The sum and substance of the O'Reilly interview of the producers of the five-Sunday TV mini-series entitled “The Bible” beginning Sunday March 3rd on the History Chanel and culminating on Easter Sunday was to showcase O'Reilly’s own forthcoming book, “The Killing Of Jesus,” that complements his first two killing books, Lincoln and Kennedy. Publisher Henry Holt announced that O'Reilly will collaborate on the Killing Jesus book with Martin Dugard, his co-author for “Killing Lincoln” and “Killing Kennedy.”

The Lincoln book totally bypassed the point that the Civil War and its 640,000 casualties would not pass muster in today’s America that is apoplectic over the 6,400 casualties in the President George W. Bush wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Nor does it address the fact that England and other European countries ended slavery without a civil war.

Adding insult to injury, prior to the first assault, O'Reilly was FOR the Bush II Iraq preemptive “Shock and Awe” war and actually referred to preemptive opponents as traitors. Of course, that was before he was vehemently against the war, much after the fact, typical Monday Morning Quarterback.

O'Reilly has always been pompous while professing humility, and on his March 27th “show” wagged his finger at those viewers who might be inclined to impose their beliefs on others, but he does not hesitate to then do the very same thing he admonishes against. “Do as I say, not as I do,” is more anecdotal evidence of the machinations of the rich, famous, and powerful.

During that interview of husband and wife team Roma Downey and Mark Burnett, executive producers of “The Bible,” O'Reilly arrogantly proclaimed that “A lot of the Bible is allegorical,” then expanding that to as much as 50%, and that the New Testament Gospels contradict themselves. Of course, no explanation, proof, etc, only his uncompromising professorial dogma to counter accepted 2,000 year-old dogma.

O'Reilly condescendingly asked Downey: “When you say you’re a believer, do you believe in the Bible literally (including creationism)? I mean you believe that Adam and Eve were out there, and the snake and the apple and all of that business?”

O'Reilly touts himself as a former teacher and educator, inferring that he knows it all, but the bare-bones reality is that Bible story or not, there had to be a creation which in turn requires the existence of a first set of parents, and what difference do their names Adam and Eve or something else make?

Pure initial evolution cannot be proven since if that were true, there would not be the need for male and female sexes for procreation, and in fact initial evolution once begun, would continue ad infinitum, certainly not the case as it has never happened again.

As far as the “Forbidden Fruit,” the Bible admonishes Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit of the “Forbidden Tree,” and the original word “Apple” was a generic term for many different kinds of fruit. As to time and the age of the earth etc, the Bible states that to God, a 1,000 years is LIKE a day, and a day is LIKE a thousand years, not an exact comparison. When God refers to a day, is it a 24-hour earth day, or a still undetermined length of a universe day that some astrologists peg at up to 2.4 Billion years; and curiously that conforms closely with the best scientific determination of the age of the earth.

O'Reilly relentlessly ploughed on, “Are you telling people that they should believe in Adam and Eve? That they should believe in Noah’s Ark? Jonah and the whale? Are you telling people that this is the way to go?” O'Reilly further contends that a lot of the Bible is allegorical and the New Testament Gospels contain contradictions.

The pretentious one set up the proverbial straw-man arguments that he proceeded to dismantle, but his take is fiction, since there may certainly be some literary license taken in a ten hour TV mini-series, those criticisms can in no way be used against the actual Bible itself.

For instance, O'Reilly said the trailer for the series depicts three wise men presenting their gifts to baby Jesus the night the Savior was born and put in a manger in Bethlehem. But according to the Gospels of Luke and Matthew, no wise men were in attendance the night Jesus was born. Only shepherds were recorded as being present, having been invited by angels to see the baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.

The famous wise men or Magi, however many there actually were, or the exact precise age of Jesus when they arrived in Bethlehem to present their gifts to Jesus is not critical information to the truth. The Bible and Jewish tradition did not so-much celebrate birthdays, but three gifts were mentioned and the logical inference is that there were three donors so what is O'Reilly’s real problem here?

O'Reilly never elaborated on the contradictions he alleges exist in the New Testament, but he did predict secular media would be critical of “The Bible” mini-series. That is a given, considering the extreme liberal bent of the secular media, so what else is new?

O'Reilly resorted back to salesman again as he does at the end of each of his “Factor” TV programs when ala boardwalk pitchman Ed McMahon, O'Reilly pitches his personal web-site and his many wares in the fashion of his current unmitigated promotion for his own forthcoming book, “The Killing of Jesus,” that can be read in the original version called the Bible.

Too bad the four evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John did not submit to a scathing critical O'Reilly interviews and analysis before they had the temerity to put the Gospels into being, and maybe according to O'Reilly they should have called the Gospels, “The Killing of The Truth,” which truth-be-told, is actually true.

O'Reilly did not stop there but expounded, “And then it’s my job and Martin Dugard, my co-author, to cut through the contradictions and to try to give a narrative of what actually happened to Jesus, because he was executed.”

NOTE: The critical study of Jesus has been going on for 2,000 years by the most famous scholars, historians, theologians, philosophers, and students in the world, so how will the great O'Reilly get to the bottom of it all when he even got Lincoln wrong?