The Bible is a glorified history book.

As Christian raised turned Agnostic, I believe that the bible is a sort of mash up of history, politics, sociology experiment and fairy tale rolled all into one...

I do believe that Bible has teachings that are valuable and important, but I do not believe that a book, constructed (not written, but certainly edited) by men of power and wealth for the purpose of bringing an unruly population into submission is a book that we should be fighting wars or killing each other over...

There is much evidence to support ideas that the progenitors of the modern day bible were trying to criminalize and eradicate the mother goddess religions... to smear women and the power that they held in the land...

One need only look up the Book of Mary or the Book of Enoch, which were craftily left out to see the obvious smear campaign.

Also, though this may be an obvious point, there are things in the bible that are just unacceptable! Leviticus states that bad children should be stoned to death... The bible teaches meekness and empathy but clearly says that homosexuals should be murdered...

The bible is an excellent guide book, it has important ideas that should be shared and taken to heart, but it like most things shouldn't be taken that seriously.

Actually, scientists studying the human genome have identified what they call "the anthropological Eve". By studying mitochondrial DNA, which is only passed on by the mother and is present in all her children, including male children, they have concluded that all humans on earth possess the mitochondrial DNA passed down by no more than 27 ancient ancestors, or anthropological Eves.

Also note that God creates man in Genesis Chapter 1 but He doesn't create Adam until Genesis Chapter 2. Just think about it, see why Adam is a different man.

Now, is the Bible a history book? It contains some history, but God doesn't write ALL history in it. For the Bible to contain ALL history, including a detailed history of the universe, it would be so large and contain so many volumes... well, it could not be contained.

What you need to do is not to worry about how others use the Bible or what might be missing from it and concentrate on the only thing that matters, meeting God. If you know God, you will realize how little the ramblings of men matter. Only He is important.

Yes we are all related. As mentioned scientists two times at least conducted dna research on the mitochondria as well as the male chromosome finding that the first man and woman lived roughly 6,000 years ago. The apocrypha was written having supposed old testament writings yet that part of the bible was already complete and in circulation as we now have preserved bibles that do not contain the apocrypha. The Book of Enoch for example could not have been told before the flood and thousands of years later spring up from nowhere during the time of Jesus who does not mention such writings. The 66 books were written from beginning to end with no evidence of being handed down before its writing. Moses wrote the book of Genesis as an old man in the wilderness and could not have gotten his knowledge of origins from slaves. The bible is misused, true... if Satan can not stop it from being created then he must confuse it to have any hope in succeeding, for now at least. Literal use of the bible has (as evident from those in Jesus time on earth) has only exploited falsehood so I doubt any so called christians apply the words of the bible in any literal way. I have never had such an experience. How long was a day? It does not play an important role in the purpose of God so the bible does not say. The bible does speak of a thousand years as a day in His eyes. The bible history verified by the history books and the sciences... archeology, paleoanthropology, biology, geology etc.. Lastly, Jesus made it quite evident that only a persons figurative heart condition will allow the facts to speak for themselves and from that build faith.