The Bible is not a reliable guide to Christs teachings. Mark, the oldest of the Gospels, was written at least 30 years after Christs death, and the newest of them might have been written more than 200 years after his death. These texts have been amended, translated, and re- translated so often that its extremely difficult to gauge the accuracy of current editions—even aside from the matter of the accuracy of texts written decades or centuries after the death of their subject. This is such a problem that the Jesus Seminar, a colloquium of over 200 Protestant Gospel scholars mostly employed at religious colleges and seminaries, undertook in 1985 a multi-year investigation into the historicity of the statements and deeds attributed to Jesus in the New Testament. They concluded that only 18% of the statements and 16% of the deeds attributed to Jesus had a high likelihood of being historically accurate. So, in a very real sense fundamentalists—who claim to believe in the literal truth of the Bible—are not followers of Jesus Christ; rather, they are followers of those who, decades or centuries later, put words in his mouth.
Posted on: Sun, 28 Dec 2014 09:55:48 +0000
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