Wikipedia says that Bible characters are schizos.

According to Wikipedia, a 2012 paper suggested that characters from the Bible such as Abraham, Moses, Jesus & others may have had a history of grandiose delusions caused by schizophrenia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandiose_delusions#Schizophrenia

One whole point of religion in general is losing contact with reality.

As a theology nut, I'd be quite interested in reading that paper...I'm curious to know if it was a legit study from an actual academic source or just the Tumblr musings of a fedora-topped basement dweller between 'My Little Pony' fanfics.

Still, any independent research into profiling the mental health of persons who lived thousands of years ago based entirely on largely incomplete and unverified text which has been countlessly re-translated and re-worded throughout history shouldn't be taken with anything more than a grain of salt.

Pot & kettle, Wikipedia. Pot & kettle.

Skibz wrote:

As a theology nut

Theology or anthropology? Big difference there.

I reject all religions. They are all man-made.
I only follow Nicolas Cage, the one true god.

jaltesorensen wrote:

I only follow Nicolas Cage, the one true god.

That man's a national treasure.

If they heard voices in their heads telling them to do things, and God didn't do it... yeah, some kind of psychosis would be my guess.

Or they were simply making shit up. It happens.

Tetsuryu wrote:

Skibz wrote:

As a theology nut

Theology or anthropology? Big difference there.

Both, I guess. I used "theology" as an umbrella term, but I'm fascinated by pretty much any facet of Christianity: theology, anthropology, philosophy, history, sociology, etc.

They are saying the same thing in the upcoming Christian Bale movie "Exodus".
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/christian-bale-calls-moses-barbaric-743874

Makes me wonder why he signed up for the project at all if he holds the subject/character in such contempt...the biblical Moses was impulsive and hot-tempered (Heston's depiction in THE TEN COMMANDMENTS isn't that far off, despite the movie being ridiculous in other ways), and the Bible does illustrate these as flaws. If we read Exodus with the assumption that God is real, (one of) the moral(s) is that you don't have to be a perfect person to accomplish great things, God can still work through you (there's a lot of examples of this - King David, Jonah, St. Peter, Mary Magdalen etc.) On the assumption that God isn't real, Moses may have been schizophrenic, or, more likely, he used superstition and sometimes violence to keep the people he was leading in line. He was in charge of a massive tribe of people who had been enslaved and, prior to that, nomadic and was faced with the monumental task of making them an organized, self-contained culture. (Not that that justifies everything he did, just providing some context.)
Bale's comments make it sound like his performance isn't going to have much nuance. I don't know if I'll go see it or not, I suspect I'd be better off staying home and re-watching THE PRINCE OF EGYPT.