Why do so many Christians continue to take the "one infallible book" approach to understanding Jesus?

It is written that all scripture is good for edifiing ones self & for maturing in Christ.

But the New Testiment is to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, Son & Holy Ghost. And 'disciple' meanst 'student' of the Words of Christ. The Gospel, the Word of the Kingdom of God. And we find that in the Holy Bible. God is the same yesterday, today & tomorrow. God holds His Word above His own Name. When we find a Word supporting our petition, we have found the assurance we need to receive. We claim His Word & have victory in our life.

This isn't that easy to do. We need to be born of God, where we are sealed of the Holy Spirit (Comforter, Spirit of Truth, etc.)

1Jn2:27 But the anointing that ye have received of Him abides in you & ye need not tht anyone teach you: but as the same anointing teaches you of all things, & is truth & is no lie, & even as He has taught you, ye shall abide in Him.

The Holy Spirit gives us confirmation of all things the Lord has said. So the Holy Spirit will bring to mind what the Lord has said either from the Pastor or from a sister or brother in Christ, or even your enemy, or even from the Holy Bible, or even from the testimony from another persons who God healed, etc... The Holy Spirit doesn't ever contradict the Bible. And the Holy Spirit has even led me to toss in the garbage the Book of Mormon or the Book of Apochryphal. Because the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth & is One Spirit. And Jesus hates false gospels trying to sneak into the Churches. Read Revelation - to the 7 Churches.

The devil is behind false gospels. The truth is written in them, but then the twisted truth (deception). That leads people away from Gods Amazing Grace & away from True Salvation.

Now we are suppose to obey the Holy Spirit above the written letter. If you were about to aboard a plane & the Holy Spirit told you to not get on it & to toss your tickets. What would you do? Would you claim a scripture that God would send us Angels to protect us & get on the plane? Or would you obey the Holy Spirit? It is best to obey the Holy Spirit. I have heard of a man that did this, obeyed & didn't get on the plane, & the plane went down.

I have also heard of man who stopped before the bridge in Michigan went down. The cars were honking & drivers were getting road rage. Some sped past him. But they went down with the bridge. God had told him to stop in the middle of traffic. Afterward, the people went to thank him.

The Bible was not written as the events happened. It is filled with interpretations. It is not an infallible book. We read the bible to show us a deeper truth and this truth is as varied as we are. You can not compare the Bible to a text book like a math book or a history or biology book. The more we are learning about how society was when the bible was written, the more we discover the thought patterns and customs of the people, the more we understand how difficult it is to put our present day mentality unto the shoulders of the writers of the bible. Facts change. God's revelation continues and the understanding of this Revelation continues to develop with each new age. Perhaps the mistake is in those who take the Bible literally without understanding how, when and where and for whom it was written.

I totally agree with you. Your question deserves a star. :-)

One thing that I learn is never believe everything you hear and only half of what you see. Is it wise to say that we have all the answers to life's riddles or better to say the more you learn, the less you know?

It sounds like a paradox what I just said. I'm not saying that ignorance is bliss but that sometimes when we think we have all we need to know about God is in the Bible, I think that is a big mistake. Because the Bible has been tampered with by the Roman Catholic church centuries ago and other Christian denominations to control people, while forgetting the true essence of God and Christ.

And because of this(and I apologise if I seem judgemental or arrogant when I say this) I feel that many Christians and Atheist or limited in their thinking.

None of us know how many books have been omited from the Bible, so the high powers could stay in power, while spreading fear to the masses and mind control them. This perversion of controling the masses has lasted over 6 thousand years, and will continue till the end of time. Egyptians, Greeks, Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus and even Atheist are guilty of this. Not all, but some, whether through religion, philosophy or ideologies that got millions of people brainwashed and killed.

For milleniums, we have been told what to believe and not believe, what hope must we cling on and what fears are real or made up, do our lives have a destiny or are we just an accident of molecules?

Some say there is lack of evidence. But lack of evidence is not lack of proof.

So when you say that "But now we have access to many other documents around the time as well as the perspectives of lots of people who have written on the matter over the centuries and modernly, not just whoever happens to be our local religious leader" I could not agree more.

