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[Teenager]

What I mean by that is was the Bible written in favour of people's views in the era it was written? For example, slavery was a common and normal thing in "biblical times", so the Bible also says it's okay (Leviticus 25:45). Two men getting together in a real relationship was seen as weird, so the Bible as well says it's weird (Leviticus 20:13). Men were seen as superior and more important than women at the time, so the Bible, too, says they're better than women (1 Timothy 2:12) (etc).

I think these verses (and the ones I didn't mention) show that the Bible needs a bit of an update.

[jimwalton]

There is no doubt that the Bible was written in a cultural context and that the authors used vocabulary and concepts that were part of their culture. We do the same thing; it's impossible not to. So did the writers of the Bible write in their cultural river? Of course they did.

So it depends what you mean by "bias."

> slavery was a common

Slavery was a normal thing in biblical times, but most slavery was debt slavery (similar to our cultural concept of employment). It wasn't chattel slavery. There's actually no evidence of chattel slavery in ancient Israel. The verse you mention is the ONLY verse in the 23,145 verses of the OT that even hints of chattel slavery, but there are other ways to understand this verse than a shallow English reading. We are not to think of ancient Israel as endorsing chattel slavery.

> Homosexuality

Two men getting together in the ancient Near East was OK in certain ways in many of the surrounding countries. Israel forbade it. The text doesn't tell us why, so we can't know that. But we are not to perceive their condemnation of homosexuality as an example of bias, any more than our country's acceptance of it in our era is also the bias of our era.

> Men were seen as superior

They were not. This is not true. It was a patriarchal society, without question, but that doesn't mean men were seen as superior, especially in Israel. The Bible actually gives women status and rights uncommon in the ancient world.

> 1 Timothy 2.12

This doesn't claim that men are better than women. In other contexts, women are allowed to speak (1 Cor. 11). This was a teaching to that particular church for that particular time because of a problem they were having.

[Aviator]

> This doesn't claim that men are better than women. In other contexts, women are allowed to speak (1 Cor. 11). This was a teaching to that particular church for that particular time because of a problem they were having.

EXACTLY! Many people take this verse out of context to show that the Bible is hate speech but if you look at the context and the fact that the church was having problems with the women disrupting the services, you can see that Paul was just instructing Timothy on how to deal with it.

[jimwalton]

Yes, exactly, as you say. The problem is that so many accusers read with bias. They need to look for what is there, not for what they want to be there.