Rustic

I admire you for having the courage of your convictions and laying them out here.

I believe the bible is a book that should be used when studying the history of "the middle east" during the period 500BCE and (for want of a figure) 50-100CE. There is no doubt the bible contains factual material of the people, places and events of those times; there probably was a bloke named Jesus wandering around who had the ability to convince people that his "agenda" was the way to go (dare I say it - Adolph Hitler had similar abilities). But, as others have said above, the book itself has been translated and interpreted so many times, the "mystical" side needs to be taken with not just a grain of salt, but more with a "pillar" of salt.

Now, if you want to "theorise" about what actually happened, have a read of the books by Immanuel Velikovsky (Earth in Upheaval, Worlds in Collision, etc.). These books were written back in the 1950's and 99% of the worlds scientists dismissed his theories as preposterous and that he was just another crackpot. The difference with IV is that, thanks to the space programme, some, and I repeat SOME, of his outlandish predictions have now been proven correct.

Allan.

Just a note to Glypton - yes, unfortunately there are many recorded instances of people dying from eating oysters that are "off".