there is no unified "they" planning all sorts of control stuff and chuckling about illiteracy. people wrote what they perceived, what they speculated, what they thought MIGHT have happened, what they heard from people who heard from people who heard had happened. it got compiled and jumbled and much later got organized and edited, and yeah, those organizers and editors had political power on their minds, but that's not what was likely happening when the bible got written, piece by piece, by many people, over the course of time. it was part history (as it was understood at the time), part legend, part rulebook, part birth record (all those begattings are so boring, they HAVE to be based on something! no one would include them for effect!) most of this was probably purveyed orally long before anything got written down. it's a ridiculous book for modern people to take literally, and the rules and advice in it are not universally good either, but it was not likely to have been concocted with some horrible control plot in mind.

g

There are modern day cults whose followers believe equally crazy shit.. People are apparently very, very vulnerable ..or in need of concepts beyond reality… They refuse to admit such garbage isn’t true. Is reality really that painful?

They were all meant to be allegorical. The older stories were edited by fifth century BCE scribes who added well known symbols and symbolic numbers to insure there was no misunderstanding. It worked for a while. The problem is that if you don't want to spend a great deal of time decoding them all, you're better off not reading it at all. If you are going to listen to others talk about it make sure they're an atheist bible scholar or that at least a person who understands the symbols. Not too many people want to work that hard these days. I do though. I think the truth is fascinating, that includes knowing why people tell lies about the bible's actual meaning.