Reply #: No, I don't believe in Jesus because of the Bible. [View All]

The Bible sits off to the side as a resource, or perhaps even as a source book; but my belief is not conditional on the Bible. It IS, as you say, conditional on the people who have gone before me keeping the tradition. Which is the same thing I said earlier when I said that I believe because I was raised in a Christian environment, and thus heard the stories and the traditions, and, while hearing them, they felt and rang true to my experience. But even if the Bible never existed, and we posit all other points of history remaining the same, I would still believe. And to posit the other side of that coin: if I had never heard of Jesus, and never heard of the Bible, and someone handed me one, I seriously doubt that the book alone would be enough to make me believe in Jesus.

And now to your question: Do I believe that Jesus was literally crucified on a cross? Yes, I do believe that. But do I believe it happened exactly as the Bible portrays it? No, of course not - the gospels have different tellings of that story, so it's impossible to have a literal Biblical belief in the crucifixion. But, as I said the post before this one, on a meta-level I can make the assumption that, however it REALLY happened, Jesus probably was, at least, crucified, somehow, in some manner, and for some real-world reason. And, for the believers, also a theological reason. But I have no idea if he actually was crucified. Hell, I have no idea if he even ever existed.

Now, lest you say this is ridiculous nitpicking on my end, I do believe that the distinction between "literal" and what I call "meta-level" is a radically important distinction.

Do I also literally believe the Bible when it says that Asherbanurpal and Nebuchednezzar and some other people existed? Sure I do, because we have sources outside the Bible showing that they did exist. That doesn't make me a Biblical literalist, nor does it imply that one MUST take at least some parts of the Bible literally in order to be a believer.

As I said in the post before this one: the Bible is full of truth, but very short on fact.

I look for the truth, not for literal fact.