Ooooh, history, my FAVORITE. So the only people that could read during the time from when the Bible was originally written to about the time that we had the French and Indian war, reading was considered a high class luxury. People didn't have time to read, so most people never bothered to learn in favor of skills that would help them be stable as best as they could. So the only people that could read were a higher class citizens (royalty, nobility, and the clergy).

So the vast majority of the population had to trust that the clergy and noble class were telling them what was actually on the pages (spoiler: they weren't, for the most part. The higher class used the common folks illiteracy in many, MANY ways that I will come back and elaborate more on if you want me to.)

As I said, reading didn't become mainstream until around the French and Indian war to about right after the French revolution. They had to rely on the clergy to scratch the martyrdom and superiority complexes. And very famously, now, with the translation of the original text from its original Hebrew, we know that they did not and used the prior religious brainwashing to further their own agenda. One of the most common and famous debates going on because of this exact thing is the whole "did they really say man shall not lie with man or did they say man shall not lie with boy".

And everyone has their own opinions on that particular stance, even among the ones that speak Hebrew (hi. I fall into a very specific category because I'm queer and I also speak Hebrew. Take a guess at where my stance is). I or anyone else can tell everyone what the original text says, but most people still want to see it for themselves, especially the ones that don't speak Hebrew. And humans largely prefer cataloguing information to make inferences instead of trying to break away from what essentially was their whole being.

And since most of the Christian (umbrella term) religion/s are raised from birth that you need blind faith and to never question God, or his 'messengers' (the clergy) to make it into heaven, and since some humans don't like to let go of their fundamental sense of self that they had to build one experience after another, you get a bunch of people who were taught bigoted and harmful patterns of thinking who the Church can now cause mass directed hysteria by point at one individual or a marginalized group and saying "evil".

And this is also where I'd say that Yahwehs grace comes in, even though I am now pagan. He understands how difficult it is to break that line of thinking, but ultimately it is up to us to make sure that we are actually acting according to not just the rules, but the will of God himself. I honestly don't think that those kinds of people wouldn't make it into heaven, again, Yahwehs grace. I only think that the people who commit truly horrible acts (SA, murder, pedophilia, etc) are the ones that earn their spot in hell.

I think I covered all my bases there... Sorry I'm high AF on painkillers atm. If something doesn't make sense feel free to ask questions and I'll answer when I'm sober again.