And that proves what? "People" will say anything and the opposite of anything. That has absolutely no relevance to the issue of truth. In science, you would not bother to refute a resurrection of the Ptolemaic system, even if "people" propose it vehemently. The life of Jesus is one of the best documented events in ancient history, and every attempt to discredit the sources has failed - this is my assessment as a historian whose specialist field is the explanation of ancient texts. As a matter of fact, it was my astonished discovery that the texts had all the hallmarks of reliable contemporary historical accounts - years after I had begun to familiarize myself with the analysis and explanation of texts - that brought me back to the Catholic Church. Tendentially, by mood, by natural pessimism, I would be an agnostic; it is the discipline of history that has made me a Christian.
Now, the life of Jesus is the central issue for any thinking Christian. The reason why the Old Testament is part of our Holy Scriptures is quite simply that Jesus claimed it as the grounds for His own teaching, as I pointed out here: http://community.livejournal.com/fpb_de_fide/456.html. Jesus became incarnate not just as any man, but as a Jew; and while His brand of messiah-ship disappointed all Jewish hopes - and was, indeed, all but incomprehensible to His own disciples, until after His resurrection - nonetheless it was as the realization of Jewish hopes, Jewish faith and Jewish prophecy that He cast and explained it. Everything about Jesus and about early Christianity is Jewish. If we believe that Jesus was God incarnate, then we have to accept that the Jews had a special relationship with the God of the universe, which He sealed by becoming incarnate as a Jew. This does not mean that we have to treat the many different books of the Bible as equally valid as history, or even as teaching; but it does mean that we have to see them as witness of the direct impact of the presence of God upon human minds. That is what, in my view, St.Paul meant when he said: "All Scripture is God-breathed, useful for teaching, rebuking and instilling right behaviour". If Paul meant, either that "All scripture" was literally true, or that it was all to be taken as dictated word by word by God, the second part of the sentence would be pretty disappointing, would it not? But what he means that all Scripture has been written in the presence of the spirit of God; not without a more or less generous admixture of human fallibility and limited human language. Anyone who treats Scripture - especially the Old Testament - as Muslims treat the Qur'an or Hindus the Vedas, as issued word by word from the mouth of the Creator, is not a Christian but an idolater, because the Word of God whom we worship is not the Bible but its subject, namely Jesus Christ.
no subject
Now, the life of Jesus is the central issue for any thinking Christian. The reason why the Old Testament is part of our Holy Scriptures is quite simply that Jesus claimed it as the grounds for His own teaching, as I pointed out here: http://community.livejournal.com/fpb_de_fide/456.html. Jesus became incarnate not just as any man, but as a Jew; and while His brand of messiah-ship disappointed all Jewish hopes - and was, indeed, all but incomprehensible to His own disciples, until after His resurrection - nonetheless it was as the realization of Jewish hopes, Jewish faith and Jewish prophecy that He cast and explained it. Everything about Jesus and about early Christianity is Jewish. If we believe that Jesus was God incarnate, then we have to accept that the Jews had a special relationship with the God of the universe, which He sealed by becoming incarnate as a Jew. This does not mean that we have to treat the many different books of the Bible as equally valid as history, or even as teaching; but it does mean that we have to see them as witness of the direct impact of the presence of God upon human minds. That is what, in my view, St.Paul meant when he said: "All Scripture is God-breathed, useful for teaching, rebuking and instilling right behaviour". If Paul meant, either that "All scripture" was literally true, or that it was all to be taken as dictated word by word by God, the second part of the sentence would be pretty disappointing, would it not? But what he means that all Scripture has been written in the presence of the spirit of God; not without a more or less generous admixture of human fallibility and limited human language. Anyone who treats Scripture - especially the Old Testament - as Muslims treat the Qur'an or Hindus the Vedas, as issued word by word from the mouth of the Creator, is not a Christian but an idolater, because the Word of God whom we worship is not the Bible but its subject, namely Jesus Christ.