Confessions of a Reformed BIBLiophile (continued)

I have always been open to hear and to read critical views about the Bible, so perhaps have been less rigid than some people of similar background. But my open-ness in this connection probably resulted from my being so strongly persuaded of my own view that I was always able to present defensive arguments to protect my basic beliefs. The problem, as the Spirit probed deeper, was to know what were indeed my basic beliefs and wherein they were rooted. Like many others facing doubts and questions I feared the possible consequences of questioning the Bible; take away that book and what have we got? Of course we have everything; as much as all those believers who lived before the scriptures were written and all those who never had the chance to read them for themselves, either because of their own illiteracy or because of political constraints. But that is the view of hindsight. So long as I felt that the Bible may have been the source of my faith then I was sure to worry about weakening its absolute authority. Discerning between revelation through the Bible and revelation from the Bible makes a big difference to one's feelings about it.

A book called "Jesus Before Christianity" (See Note 3) helped me to begin sorting out these questions in my mind. The exciting thing about that book, from the point of view of this "confession", is that it has helped me another stage on my journey towards getting the Bible into perspective. Albert Nolan, the book's author, disputes and questions considerable portions of the canonical gospel records, based on textual criticism, but uses the undoubtedly authentic passages that are left to present a powerful, faith-provoking image of Jesus. The Jesus he describes is not damaged by the removal of many well known, but disputed, sayings, events and images, but is even more admirable than before. Having so much comment within the narrative, and so many texts that veer towards overstatement, the Jesus of the four gospels can sometimes seem inaccessible. He can almost seem like God disguised as a human being. One can understand the popular Roman Catholic view that the Father and the Son are so lofty and unreachable that we need to turn to Mary for a listening ear. But the Jesus of the undisputed, fully corroborated (See Note 4) texts is totally human, but so successfully human that he makes it all look possible for us. Whilst he did not make an unambiguous claim to divinity, the solidness of his humanity leads us to believe in his divinity and makes divinity accessible to you and to me. From my perspective, if Jesus looks better from a criticised text, then I am safe to stop defending the Bible and to let it fight for itself. Truth bursts

//Continued