I was virtually a born-in Dub, as my mother was baptized when I was four or five; I was the Bible study of two separate long-suffering brothers in my home cong before I walked out, never getting baptized.
I absorbed all the teachings of the Witnesses, and always believed that the Bible was in some way the Word of God
Now I am re-reading ‘Living in Sin’, by John Shelby Spong.
Although at the time he wrote the book he was a bishop of the Episcopal Church, he states that the Bible, or at least the Hebrew Scriptures, was written by the Israelites using their imaginary God to explain their victories and defeats; to provide an explanation of their history.
I had always taken it for granted the God had chosen the Israelites to be his people: but maybe they chose God.
Why would the Creator of the universe choose an obscure tribe in the Middle East, leading them back and forth across the desert and in and out of captivity, interfering with everything they did; while totally ignoring everybody else living on the earth at that time?
A modern analogy would be God coming to earth and choosing the Brooklyn Dodgers as his chosen team and ignoring every other team, and coaching them so the Dodgers would always win.
What sort of petty, bored, lunatic bigoted God would do that?
Only an imaginary one.
Disclaimer:This was written after consuming too much black coffee & cigarettes: it may not be entirely factually correct.