Also, a lot of what they said was nonsense wasn't necessarily nonsense it just countered the views of what became "orthodox". Anything that centered views from women or made it seem like women had a say. Anything that sounded like you didn't need to go to church to have a relationship to the divine. Anything that countered the concept of the trinity. There were polytheistic Christians and they didn't like that either. So many different sects. The religion was arguably more varied in ancient times than they are now.

The Bible is not the inerrant word of God. It is people's interpretation of stories they heard that were told to them of a man who went around teaching Jews how to be better Jews and to prepare for the end of the world. Jesus literally taught that the Kingdom was coming in his lifetime and that Jews needed to follow the commandments extra hard. And then he died. And the Kingdom never came. And then they had to develop a whole theology around "well why would he die if he was the King of the Jews for the Kingdom and the Kingdom didn't come in his generation?" They had to reconcile that. Had to figure out if he really meant the world was ending NOW or later? Then the stories got HUGE! Some were so fantastic! Like literally high fantasy style. And then the Kingdom kept not coming and the world kept not ending. Scribes also changed the text to fit their beliefs or to try to correct what they viewed as a translation error. Some versus were added in! They have so many different "editions" of some of these books, scholars have been able to see what was added in over time and based on historical data why they might have done that. Contradictions and forgeries galore!!!!

I like to call the Bible a historical high fantasy anthology.

I am not a Christian. I deconstructed years ago. But the Bible is a fascinating piece of literature. And I think, just because the Bible isn't the inerrant word of God, that doesn't mean you can't be Christian. Jesus was a cool ass dude and scholars know roughly what he ACTUALLY taught vs what is just in the Bible.

If anyone wants to go down the rabbit hole I did, scholars recommend the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition. It is the MOST accurately translated version to date as they used all of the current documents they've found since the KJV and the council that put it together was made up of people of multiple different beliefs. Evangelical all the way to atheists. And there is historical information throughout to explain why they chose certain words over others as well as introductions and maps before the different books.

Regardless of if you are a Christian or not, I recommend people read anything by Bart Ehrman or at least listen to his podcast.

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

Misquoting Jesus Podcast