The Right Spin

So, I got my shipment of books from the History Book Club and I'm giddy about Lost Christianities and it's companion book Lost Scriptures. The former tells the story of how we came to have the modern Bible. In the second and third centuries A.D. there were many books floating around all of which believed to be holy and inspired by those who revered them. So, the "Church" of the ancient world was quite fractured. Eventually, it was decided that these books would be gathered and it would be decided which books were truly inspired and which were heresy. This was anything but a peaceful process. However, the end result was the Bible we have today... essentially. Protestant Bibles lack a number of books the Catholic Bible contains and the Greek Orthodox have even more books on top of that. The important thing being, even with the loss of these books (or excess of) these three factions still consider one another Christian. There is little theological friction between these divisions. All believe in the Trinity and the divinity of Yeshua, the virgin birth, forgiveness by grace and so on. The same could not be said of many "Christians" of the second and third centuries A.D. So attempts were made to remedy this which, as we can attest to today, eventually succeeded.

The latter book provides many copies of these exluded texts, some of which unavailable to the public.

Textual criticism of the Bible is a topic that facinates me. I believe that the Bible should be questioned and critically examined. God asks for faith but not blind faith. He gave us minds to use and to park it when it comes to the Bible seems unproductive to say the least. We don't have the unaltered word of God. The Bible did not suddenly appear out of the sky one day. It was written, interpreted and translated by man. Yet it is inspired by God. Because of this paradox (being wholly of man yet wholly of God) we must be critical of the Bible. If there were fierce battles over what was ispired scripture just two to three hundred years after the death of Yeshua why then are we afraid to do the same thing 2000 years after His death? Do not accept the Bible because your family, friends or Church tells you it's true. Accept it because you've looked at it and came to the decision yourself.