Isn't it hard to pick apart the entire Bible without having all the documents available that were once part of it? I am just asking because though I am no longer a Christian, I still find the Bible an interesting document especially the Old Testament. Knowing as I do that the Church (early Catholic) removed many documents from the Bible as a means of selectively educating the people in the manner that THEY wanted them to be taught, I find it difficult to take apart something that is not complete because it leaves me with more questions. Truly I see the value of it in some regard for if we don't know the true meaning of words and phrases then we will misinterpret them on top of adding our own misinterpretation which comes from the fact that I don't know a set of human beings yet who define words exactly the same. In fact, learning how another defines a word can go a long way to fixing conflict (sorry for the aside). Anyway, I guess what I want to know is how can "we" derive conclusions from something that is not complete, doesn't that leave us with assumptions?

LB