> The bible is critical of the establishment

He doesn't really give many examples.

One of the big ones is the prophet Elijah confronting the king of Israel, Ahab. At that time the kingdom of Judah incorporated Jerusalem and the central temple of Yahweh. Jerusalem was outside of Israel. Also, Israel had tensions with neighbors that bordered it, but not Judah. So Ahab married a Phoenician. Elijah condemned Ahab for allying in a political, cultural and religious sense toward Phoenicia in the north, as opposed to Judah and Jerusalem in the south.

This is only challenging the establishment in a sense. With Jerusalem under Roman occupation, Jesus with a weapon in hand thew money changers out of the temple in Jerusalem.

This is being critical of the establishment, but only to some respect. If the establishment drifts away from reverence toward the temple to Yahweh in Jerusalem, there is much criticism. If it is reverent toward the temple, it is praised. Which one would expect from a religion with worship of Yahweh as its basis.

George W. Bush talked a lot about his relationship with this same god, and was praised by modern evangelicals. Obama has been attacked by Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Bill O'Reilly and many fundamentalist Christians as trying to replace Christianity with secular humanism. Google "Obama and secular humanism" if you want to see for yourself. This may be criticism of the establishment, but only to a respect. Its criticism of the establishment if it feels the establishment is being critical of Christianity.

> Biblical characters are deeply flawed

> Just look at king David. The king was confronted by a prophet for murder and adultery! Let this sink in. I cannot fathom how this story was not the first one to be wiped from public records or at least “smoothed over,” if not by David himself then by one of his descendants. If the Bible is in the service of the elite, how does this story benefit the elite?

Because it was written at a time that people would have known of these things. In Ronald Reagan's authorized biography, he initially did not want to mention he had been married and divorced. His biographer went to Nancy Reagan and told her how ridiculed he'd be if he did not at least mention his first marriage, and she persuaded him to include mention of it. It's the same thing - people would remember it.

Go to Youtube and look up "Trump anointed by God". You won't see one, but many fundamentalist Christians talking about Trump. How Trump cheated on his first wife, dumped her, married a younger woman, then dumped her and married a younger wife. How this goes against what they say. But it doesn't matter that he's "deeply flawed" because he has been divinely anointed or whatever.

It's the same thing then as now. Those videos could be shown 1000 years from now in the same sense. Everyone now knows what Trump has done, just like they knew way back then what David had done. It's the same thing.

> The Bible is heralded by a diverse group

His entire argument here makes even less sense than previous arguments.

> the Marxist mythological take on the Council of Nicaea, where supposedly the Catholic Church decided the books and the doctrines for the rest of Christians.

The council of Nicaea did decide the doctrines of all Christians who followed the council of Nicaea. There's a Nicene creed, most of which is a rebuke to various Christian ideas which were considered heretical, such as Arianism. It's true Christian groups exist which don't follow the Nicene creed, but the great masses of Christian churches founded from the year 325 on do follow the Nicene creed. OK, so perhaps there are some small churches in Uzbekistan and China that don't adhere to this creed. What he calls the "Marxist" attitude toward this is correct - most Christians follow the Nicene creed. The Catholic church does, Eastern Orthodox churches do, the Anglican church does, the Lutheran church does etc.

There were many Christian writings of that time. Some are considered canon, some are considered apocrypha. Which are considered which depends on the particular church.

Also, the first Christian gospel written was by Mark. It is the only gospel which does not mention at the end that Jesus was resurrected. In chapter 16 of Mark's gospel, the early versions of it don't mention that Jesus was resurrected. Later versions do have a resurrection mentioned. I won't go into it, you can read about Mark 16 elsewhere if you wish.

> What is it exactly that the Catholic Church changed? How did they manage to teleport all over Asia, collect all the books in languages they did not speak, and change them just right so that our copies today in our museums are in doctrinal matters practically identical? The charge that some group manipulated the text of the Bible for gain makes no sense.

Well I already mentioned Mark 16. When Shakespeare was 46 years old, the KJV was being translated. What is the 46th word of the KJV Psalm 46? Shake. What is the 46th word back in it? Spear. Coincidence, or a little joke done by translators? Who knows.

This argument is a straw man. I don't know of any Marxist texts which claim what he said. Perhaps some instructor he had had a vulgar Marxist take on it, or perhaps he remembers it wrong.

Of course the Catholic church couldn't teleport and change various texts. What it could do is decide what was canon and what was not. It could decide non-bible creeds like the Nicene creed (although that's not saying the creed is exclusively Catholic). It could decide that the gospel of Mark ends with a resurrection even if the original gospel Mark wrote didn't. The Catholic church didn't have to rewrite all documents everywhere, it just ignored the ones it didn't like and made canon what it did like.

The last claim is really a straw man claim. It muddles up a whole bunch of diverse things together, makes it into a straw man, then knocks it down.