Why such poor writers?

[Zzyzx]

.
If the Bible was "God breathed" (or inspired or whatever is claimed) and if God is taken to be all-wise, why wouldn't "he" have chosen better writers – people with ability to convey information clearly without ambiguities, contradictions, errors, and need for "interpretation"?

Compared to some of the world's great writers, Bible writers "come in third in a two-horse race." There may be some kernels of wisdom (or "diamonds among the dung" as Thomas Paine said). However, the vast bulk of the 800,000 words or so of the bible are intelligible, inapplicable, incredible, fluff that convey no wisdom or guidance to modern people.

Here is a list of the top twenty best writers of all time (from a list of the top one hundred).

William Shakespeare
Charles Dickens
Fyodor Dostoevsky
J.R.R. Tolkien
Leo Tolstoy
Ernest Hemingway
Jane Austen
George Orwell
John Steinbeck
Mark Twain
James Joyce
C.S. Lewis
Alexandre Dumas
Edgar Allan Poe
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Oscar Wilde
Kurt Vonnegut
Franz Kafka
J.K. Rowling
William Faulkner
http://www.thebest100lists.com/best100authors/

A supposedly omniscient God would have (by definition) known that the Bible would be variously transcribed, translated, edited, revised, altered, etc since it is so poorly written -- and choose (or "inspire") some of the likes of the above to produce a better product.

[bob the baptist]

.
If the Bible was "God breathed" (or inspired or whatever is claimed) and if God is taken to be all-wise, why wouldn't "he" have chosen better writers – people with ability to convey information clearly without ambiguities, contradictions, errors, and need for "interpretation"?

Compared to some of the world's great writers, Bible writers "come in third in a two-horse race." There may be some kernels of wisdom (or "diamonds among the dung" as Thomas Paine said). However, the vast bulk of the 800,000 words or so of the bible are intelligible, inapplicable, incredible, fluff that convey no wisdom or guidance to modern people.

Here is a list of the top twenty best writers of all time (from a list of the top one hundred).

William Shakespeare
Charles Dickens
Fyodor Dostoevsky
J.R.R. Tolkien
Leo Tolstoy
Ernest Hemingway
Jane Austen
George Orwell
John Steinbeck
Mark Twain
James Joyce
C.S. Lewis
Alexandre Dumas
Edgar Allan Poe
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Oscar Wilde
Kurt Vonnegut
Franz Kafka
J.K. Rowling
William Faulkner
http://www.thebest100lists.com/best100authors/

A supposedly omniscient God would have (by definition) known that the Bible would be variously transcribed, translated, edited, revised, altered, etc since it is so poorly written -- and choose (or "inspire") some of the likes of the above to produce a better product.

You haven't convinced me that the Bible is poorly written, just that you do not understand it. Also, please explain why it outsells all the books of the authors listed.

[Purple Knight]

That hardly works. God,knowing that His Word would be written in Hebrew would have arranged (like the Quran) for it to be delivered in the best written Hebrew ever, and for all I know, it is.

I assume that's not possible because we humans like to have ambiguity in our languages. And the first time we start calling a new thing by some name we already used for an old thing, no one, not even somebody hypothetically perfect, can talk about the old thing without leaving uncertainty as to whether he means the new thing.

[TRANSPONDER]

That hardly works. God,knowing that His Word would be written in Hebrew would have arranged (like the Quran) for it to be delivered in the best written Hebrew ever, and for all I know, it is.

I assume that's not possible because we humans like to have ambiguity in our languages. And the first time we start calling a new thing by some name we already used for an old thing, no one, not even somebody hypothetically perfect, can talk about the old thing without leaving uncertainty as to whether he means the new thing.

That doesn't seem to deal with the question. Whether the Bible is a beautifully - written as the Quran is (or claimed to be, and that seems to be accepted) or whether what it says or claims is reliable, which on examination, it isn't.

Ambiguity of language hardly addresses,let alone explains, this problem, which leave us (if so) that this is the work of men, not a god, and the claim that a god is somehow 'behind it' is no more valid than claiming that biology works naturally (for all we know of the mechanisms) and that a god is 'behind it' is no more than a faithclaim, And so is the claim of God 'inspiring' the writing of men, with all the faults, contradiction and stuff that is just wrong that makes up the Bible.

[Purple Knight]

That doesn't seem to deal with the question. Whether the Bible is a beautifully - written as the Quran is (or claimed to be, and that seems to be accepted) or whether what it says or claims is reliable, which on examination, it isn't.

It can't be.

[TRANSPONDER]

Well, I think so, too.But we know the arguments - histories, witness statements and even our own memories can be fullof errors, yet the things may well have happened.

I think Jesus did happen.I'm sure the old nations of Israel and Judah happened. It is the stories the accounts tell and the claims they make I think are unreliable, and that goes for Paul too. I don't know whether we should thank him for Christianity or not. Slavery aside (which Christianity did away with along with gladiatorial games) I am hard pressed o recall any benefits they brought that old Greco - Roman paganism wouldn't have done better., and Paul himself was a chancer, though I think his intentions were good - to have gentiles saved as well as Jews, when the End came.