Question for you Mrs.Smith, Humans walked the earth for millions of years before Jesus, the Bible, a book that was begun by the Jews is a wonder in the world to have survived to this day.
God was here when humans were created, and so was Christ. The Bible wasn't "begun by Jews," it began when God gave our history to Moses during the Exodus. It has survived to this day because it is the singly most reprinted book ever to exist on Earth. There are more complete and partial copies of the Bible than of all other ancient writings together.
The only records that exist perhaps even older then the Bible are the records of the Hindu faith that have never been completely translated as to the huge volume of texts.
My question is, if humanity separated by continents formed social rules to live by, what is a good or bad thing, how come BASIC guide lines are so much alike------ Do unto others as one wished to be treated, to the Kama idea of what goes around comes back to you. The theme is the same in all faiths, give an offering to the GODS, love them and be respectfull of them.
So much alike? Well, in some basic things, as CS Lewis pointed out...no culture respects cowardice, for example, but the religion and caste system of the Hindus bears very little resemblance to the monotheistic relationship of God's religion. But of course, taking our oldest recorded histories into full account, the entire population of the world today arose from Noah and his family, so the basic ideas of right and wrong, along with much of the basic knowledge of what denotes a true god, were known to all at one time. It's only when adults have neglected to properly educate their children (as our country is currently neglecting to do so) that basic knowledge like this becomes lost.
Then I have a question that no Christian faith has ever been able to answer. Why did Jesus need to be baptised by John the Baptist? Who was this John and why was he, a cousin of Jesus, doing this rite in the first place?
Jesus was baptised by John as a mark of His faith, just as we are baptised today. It does not wash away sin, but it does mark our intention to, or our action of, repent(ing). There are quite a number of prophesies that were fulfilled by the baptism of Christ by John, a sufficient reason for the act if you ignore any other.
What and why did these Jews decide that symbolically they could wash away their sin in a river before Jesus died?
Before Jesus died, Jewish sin was covered by sacrifice. However, the original covenant with Abraham was through faith, just as the New Covenant with Christ. Baptism is a symbol of that faith, of obedience, so does not "wash away" sin, it is just a demonstration of the faith.
The Vatican we know has many more books that are unreleased to the public, darn I would love to see all the chapters the world knows nothing about. In fact I have never read the Catholic Bible that has an extra chapter that the King James left out.
I'm sure you can find all kinds of other books in any library. The problem isn't that some were left out of the Bible, the problem is that even in Jesus day, men wrote down lies and heresies. What's the point of studying something that is not true?