historically accurate, literal "truth", but a consensus on what the author's and editors over centuries hold dear as spirtual and religious "true" foundation.

That's a common misconception that perhaps Ehrmann deliberately pushes. He himself says that no core doctrines of Christianity were changed by the variants and that the books we have today are essentially the same as the originals, though not word for word identical.[1]

Few who cast unwarranted doubt upon the New Testament realize how extremely sceptical they would have to be about every other piece of ancient writing, because none of them even comes close to the new testament in terms of: 1) number of copies 2) being written close to the time of the actual events

[1] https://crossexamined.org/is-the-new-testament-reliable-erhm...

I know it is not "in fashion" today but the description of Megan's illness, resistant to antipsychotics as it was, "arguing with Jesus" calling her self "evil," etc, pretty much matches up with the traditional accounts of demonic possession. Suppose there are anti-human intelligences in another plain of reality and that they can metaphysically sense a "vacant" vessel, like somebody in deep meditation. Such individuals would be at elevated risk of demonic possession.

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