Off Topic — HabitableZone

Off Topic » in reply to They did leave out several gospels that did not agree quite so much, though.

Not so Nicea
ER — (archived)

Not only that, there are severe problems with the use of the Gospels as documentary evidence.

They have been selectively chosen and edited by subsequent theologians with axes of their own to grind. The canon was agreed upon by compromise in the third century by a bureaucratic process quite similar to a modern political party hammering out a platform.Their authorship is in question (at least one, possibly others, isn't even signed; it was attributed by tradition).

None of them can be proven to be written by a someone who knew Jesus, or even by a contemporary. And none were written during his lifetime. None even claim to have interviewed an eyewitness to Jesus. They contain both contradictions and repetitions, which hint at anthologization from earlier documents. And none is corroborated by non-Christian sources. In fact, The earliest non-Christian reports of Christianity are from writers who were only familiar with the established Christian churches (there were already several competing sects). If you look at scholars and theologians who study these things, the further you get away, ideologically, from fundamentalist literal interpreters of Scripture, the more shaky the sources appear.

There's no doubt Jesus existed, and the gospels do give some insight into his times, but his divinity is certainly questionable. Even if he was indeed the son of god, you can't tell it from the evidence. And the people who are most qualified to answer any of these questions, the Jews, don't accept that divinity, although they certainly honor the man. The New Testament is no better a source of evidence than the Koran, the Bhagavad-Gita or the Book of Mormon.

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