Is It True That Most Of The Bible Is Not Historically Sound?

[chosendarkness]

I don't doubt there was a real Jesus person, but the rest of this "history" is part of the fabric of myth-making for the sake of the movement's self-validation.

I think that's a very big part of it. I've experienced how Christians think, and self-validation by creating myths out of their imagination and believing them happened alot. It's so tempting to want to believe you have the secret 'answer' and are special.

[Antlerman]

I don't doubt there was a real Jesus person, but the rest of this "history" is part of the fabric of myth-making for the sake of the movement's self-validation.

I think that's a very big part of it. I've experienced how Christians think, and self-validation by creating myths out of their imagination and believing them happened alot. It's so tempting to want to believe you have the secret 'answer' and are special.

Absolutely. I think of all the miracle testimonies (take the canonization of saints in Catholicism for instance), the supernatural signs people claim as proof of their faith, etc. What happens is that the ones that have the most legs, that get spread around the best because they fill the bill for the group get built into their group's mythology. Mythmaking is about the group, and it's not limited to religious contexts either when you think about myths like the American Dream and Patriotism.

 

Orthodox Christianity is simply a gathering of various Christian group's myths tailored and crafted into a universal or "catholic" myth. They were the more popular myths of those available that the bishops could get the greatest mileage from, the ones that the most people could most easily adopt and make use of as part of the group. Never mind of course for deeper content, as deeper never goes along with widest appeal, as a matter of rule. Think of it in terms of a pyramid. The shallowest depth has the greatest span, the greatest depth at the top has the least base distribution, but includes everything below it. Most people just want easy hooks, easy access, and that's what the vehicle of mass-appeal myths brings - whether that's religious or secular. Miracle healing, miracle weight-loss, signs of an angle, get rich quick, etc.

 

A point the majority of Christians, particularly the Protestant ones just assume by default is a myth that is layered into the Bible that remains invisible for the most part. That's the myth of Apostolic Succession. It's a much later crafted myth that Jesus came to earth miraculously with a message from on High, taught his disciples, who then now had the authority of the message directly from Jesus, who then just happened to teach those directly to their disciples, the early bishops of the Proto-orthodox Church! That does not in any way fit what is found on the ground, so to speak, which was there were a great many varieties of Christianities making a name for themselves all at the same time. The Proto-orthodox church created that myth of Apostolic succession to give themselves the authority over their competitors, including many within their own churches who had different views than them, all under the belief it was serving the greater good.

 

The great irony is that the Protestant churches still adopt this myth that created the Catholic Church, while rejecting the Papacy which is founded directly upon that myth! It's all rather silly if you stop to think about it. If they are really after what Jesus taught, then they should blow a hole straight through Orthodoxy itself, rather than be in essence not anything different that Catholics. They should take the Nag Hamadi scriptures and use them right alongside their Bibles, rather than just getting rid of Mary, the Saints, and the Pope. That's just cosmetic. They are in fact born of Mother Rome and are her children. Ironic they scoff at their own Mother as they like to do.