In my last article a reader informed me of some points I did not cover, so here are my arguments for why

it appears that Christians “pick and choose” parts of the Bible to follow. The problem is that to those outside the
faith it appears we do not follow the faith to the letter of the law so to speak because we do not follow the rules
of the Old Testament. Here is my belief on why the Bible is the way it is.

Firstly I believe the Bible is what God wants it to be. Whether that is good or bad (in human terms), it is
written the way it is for a reason. I fully believe you must do a lot of research before buying a Bible because not
all interpretations are equal. For example the King James Version was reworded to be more poetic, and later
King Henry VIII changed it again so he could divorce his many wives. So as you can see which version one
reads greatly changes the particulars. Just take Genesis for example; there is a mistranslation in the first chapter.
The Webster Bible corrects it, it (Chapter 1, Verse 26) states "Let us make man after our image..." which
implies a multitude of gods or godly forms--fundamentally changing the nature of the religion. This however
has only been corrected once by Webster (a scholar of Hebrew) and has since been over looked.

All this is to say that one must read and understand which Bible they are using, who in the verse is
speaking, and which covenant you are in.

The Bible is broken into two covenants or pacts with God. The first covenant is the Old Testament (or
the Torah really) and is the ancient religion practiced by the Jewish people. It is brutal yes, but then again all
ancient religions were pretty brutal (that does not make it right I know, but it should help put it into
perspective). It was an oral tradition for nearly 1,000 years at least, but more likely much longer than that. Until
after Exodus the Jews finally wrote the first texts of their faith. So the first couple of books should be read with
a critical eye as it is the Jewish faith of at least 3,000 years ago (and then some).

The Christian faith actually does not appear till the new covenant with the death of Jesus (or Yeshu in
Hebrew) at around 20 A.D. That being said the new covenant is then the actual "rules" of Christianity; the Old
Testament has a long list of rules that over time became out dated. Take not eating pork for example, at the time
the technology needed to eat pork without getting a terrible little organism along with it that eats you from the
inside-out didn't exist. So these rules were given to the Jews as a way of protecting them. Then in the New
Testament Jesus breaks just about every rule that the Old Testament made outside of the Ten Commandments.
He worked on Sabbaths, spoke to women deemed socially unacceptable, and beat the crap out of some money
changers. The list just keeps going.

So I follow Jesus Christ (I am a "little Christ" or Christian). I cannot say that the Old Testament didn't
happen, and I know that many of the verses from there are misconstrued (usually for the selfish reasons) but I
cannot find a single account of cruelty, sexism, or elitism in the new covenant by God. Jesus professes love.
Like the night before he is to be crucified; he mends the sliced off ear of one of the men sent to arrest him.
Would you perform surgery on a guy trying to mug you?

Please let me know if I made any mistakes and what you think. I am not trying to make excuses for my
faith, but trying to help others understand it and how I follow it.