I saw how the Bible isn’t a book about how to get into heaven, it’s a library of poems and letters and stories about bringing heaven to earth now, about this world becoming more and more the place it should be. There is very, very little in the Bible about what happens when you die. That’s not what the writers were focused on. Their interest, again and again, is on how this world is arranged.

The Bible is a library of books reflecting how human beings have understood the divine. People at that time believed the gods were with them when they went to war and killed everyone in the village. What you’re reading is someone’s perspective that reflects the time and the place they lived in. It’s not God’s perspective — it’s theirs. And when they say it’s God’s perspective, what they’re telling you is their perspective on God’s perspective. Don’t confuse the two.

Since the Bible is a divine revelation, every single part of it is divine. Anything that comes from the divine could be no other way. Everything that comes from the divine goes down through the heavens all the way to people on earth. In heaven it is adapted to the wisdom of the angels there, and on earth it is adapted to the understanding of the people there. So the Bible has an inner, spiritual meaning for angels and an outer, material-level meaning for people on earth. That is why our connection to heaven happens through the Bible.

The Bible shows the way to go to heaven, not the way the heavens go.

The Bible, as a revelation from God, was not designed to give us all the information we might desire, nor to solve all the questions about which the human soul is perplexed, but to impart enough to be a safe guide to the haven of eternal rest.

The Bible is a book of faith, and a book of doctrine, and a book of morals, and a book of religion, of especial revelation from God.

The Bible is different from all other books; other books are written by man, but the Bible not only contains the sayings and commandments of God, but was also written entirely under divine inspiration. So we might say that it is God's book, which he gave to man to lead him to everlasting life.

To me, the Bible is a book. Important, no doubt, but a book.

The Bible is the one supreme source of revelation of the meaning of life, the nature of God and spiritual nature and need of men. It is the only guide of life which really leads the spirit in the way of peace and salvation.

The Bible is the Word of God. It leads people to a blessed and serene life, because put in God's hands.

I know that the Bible is a special kind of book, but I find it as seductive as any other. If I am not careful, I can begin to mistake the words on the page for the realities they describe. I can begin to love the dried ink marks on the page more than I love the encounters that gave rise to them. If I am not careful, I can decide that I am really much happier reading my Bible than I am entering into what God is doing in my own time and place, since shutting the book to go outside will involve the very great risk of taking part in stories that are still taking shape. Neither I nor anyone else knows how these stories will turn out, since at this point they involve more blood than ink. The whole purpose of the Bible, it seems to me, is to convince people to set the written word down in order to become living words in the world for God's sake. For me, this willing conversion of ink back to blood is the full substance of faith.

The Bible is one of the greatest blessings bestowed by God on the children of men. It has God for its Author, salvation for its end, and truth without any mixture for its matter. It is all pure, all sincere; nothing too much; nothing wanting!

You see, my friends, the bible is written by initiates in the ancient "Mysteries" and it has many levels available to initiates of advancing degrees. It is parable, allegory and myth, as well as prophecy, using an historical setting. Only for the credulous and those least capable of understanding are the tales meant to be taken literally and as a moral code.

We all have to face death sooner or later. And you are never prepared. I started reading the Bible at my father's bedside. Reading it, I did not regain my faith, but the more I think about it, the more hope comes to me. It is not only the sacred text of two religions, Christianity and Judaism, and a very important text for Islam as well. Especially in the part of Ezekiel, in the book of Wisdom, there are words of a beauty that send shivers down your spine. And, although it is true that the picture of man that comes out of the Bible is terrible, from fratricide to sexual violence, civil war, incest, there are also the roots of hope, of love, of resurrection.