From Debunking Christianity:
Tell us. What would you believe? THAT is the question. My claim is that biblical criticism is an undercutting defeater for what Christians believe such that without the Bible they would become agnostics and then afterward possibly atheists. At that point they would see the arguments for the existence of God as little more than a shell game.
How would you respond?
It’s pretty clear that what would become the core of the New Testament was being shared by the Apostles and their disciples from the day of Pentecost onwards – continuing in ‘The Apostles Doctrine’ was what marked Christians. It’s also clear that much of the books was written down and circulated (in letters, polemical writings, etc) far earlier than some modern scholars are comfortable with, so the real picture is a mosaic of communication through actual teaching, sharing of the message at a communal level and by the letters and other writings, including the Gospels themselves.
‘In the begining was the Bible, and the Bible was with God, and the Bible was God.’
The Bible is the manger for the Christ child. It is not God, but God is certainly there.
I left a comment over at Debunking Christianity, pointing out what Fred did, but also adding that Christianity came into existence and endured for decades without a New Testament, and existed for most of its history without there being Bibles in languages that most people could read.
James, my comment at DC was similar. The NT itself shows that the “word of God” was being spread orally at that time, and it was many years before the NT Cannon was assembled. Oral tradition obviously worked well for the first few centuries.
Ha! Christians have disregarded the Bible for hundreds of years.
Wait a minute. That’s probably not a good thing.