Quote:
Originally Posted by awareness
The Bible must not be "the word" spoken of in the 17th chapter of the 4th book of the NT (Tim's gold standard book).
|
I hope I have not given the impression that I consider the 4th gospel to be "the truth", so as to be the equivalent of divinely inspired 'words'.
As I have stated multiple times in my blog, when Mark and John agree on something, that is as close to the "truth" as one can hope to get. To state that I have found the truth would be a lie, for I do not have that assurance.
But I will state that I am pretty sure I am much closer to capturing the thoughts of the first generation of believers than the inerrancy enthusiasts.
To address Zeek's questions:
"where do I stop questioning?" seems to be what you are asking. It is a good question, and I do not discount it. To say I have not had thoughts along the lines of total annihilation of the gospels would be a lie as well.
But this is where faith comes in for me. I am not ready to become an agnostic. I see in Paul's epistles a gospel that makes sense (although I do not consider him completely without flaws). And Paul existed. Whether he was struck blind on the road or received his knowledge by other means is not that important to me. But he had it going on.
As far as history goes, I accept that the early Christians were forced to embellish the history with miracles in order to compete with the Greeks.
I don't think it was done necessarily intentionally by the authors. What we see is a record of oral statements made by those who claimed to speaking for the "Spirit". It was a gradual development based on one "white lie" compounded with the next.
We saw a similar progression in the "oneness" doctrine of the LC. Started off innocently enough, just wanted to be distinguished from poor Christianity. It evolved from there within a single generation into the extreme views of today.