By CJ Werleman
Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly defended the Republican Party’s
spending cuts for SNAP by effectively declaring Jesus would not support
food stamps for the poor because most them are drug addicts. If his
insensitive remark is inconsistent with Scripture, which it is, then the
question becomes why do talking heads on the right get away with
proclaiming what Jesus would or wouldn’t support?
The answer is simple: Conservatives have not read the Bible.
The Right has successfully re-branded Jesus, a brown-skinned
liberal Jew, who gave away free "healthcare" (healed people) and was pro-redistributing
wealth, into a white-skinned, trickledown, union-busting conservative,
for the very fact that an overwhelming number of Americans are
astonishingly illiterate when it comes to understanding the Bible. On
hot-button social issues, from same-sex marriage to abortion, biblical
passages are invoked without any real understanding of the context or
true meaning. It’s surprising how little Christians know of what is
still the most popular book to ever grace the American continent.
More than 95 percent of U.S. households own at least one
copy of the Bible. So how much do Americans know of the book that
one-third of the country believes to be literally true? Apparently, very
little, according to data from the Barna Research group.
WHAT THE SURVEYS REVEALED: Surveys show
that 60 percent can’t name more than five of the Ten Commandments; 12
percent of adults think Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife; and nearly 50
percent of high school seniors think Sodom and Gomorrah were a married
couple. A Gallup poll shows 50 percent of Americans can’t name the first
book of the Bible, while roughly 82 percent believe “God helps those
who help themselves” is a biblical verse.
So, if Americans get an F in the basic fundamentals of the
Bible, what hope do they have in knowing what Jesus would say about
labor unions, taxes on the rich, universal healthcare, and food stamps?
It becomes easy to spread a lie when no one knows what the truth is.
The truth, whether Republicans like it or not, is not only
that Jesus a meek and mild liberal Jew who spoke softly in parables and
metaphors, but conservatives were the ones who had him killed.
Knowing the Bible requires a scholarly contextual understanding of authorship, history and interpretation.
For instance, when Republicans were justifying their cuts
to the food stamp program, they quoted 2 Thessalonians: “Anyone
unwilling to work should not eat.” One poll showed that more than 90
percent of Christians believe this New Testament quote is attributed to
Jesus. It’s not. This was taken from a letter written by Paul to his
church in Thessalonica. Paul wrote to this specific congregation to
remind them that if they didn't help build the church in Thessalonica,
they wouldn’t be paid. The letter also happens to be a fraud. Surprise!
Biblical scholars agree it’s a forgery written by someone pretending to
be Paul.
So, who were the gospel writers? The short answer is we don’t know. What
we do know is that not only had none of them met Jesus, but also they
never met the people who had allegedly met Jesus. All we have is a bunch
of campfire stories from people who were born generations after Jesus’
supposed crucifixion. In other words, numerous unidentified authors,
each with his own theological and ideological motives for writing what
they wrote. Thus we have not a single independently verifiable
eyewitness account of Jesus. SADLY, but this doesn’t stop Republicans from speaking on his behalf.
Full article: http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/right-wing-filled-biblical-illiterates?page=0%2C1
