Please, let me try to suggest for you a very simple way to distinguish history from religious beliefs.
***FReepers will note that JoeK couldn’t even distinguish between a historical observation and a religious belief RIGHT ON THIS THREAD.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3069049/posts?page=1864#1864
If in your analysis you are considering all the data available (i.e., Stauffer, CS Lewis, Buell, Stroebel, Hyder, Ramsay, McDowell ‘s work), trying to explain any discrepancies, and largely letting the data speak for itself, that is history.
***I would say the same thing to you, and have inserted just a few of the authors with whom you should become acquainted.
If you begin with a pre-conceived idea — i.e., “Jesus is God” — and then mine the data for “proof texts” to support your theology, that is religious belief.
***Right. And you Mr. Heretic have demonstrated exactly that, right on this thread.
This certainly does not mean that all “history” is right and all “religious beliefs” wrong.
***More POTO so that you can look like you are familiar with historical arguments, but it increasingly is looking like pablum from a heretic.
But it does suggest that these are different ways of understanding, each appropriate to different circumstances.
***Denial of Christ’s divinity is heresy, no matter how you pretty up the arguments.
But your repeated claims that I have denied the New Testament's statements about Jesus are first lies, and second have nothing to do with history.
My views on this are essentially the same as our Founders, and I don't think they would like you much, Kevmo.
You're not a nice person.