Papacy built on pious fiction and forgery, part 1 J. Gresham Machen said, in his 1915 lecture "History and Faith," that "The student of the New Testament should be primarily an historian." And in fact, thanks to the last few centuries' worth of historical criticism, and a couple of “historical Jesus” quests, both the life of Jesus and the history of the New Testament have undergone a thorough historical examination, and in the process, have only had their historical reliability enhanced. On the other hand, what we've been told about the early papacy has fallen away like chaff. Instead...