By Michael Coogan, Special to CNN
October 26, 2010 -- Updated 1653 GMT (0053 HKT)
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Michael Coogan: Bible seen as unassailable divine authority, but it was written by men, not God
- Written over course of 1,000 years, each writer reflecting values of his day, he writes
- Much in Bible rejected: Slavery, women as property, pork as abomination, Coogan says
- Coogan: Bible's true timeless message is equal, even loving, treatment of all people
Editor's note: Michael Coogan is a lecturer on Hebrew Bible-Old Testament at Harvard Divinity School, professor of religious studies at Stonehill College, and director of publications for the Harvard Semitic Museum. Editor of "The New Oxford Annotated Bible," his most recent book is "God and Sex: What the Bible Really Says" (Twelve).
(CNN) -- When talking about so-called family values, pastors, popes, and politicians routinely quote the Bible as if it were an unassailable divine authority -- after all, they assume, God wrote the Bible, and therefore it is absolutely and literally true.
