Religious Discussion

[Brad Sallows]

If you adhere to the belief that the development of the entire body of scripture has been divinely guided, there is the simple answer to authority.  Even the discrepancies should be assumed to have purpose.

If you seek the historical rather than the divine Jesus, other writings dating from and shortly after his death would be useful.  I doubt there can ever be an authoritative accounting, or even necessarily an accurate concensus.  There can only be a balance of evidence.

 

[PeterLT]

Correct me if I misunderstood the question, but IMHO the Bible we know today is probably more of a reflection of what happened than the actual facts. The writings have been interpreted, re-interpreted and translated by many, many people of faith who sprinkled a bit of their own views in the text. This is not to say the Bible is not true or the lessons invalid, but only that it is a guide to events rather than an actual chronicle. Again, just my opinion.....

 

[Bert]

<"The writings have been interpreted, re-interpreted and translated by many, many people of faith
who sprinkled a bit of their own views in the text">

From my limited understanding, there are pre-70 AD duplicates of Apostle documents and writings (in Greek and Aramaic)
from biblical eras that are available today and can be compared. The controversial story of the dead sea scrolls is an example.  Multi-denominational scrutiny, research, and physical artifacts over the last two millenia suggest a high level of translational accuracy word for word.  However, the challenge has been over the understanding of the context of the writing and not necessarily the "writing" itself.
Post-70 AD pseudo-Christian documents to multi-denominational Christian religions suggest changing interpretations though
the "translation" and wording is the same.  Even written in clear English, using the same words, people derive different
understandings from the same document.

 

[brin11]

Just a note to everyone that the two religious threads were merged together.  Hope this is not too confusing.