One of the reasons that the Bible has survived is because it doesn’t have a single message; it contains a vast amount of text that people can cherry-pick from to support a wide range of different belief systems, all of which are called “Christianity”, yet have little in common. There are people who will declare that the Bible is “all true”, and yet will ignore what it says about wearing clothes of mixed cloth, or eating shellfish. There are even those who insist they are Christian and yet dismiss the historical truth of the physical resurrection of Christ, and even theism (such as Bishop Spong).

Look into the Bible and you can find something somewhere that backs your you own beliefs. That’s why it survives.

Posted: July 24th 2010

See all questions answered by Steve Zara

It’s not just the bible: most religions have been subject to attempts to suppress them at some time or other – normally by peddlers of alternative religions, it has to be said. But religious ideas survive because they are designed to survive: promise eternal bliss if you steadfastly believe, threaten eternal torment if you don’t, claim that resistance to persecution is to be especially rewarded in the hereafter, paint a picture of a life free from all suffering and pain after death, make sure you get these ideas firmly into children’s heads when they’re too young to challenge them too much, and Bob’s your uncle.

Besides, there haven’t been centuries of worldwide attempts to destroy the bible and its message. There have been sporadic attempts in specific places. One of the worst examples of an attempt to suppress the bible was in the persecution of those who wanted to translate it from Latin into English and thereby make it more accessible to the common people – but that persecution was done by the CHURCH authorities, not by anyone wanting to silence Christian teachings. In reality, far from trying to suppress Christianity and oppress its followers, most western countries have actively promoted it, from the time of the Emperor Constantine (who made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire) onwards. So Christian claims of persecution are vastly overstated: there have certainly been examples of it, but Christians over the ages have almost certainly been on the dishing-out end of persecution far more often than the receiving end of it (think Crusades, think Reformation, think Counter-Reformation, think Inquisition, think witchcraft trials, think Holocaust).

Religion was certainly discouraged behind the Iron Curtain in Europe (though not suppressed to the extent claimed by many Christians today: Stalin and the other leaders of the Soviet Union, as well as the leaders of the other countries in the Soviet bloc, all officially recognised a number of churches: in Romania, the state even paid the priests’ salaries), and since the demise of the Soviet bloc many people there have become more openly religious. But it is not just the bible they have turned to openly again – it is the full range of mysticism and superstition that was discouraged under the old regimes: belief in ghosts and the evil eye and curses and witchcraft and magic spells; astrology, spiritualism, ouija boards, crystals and all the rest of it. If you want to suggest that a resurgence of belief in something despite previous discouragement of it is a sign that there must be something in it, you’ll have to apply that to all these other forms of supernatural belief too.

Posted: July 23rd 2010

See all questions answered by Paula Kirby

Centuries’ worth of devout followers working tirelessly to protect and spread it, that’s both why and how.

There was never an actual worldwide attempt to ban the Bible with popular support, only ever localised efforts. You would need the whole world to turn against it at once to have a chance at stamping it out. That’s not happening anytime soon, since other religions and those of no religion are generally fine with keeping it around as a piece of literature.

Posted: July 19th 2010

See all questions answered by SmartLX

Probably for the same reason that the Quran, the Bhagavad Gita, the I Ching, the Epic of Gilgamesh, Beowulf, the writings of Shakespeare and the stand-up comedy of Lenny Bruce have survived worldwide attempts to destroy and ban their messages. Ideas are stubborn things: It’s very hard to kill them.

Posted: July 17th 2010

See all questions answered by Reed Braden