So are historical events. What I mean by the irrelevance of the history is that Christ's proclamations are true yesterday, today and tomorrow. They are timeless. They are irrelevant of the geographic location, culture or politics, and, yes, history too. Even factual history.
Why do you accept that Christ's proclamations in scriptures are absolutely true, but that the rest of the Bible is subject to and DOES suffer from grave error? If you believe this, why would God make sure Christ's statements are correct in His word, but not really care about the rest of it in terms of accuracy?
FK: Inconvenient elements of the story can be dropped without penalty.
Certainly that is true of anything. "Be merciful" can be ignored.
Not really, since the point is whether the historicity is correct or not. If it IS accepted as correct, then there is much less wiggle room spin-wise. But if it is rejected, then anything goes. There is the danger of rejecting the history that God gave us, anyone can make up anything, and who's to say it's any less credible than the myth of the Bible?
The Gospels are subject to errors too, FK. First, they were written by human beings years after the event, by memory. Second, half of the Gospel writers never witnessed Christ, but are borrowing narratives form those who have, writing down their memories. In fact, St. Justin Martyr (150 AD) refers to the Gospels as "Apostolic Memoirs." Does that tell you something?
Third, the Gospels differ in fine details, in numerology, and in sequence of events. Fourth, the original Gospels are lost; all we have are copies of copies by various scribes in dozens of versions, and hundreds of years after the originals. Fourth, we don't have a complete set of early manuscripts, but shreds with half a dozen verses here and there, by various authors and scribes, full of transcriptional errors, incomplete words, missing sentences, etc.
Sixth, the current version of the Gospels we use are based on the Byzantine-type text, dating back to the 5th century, 500 years after Christ died, which has been haevily redacted and edited to make it "smoother." That text is the basis for the Textus Receptus and ultimately just about all English language Bibles.
Now, as to why do I accept Christ's proclamations? Because I believe in them! I believe the Christian message of the Bible. I believe the moral message of the Gospels. I am convicted that if the world acted according to what the Gospels teach this world would be a much better place.
It is much better for people to love than to hate each other. That is an eternal truth that holds in China and in Iraq and in America, and will be true unto ages and ages.
I don't believe in books or golden calves, FK. I believe in the idea that the Gospels bring.
Kosta: Certainly that is true of anything. "Be merciful" can be ignored.
FK: Not really, since the point is whether the historicity is correct or not
There is no historicity in Truth, FK. Truth is transcendent. Historicity does not determine the truth.
If it IS accepted as correct, then there is much less wiggle room spin-wise. But if it is rejected, then anything goes. There is the danger of rejecting the history that God gave us, anyone can make up anything, and who's to say it's any less credible than the myth of the Bible?
That's because some people put their faith and "truth" into a golden calf or a book (bibilos), and as such it must be considered "perfect" no matter what or else the truth will evaporate from them. But if you believe in the idea, then historicity is irrelevant. If we believe that happiness trumps sadness, then historicity and geography and chronological order have no meaning whatsoever.