Conspiracy: A secret plan by a group to carry out an illegal or harmful act; esp with political motivation.
I recently posted an article on conspiracy theories here, and one of the comments that I got from an individual with a colorful nym went as follows:
“The entire Bible story, or stories for that matter, are conspiracy theories.”
—Bond…James Bond
Not being a Bible expert, I asked Mr. Bond to elaborate, but so far, he has apparently been too busy chasing bad guys, and has not responded. What did he mean? That the writers of the books of the Bible were conspiracy theory believers? That doesn’t make sense. I decided I had to bite the bullet and do some poking around with Google. (I would not dignify it by calling it research.) I should explain that reading the Bible, or even reading about it, is like taking a sleeping pill for me. It’s a great cure for insomnia.
Amazing! The Science Channel actually ran a series of programs with the title “Biblical Conspiracies” in 2014. The first one titled “Nails of the Cross” was about two nails that supposedly were used to nail Jesus to the cross. They were found in the tomb of Caiaphas, the Jewish high priest who allegedly organized the plot to crucify Jesus. I suppose you could call that a conspiracy. The second, called “Secrets of the Crucifixion” theorizes that the depictions of Jesus on the Cross are all wrong. A third, “Bride of Jesus,” examines the possibility that Jesus was actually married to Mary Magdalene, had children, and that he was known by a different name. As one reviewer put it: “And this is what the Science Channel calls science; it’s kind of like thinking that Ice Road Truckers and Ax Men are history on the History Channel.”
Did the guys who put the Bible together conspire to change these stories for some sinister purpose? Sigh. Back to Google.
If you need help getting to sleep some night, click the following link and you can learn all about how religious authorities, through the centuries, winnowed out the thousands of ancient texts and selected the ones that now make up the Bible.
http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/bibleorigin.html
The main criterion seemed to be that they had to be consistent in telling the story the way they wanted it told. The Gospel of Thomas was rejected because he had some different ideas about Christ, one being that Jesus said women were denied salvation unless they somehow transformed themselves into men before they died. Apparently, that was not politically correct, even back then.
Does the deliberate attempt to suppress any dissent from the “party line” constitute a conspiracy? I don’t think so. It was clearly legal, and I don’t think it was a secret, even back then, more than a thousand years ago.
I am tired of Googling this crap. If anyone has anything of interest to add, please do so.
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