@Greg:
If it is a 'real' 'Bible' then what information does it contain? Surely we cannot expect it to be the same as our own.
If the above is true, then is the 'Bible' something manufactured by WG to explain and/or hide the Blank Century?
Possible. Mariejoa is described as a Holy Land and I wouldn't put it past the World Government to create a religion to try and cast their ancient activities in a positive light.
If so, it's interesting that they would have a Skypiean/Blican (well, most likely as the person on the cover is wearing a robe) on the cover as such people don't seem to be common on the Grand Line… at least, not anywhere that we've seen. Further, it's a fairly rare group that the World Government would likely hold at least some antipathy towards.
The fact that the Shandians saw themselves as protectors of a Poneglyph would put them against the World Government and the World Government would be aware of their existence. Well, presumably, the forerunners of the World Government came into contact with them 800 years ago that is. The High Jayan civilization was destroyed at that time after all and that destruction was contemporaneous with the destruction of at least one more civilization (presuming, of course, that the legendary nation Clover was about to mention wasn't Shandia), which the World Government has been linked to. If nothing else, the destruction of Shandian 800 years ago is definitely in line with the standard operating procedure of the World Government, especially when Poneglyphs are involved.
Something doesn't add up; why would they use a figure from a group that would have caused them so much trouble (the High Jayan Shandians wouldn't have went without a fight, that's for damn sure, unless the later Shandians were made of far sterner stuff) as the focus of a religion? Unless, of course, the World Government thought that they had managed to exterminate all of the citizens of Jaya and thus are presenting them as martyrs who died to help the World Government against a currently unknown foe instead of being slaughtered by it for their assistance of said foe.
Odd though, the existence of winged people seems to have been well known at the time of Norland. If nothing else, the Lyneelians didn't seem surprised to discover a race of people with wings or were never shown to comment on it. Of course, that could also be simiply because Norland and his crew saw so many wonders in their time that nothing fazed them.
We can be fairly certain that the Bible been around for a while as the cover bears some similarities to the cover to the one seen in Lvneel centuries ago. If nothing else, both bear the Bible heading. The older version is mostly obscured, but also seems to have a robed figure on the front.
On the other hand, if the figure on that particular Bible had wings, then why didn't somebody react to the Shandians having them as well? Unless Norland constructed a crew where nobody was familiar with what is apparently the state religion of Lyneel.
Of course, the wings on the figure could be a later addition; the Lyneelian version lacks the corner wings seen in Bear's version. The Lyneelian version also seems more ornate, but that could stem from the fact that it was being carried by a state official. That or it's been revised since then, which would explain the addition of the wings.
So, to me, the biggest question about the Bible is: why is there a Skypiean/Shandian on the cover?
Is it really that important? If so, then why did it have two distinctly different covers? (see my Oda's Misses page)
I would chalk that up to Oda rethinking the cover; both covers feature a robed figure with sun rays emanating from behind them, but the second cover makes the rays secondary to the figure while the original version is dominated by the rays.
More than any other villain, what Oda intends to do with HIM is probably in my top 5 Great Mysteries of OP at the moment. Only because there's so much he could pull with him. The guy had like what? Two lines or something?
One actually… unless I missed one somewhere.
I do think that it's important than Doflamingo basically shut up and walked over to the table after Bear spoke up rather than continuing to mock Sengoku.