A book of parables important because it shows how people felt in those times. It is also important for scholars to study because you began to see the edits and where one story began elsewhere and was later edited to blend in somewhere else. Many of the gnostic versions versions show similar edits.
So many parts of the bible are thought to have been written by different monks or religious figures who were being supported by a wealthy patron. You will taken in your patron's beliefs and proclivities while putting down any translation, I'm sure.

The Bible is often what I quote or refer to when I want to make a point in an argument with a theist.

A fairy tale that makes a great fire starter

Considering our current level of deforestation it's a serious threat to the environment.
It's the Big Book of Contradictory Gibberish.
It's a waste of paper, ink, and time.
It's the opiate of the asses.

It's nowhere near the caliber of Harry Potter. It's poorly written; its plot is disjointed; and the characters are superficial. I don't feel any attachment to them. It's not even as well written as twilight.

To me the Bible is one of the worst things that ever happened to humanity and the world. Anthropocentricism screwed up everything. Placing humans as the center of God's universe is utter nonsense and consummate arrogance. It was a sad day for the unhuman animals when some goat herder or fisherman wrote that the humans have "dominion" over nature.

The Bible is the Big Book of Hebrew Fairy Tales with the Christian Zombie Jesus Addendum ?

It's a book, it's a badly written book, it's a book full of inaccuracies, it's an unreliable book, it's a book that wants to be taken seriously but can't, it is the best selling book in history if you add all the versions together but it is an anachronism.

To me it is nothing more than other books on my book shelf that I'll never pick up again.

A period piece written to keep the uneducated masses in check. A book used to brainwash people to behave in a cult like mentality. Not to mention a self righteous attitude. Well the list of transgressions that can be laid at the door in the name of Christianity would take days! The bible is really just a rule book ( albeit one open to differing interpretations ), followed by people who can't or won't open their minds ... blah blah blah. .. chuckles ... sorry I do get carried away!

A doorstop

Good parables

I don't have one in the house so i guess its not at all important to me. Im not hugely interested in it. I beleive there are many versions.
I'm a buddhist and we have many religious texts but we don't really do the ' It must be true because it says in the bible...' thing. In fact we often start a dhamma talk(kind of like a sermon) with the words 'Thus have I heard...' which is kind of a nod to the fallability of text

A waste of paper.

An almost useless contradiction

An elaborate work of fiction.

It is of no interest to me.

What we call the Christian bible is actually a "Frankenstein" creature of many parts and books of various times sewn together to make one big book that pretends to tell us everything from beginning to end. The problem is this just is not so. It is a collection of stories and not just one big story. It also contradicts itself if you take it as one big story. There was no first man or first woman, etc. No Egyptian captivity, no Exodus, no King David. Just no evidence for these things. They are just stories. Along came Saul of Tarsus a bit later and he almost single handedly created Christianity. He never met Jesus and he was not trusted by the disciples. In fact, in his wondrous visions he never even knew if he was "in or out of his body." Still, believers tell you that you just have to have faith. Many will tell you of the 500 people that Paul claimed saw the risen Jesus, but where is the proof of this? Did the 500 have "faith?"

A brainwashing tool.

The Christian Bible to me has always been akin to Aesop's Fables. It is merely a collection of tales from which to draw guidance. It is ultimately a means for man to maintain power over other men and has been used as such for centuries.

Much of the earlier books, what are called the Old Testament by most Christians, is the 2,500-3,000 year old recordation of an oral tradition going back about a thousand years before people wrote it down. So it's a lot of mythology and recitation of poetry (a great deal of it rhymed in the original language, to make it easier to remember) and I take that mythology the same way I do Greco-Roman or Egyptian mythology, as a window into a culture otherwise long gone, which may in some case be tall tales of events that may have had some resemblance in actual events. For instance, we can read about the adventures of King David, and it's not implausible that there really was a neolithic figure like David who was a king, or what we today would likely call a warlord.

The slightly more recent stuff are probably contemporaneous recordations of prophets, people who wandered in from the desert to deliver messages of moral and religious and political reform, responding to events of the day.

Much of the New Testament, the Gospels and the Acts, are basically retcons of the Pauline church, which was a splinter movement from a mystic cult that arose within Judaism in the 1st century BCE. Jesus was originally a "celestial being," like an angel, who was supposed to mystically appear and communicate with members of this cult; over time, he was morphed into the fulfillment of the Messiah myth which became politically prominent after Pompey brought Judea under Roman rule. So the cult retcons their celestial messenger into an earthly Messiah, and then Saul changes his name and starts re-retconning that to make it palatable to Gentiles. The other part of the cult, headed by James of Jerusalem, gets swamped out because there's way more Gentiles than Jews at that point in time.

Paul's Epistles are his attempt (with some help from others) to set out responses to theological, moral, cultural, and political challenges his followers faced. To give Paul credit where it's due, most (though not all) of the moral teachings in his school of Christianity are morally defensible. Which doesn't make it true that a man was tortured to death and then resurrected.

And the Book of Revelation is drug-addled nonsense, the recorded fever dreams of a third century CE religious fanatic under the influence of a powerful hallucinogen.

In 2000 years I can't see people being murdered, tortured, oppressed or forced to live in poverty whilst paying tithes to people living in luxury who are experts in Harry Potter tales.

The Bible is perhaps the most popular collection of fictional stories in the history of mankind.

Part Hebrew "history", part cultural moral strictures, and watered-down version of the Sumerian creation myths.

The Bible is a compilation of myths and stories. It is akin to the Chinese ??? (Classic of Mountains and Seas) written around 4 BC. I was not able to find an English translation online though I think are books in English. Wiki entry:
[en.wikipedia.org]

I tell people that Jesus was a Pagan Messiah, because he did practice a high level of science called magick, by ignorant lay people. The supernatural is not so 'super', at all. I know as I have experienced things that only few people believe. I am understanding and realizing the 'science' behind it - quantum physics, but Christianity is just a primitive culture who ooohs and aaaahs at these 'miracles'. Even though their messiah told them that they too would do them. I am with you Ceci, Harry Poitter is the Jesus of the modern age. You may like a few reads by Ralph Ellis where he and others have located a King at the time who is/was Jesus. The once and future king. I also believe that the character they call Merlin was the pagan version of the Christian messiah and that it is highly possible that Jesus and Merlin and King Arthur are one and the same? The more that I study and realize, the more this makes sense. 'The once and future King'. Hmph, that is what they say about J.C. after all. I also follow this path and I pull from any book or bible on the planet that I can draw a missing piece from to fit the historical records together. I do not believe that the bible is complete fiction, there is too much in it that makes sense, if one takes the time to understand it. Jesus was also a Yogi - and the Yogi's are well known for their magical abilities, he studied in India with the spiritual masters. Thanks for such a great post! I don't think that the character, or the name of the individual in question is accurate though.

Historical reference.