And. . ? What else?
Render to God what is God's! See, you leave out the context.
The context has been mentioned over and over in this thread. I'm trying to be less long-winded. The point is that the one thing we know that Jesus considered to be Caesar's is money for taxes. That's the question he was asked, and that's the guidance he gave. He also said to render to God what is God's, but didn't provide clear guidance for what that might be.
Seriously!? THAT is your hang up?
It's not a hang-up. I'm just pointing out the fact that the Bible doesn't hold together... not even through page two. That's the first of countless examples of self-contradiction, drastic stylistic and thematic changes, etc. It's an anthology of different myths told by a bunch of related tribes over the course of many centuries, all stuck together without a good editor.
1) The bible was written by more than one person. So TWO stories of creation are in no way contradictory.
That's a non sequitur. If you say today is Wednesday and I say it's Thursday, those two statements are contradictory, despite them coming from two different people. If you and I collaborate on a book and your chapter says it's immoral to eat meat and my chapter says it isn't immoral to eat meat, then the book is self-contradictory, again notwithstanding the fact the statements came from different sources. The fact the Bible was written by countless different people explains WHY it's contradictory, but it doesn't make those contradictions go away.
The bible was never meant to be read like a novel.
Clearly not. It's expected to be read like propaganda, and that's how most people read it..... picking and choosing the bits that they think they can use as weapons against others and shields for their own behaviors. I'm just saying that reading it like a novel makes you realize it doesn't hold together.
The gospels were NOT written by four guys named Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
Did someone suggest they were?
Me. The fact that you have two drastically mutually contradictory versions of that story, like so many others in the Bible, is a good guide for us in deciding how to treat the Bible. If it were scrupulously internally consistent, we might be more willing to see it as a fairly accurate recounting of real events (however embellished by imaginary magical flourishes). But the contradictions we see suggest that if there was some kernel of history there at some point, it's been hopelessly obscured by the imaginations of writers who were basically dreaming up historical fiction to grind political and cultural axes of their own.
How is your morality affected if Judas hanged himself vs. burst open in the middle of a field?
My morality is positively affected by the fact the Bible reveals itself to be bunk through such contradictions. By devaluing itself in that way, it clears room for people to think more seriously about morality, in an independent way that is driven by Reason, rather than imagining that some primitive ancient people already got the definitive word on it from an incarnated god, and preserved it in a sacred text.
I think you entered into the task of reading the bible not with seeking the truth
The reason I came to such different conclusions than you is that I honestly did come to the task of reading it as an effort to seek the truth. When you do that, you actually find the truth: that the Bible is similar to the Odyssey, the Iliad, Works and Days, Theogony, the Veda, the Eddas, and so on.... an interesting relic of a less enlightened time, which can be appreciated for poetry and pored over for distorted hints about history, but with no special claim on truth or morality relative to any of countless other ancient texts.
I think humanity is woven into the very fabric of the bible. Human flaws, human sin, human evil
Of course it is. It is 100% the product of the human imagination and the human understanding of human society and the world we humans live in, so of course humanity is woven through it. Again, the same could be said for the Odyssey, the Iliad, and so on. Humans can't help embedding our natures into everything we write.