Lots of people quote the Bible. Whenever someone needs justification for something they think or do, they just pull out "the book" and find a verse. I have a problem with this. Aside from the fact that you can find justification for anything and everything in the Bible, the biggest issue is the Bible is not a true account of the life of Jesus.
The majority of people in this country, both Christian and non-Christian alike, believe the Bible was written as it is published today - whole and complete. This is not so. The Bible is not really a "book" in the traditional sense, with chapters that are intended to be read from beginning to end, in sequence. The Bible is a compilation of individual books, each telling a different story from a different point of view. These books were never written to be combined with other books. Each was intended to stand alone, apart from anything else written at the time (or after). The earliest of these books was written at least 35 years after Jesus died by someone who didn't know Jesus. The rest were written later by the same type of people. In a couple cases, the later books used the first as a source, but changed key points. This explains why there are four separate stories of Jesus' life with different details and different conclusions.
The Bible was compiled over two hundred years after Jesus died. At the time there were many different Christian groups who claimed to be teaching what Jesus taught, even though most groups' teachings were diametrically opposed to each other. Eventually one group's views won out over the rest, and theirs are the views that are presented in the Bible. That doesn't mean their views were the "right" ones, just that their group was the one with the most power and influence. This group found books that supported their views, gathered them together, and declared them "holy writ." All the books supporting other views were outlawed and a great effort was made to destroy them. This effort failed, evidenced by the fact that over the last 100 years or so many of the books have been recovered.
Regardless of all this, even if the stories in the Bible were true, the circumstances at the time of their composition do not exist today. Any time someone quotes something from the Bible they are automatically quoting it out of context, simply because what exists today wasn't even dreamed of 2000 years ago. Some have gone so far as to try to adapt the Bible to current situations, but once that is done it isn't really the Bible anymore. It's a new book.
Most people today aren't interested in who Jesus really was. Thankfully, there are a few who are. These are the people who have dedicated their lives to reconstructing as best they can the historical evidence of Jesus' life. The most shocking thing to be discovered, in my opinion, is that the original documents used for the construction of the Bible are lost forever. We do not know, nor can we ever know, what the texts of that time period actually said. All that's left are copies. Copies made by scribes who often couldn't read or write, who were just copying what they saw on a page without comprehending what they were doing. Mistakes were inevitably made. Even when the scribes were literate, they would sometimes intentionally change words they thought better conveyed what the author actually meant. Something else that happened, which people today for the most part refuse to acknowledge, is that texts were altered because what was said didn't quite go along with what the "church fathers" had decided was the "official" view.
In the end, quoting from the Bible is like quoting from Mark Twain. It may sound good and support your point, but it is fiction nonetheless. My hope is that there will be more people who will seek the historical Jesus, and with future technological advances will be able to come closer to the truth.
