Born and raised in a monolithic political party system I was taught that there is only one truth, and that truth is held, expounded and taught by the Communist Party. Needless to say, all the major events were interpreted through this narrow filter of truth and all dissenters were... well, either mocked, scoffed at, socially and politically ostracized or, if they were causing too much trouble and were perceived as a threat to "peace", sent on a very long vacation on a very small shrub-less island far, far away.
I was explained that 'we' are the good guys and everyone else, including the aforementioned dissenters are the bad, bad guys. No God. No soul. No eternity. Jesus? A myth. Some kind of ancient, irrelevant freak. Not worth wasting your time on it while you have more important things to do in building brotherhood and unity based on.... Hmmmm? Never went that deep into it...
These beacons of light and truth had their work cut out for them, for sure... Imagine trying to eradicate God out of all art... out of all literature... Imagine reading Dostoevsky while dismissing a possibility of the existence of God?!! Imagine looking at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and saying it's all a charade conjured up by the ignorant, uneducated masses. Of course, the implication is that those lowly 'they' are so very much unlike us, THE educated, THE enlightened, the pinnacle of Darwin's evolutionary ladder, the fittest to survive and consequently powerful enough to rule and make history according to our ingenious design!
However, there was no such 'ingenious design'. Just vaguely covered up greed, immorality, arrogance and abject stupidity exalted to positions of leadership and authority. Upheld by either bribery and manipulation or fear and intimidation. So we can all live happily ever after.
That was my 'historical' background before I met Jesus Christ and begun to read the Bible not as a random compilation of fairy tales, myths and legends but as a verifiable historical account.
Starting to read Bible as objective, specific, geographic, chronology of events - both personal and national, even global - was... well, eye opening, to say the least.
Think of the movie Sixth Sense.... If you've seen it, you'll know that the information revealed at the end of the movie changes everything, so you absolutely have to go back to the beginning and watch the entire movie again from the perspective of this new paradigm.
This is exactly how I felt once I realized that the Bible is a historical book, deeply rooted in specific times and places, real (perhaps maybe even too real for my taste!) people like you and me ... and most importantly, real, living, active, observant, passionate God who is not aloof, and not absent, and not impotent and mute and deaf, as some people think Him to be.
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