The new atheists have it wrong. It’s not as the Bible goes, so goes Christianity. It’s as Jesus goes, so goes Christianity. Christians don’t take the Gospels seriously ‘because’ they are in the Bible. Those historical documents aren’t valuable ‘because’ they are in the Bible. These extraordinary historical documents that were written in the 1st century were eventually included in the Bible ‘because’ early Christians understood their value. They were considered valuable long before there ever was ‘the Bible’.
Christians don’t take the historical New Testament documents seriously because they're in the Bible, they’re in the Bible because early Christians considered them so valuable. Once, when everybody thought it was ‘game over’ after Jesus died…something happened ~ the resurrection…and it sparked trust and confidence in Jesus, and it started a movement that eventually brought us the Bible.
These documents were written in the 1st century, they were copied and collected, and they were widely distributed by the 3rd century. Then in the early 4th century, the Emperor Diocletian sponsored state-sanctioned persecution of the Christians, and they went from home to home, gathering to gathering, holy place to holy place…banning and burning as much of this historical Christian literature as possible…and people risked their lives for these historical documents because they considered them so valuable.
As Jesus goes, Christianity goes.
