Kulindahr, in every rational enterprise, the quality of the data is examined and held to scrutiny, refined, examined for outliers or "noise" and so on.
To be fair, you have done this far more than most people in the Christian tent by reading and comparing translations, contextual documents, etc. In that regard, you may feel that your blithe assertions about it being "data" are well-justified and probably most of the people who are astonished at your use of the word "data" have not pored over it in the same detail that you have.
Yet it still seems astonishing to me - I still have the impression you have not ever deeply considered competing and contrary data, for example from other religious traditions, which must be accounted for. And because I do suspect you of researcher bias; you see what your heart desires to be true in the data. The mathematical elegance of some intuitive idea can guide the researcher in an avenue of enquiry, but it cannot substitute for a researched conclusion supported by evidence. And that's where I base my critique.
In your review of contextual documents, as noted above, you will have seen that the ancient peoples of the middle east had developed every concept known to machiavelli, and suffered, in the aggregate, from every delusion and confusion that can plague any crowd in any period of history.
The bible may be data, but I don't think it is evidence of divinity. It clearly isn't
necessarily evidence of divinity. The alternate hypotheses must be considered just as the data must be screened:
- Could it not be a collection of well-intentioned observations about human nature, given a veneer of imagined divinity by those who were trying to harness "Appeal to authority" to reinforce their teachings
- …combined with some confused and possibly delusional witnessing that would be explained in the modern era by conditions observable in a Functional MRI and resolved with the appropriate psychiatric treatment
- …or an accurate historical record of people's widely-held misconceptions - the History of Being Wrong - in the same way that we can read accurate and compelling accounts of Phrenology and its uses.
- …and, given the history of the established church, just some general tyrannical réalpolitique that served to enthral the population and keep them compliant and obedient to those overlords whose interests were thereby advanced.
