How about Just Jesus?

If they'd put out a bible that was just Jesus' sayings, I might toy with the suggestion of checking out a church based on such a tome. Because really, what use is the rest of that biblical commentary? If Jesus was the "Son of God," then I'd really rather hear what Jesus had to say and forget about all that other interpretive stuff.  There's a mythological text, "Q," which is supposed to be the basis for the gospels, and it would have, presumably, nothing but Jesus-sourced stuff, but no one has found "Q," and maybe it doesn't even exist. ("Q" stands for "Quelle" in German; it means "source." Since when did Germany have anything to do with the bible???)

Direct sourcing and the inherent errors of translation ... that's really my biggest gripe about it anyway! Did Paul really have a sense of what message he was supposed to be delivering? The man clearly had his own agenda, so just how much of his own spin did he put on it? One wonders.

Nevermind the errors that occurred in translating from the original languages! One would have to know the following languages in order to read all of the "books of the bible" (at least, insofar as the Nicene Councils wanted to include books -- oh, yeah, those dudes on the Councils were men, not sons of gods or anything fancy): Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic (which is basically a blend of Arabic and Hebrew), and Greek (which Jesus did not even speak -- he spoke Galilean, a dialect of Aramaic).

The Dead Sea Scrolls, which most people THINK is what the bible is based on, actually only contain the Hebrew canon, which modern day christians call "The Old Testament." OH, except NOT the Book of Ruth. Where did that one come from? Also, not all writings in the Dead Sea Scrolls are what is in the the bible -- prophecies by Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and Daniel, and psalms by David and Joshua are in the scrolls, BUT strangely didn't make it into the bible, according to the Nicean version, which is the modern day Westernized/"King James Version." Since dating on the scrolls puts them as written between 200 BCE and 68 ACE, it seems they certainly predate the Nicene Councils of 325 ACE and 787 ACE (read "300 years after Jesus supposedly lived"), and those little Nicene soirees gave us King James's contents, if not his special genius for mistranslation.

For "The New Testament," those were an amalgamation of various letters and written stories cobbled together from various folks, mainly Paul, Luke (who knew Paul and Mary, but not Jesus), Matthew and Mark (purportedly apostles of Jesus'), John (who was supposedly Jesus' favourite apostle -- does that seem a little too human, that the son of the creator would have a favourite?), and lots of mysteriously penned prophecy.

Bottom line? I can't in good conscience base my very precious life and sense of ethics on a muddled up, mish mash of ancient texts that have been winnowed down, out, rearranged, all of which contradict each other and CLEARLY bear the stamp of "Man's M.O." (M.O. means "modus operandi" in Latin). If they'd just left it as Just Jesus, I might have kept the title on that bill of goods.

As it is? Uh, thanks but no.