So many people have written on the subject that we have enough to make up our own minds in what we believe and don't believe. However, what scares me is not wether someone believes in God or not, what scares me is that when people think they have all the answers of life, whether they are believers or non believers. I say we have to go beyond the Bible, the evolution theory, beyond religion, beyond history, beyond philosophy, and sometimes go beyond what we believe and don't believe.

Religion doesn't make sense. I believe that there is a major entity but I also believe that the bible was written by humans and is full of contradictions. Most humans are out of touch with the spirit world and the ones that are in touch with it only know so much. I don't think that we learn about it properly until we die. I am almost certain that I have had a past life and the bible doesn't speak of that anywhere. Spiritually the Christian religion is very narrow. It doesn't speak of ghosts, reincarnation, aliens or palmestry reading. All things in which I believe exists.

The result of more than 2000 years of Christian brain-washing.

The most difficult thing for bible-raised believers is to actually READ the Bible with an Open Mind. Practically every Christian with whom I have discussed the BIBLE over the last 40 years have admitted that they never got past Genesis, in the Old Testament, and have NO real understand of Revelation. Most are shocked when they learn how often the Gospel writers contradict each other (and themselves)...and the majority NEVER knew that Paul had never met the historical Jesus, but that his writings were all based on personal 'visions' of the glorified, allegedly resurrected, Christ. How does one even go about trying to PROVE a vision?????

Old habits die hard! LOL

No I do not agree with you. You make examples to try to prove your point and I think it is great that you did. But you also miss the point. The examples you used are humans who are flawed just like everyone else. That doesn't work with the Bible since the books came from people who God inspired to write for Him. The words in the books are not from Paul or others, but from God Himself. Paul even says that in one of his letters. That is a major difference. That is the reason that the Bible has withstood the test of time. You seem to think that a person cannot be intelligent and believe in the Bible and that shows your own bias you have built within yourself. The reason that most people needed to have the Bible interpretted for us is because most do not understand the original language and the context the Word was written in but now it is easier for people to do their own studies but most people like to have Bible studies because then people are able to exchange information and get help understanding the Word.

Since you've asked for mine (and others) opinions about your opinion, I am happy to oblige. I think your opinion is a worthy one, it is a considered one but I sincerely believe it is a wrong one.

There may be much that I have to say about this book that you would find difficult to accept. I'll just blurt a few things out there and you can decide if any of it rests easy with you.

You are right to say that the Bible is not the only source of information that we have about Jesus. In fact it is not just one book at all, but 66 books, written by 40 or so authors most of whom we can identify with certainty, and others we can only guess at. Authors who were Kings, Prophets, Teachers, Preachers, Paupers etc. Parts of this book were written approx 3500 years ago others are just under 2000 years old. A person could be forgiven for thinking that it would in all likelihood, be full of errors and contradictions, that it would be altered over time. But the fact of the matter is that through the science of 'textual criticism' and the thousands of documents and manuscripts available, we can say with a remarkably high degree of certainty that the Bible remains unchanged to this day. The Dead Sea Scrolls, parts of which were discovered as recently as 1979 are one the oldest documents available, these too provide much confirmation of the Bibles accuracy. The Bible is not the only source but it has been proved to be the most accurate and authoritative source.

All of the above aside and not to mention all the men who, in addition to above have had a hand in it’s compilation, it is nothing short of a miracle that it has come together as a complete cohesive book that reads as though it was inspired by God Himself. Why is that? Because it is entirely the inspired word of God.

Would you not expect that God would be capable of pulling this book together and keeping it that way? It being the inspired word of God would it not also be just as relevant to us today as it was when it’s various parts were written? I have found this to be true, as Christians throughout the centuries have. This is how God planned it, why should we attribute inerrancy to any other book?

As for your comparing it with other books of a scientific nature, I hope you would appreciate given the above, they are incomparable.

I also wish to point out that 600 years ago, very few people would have had access to it let alone the ability to read a Bible. But in the last two hundred years or so an estimated 6 billion copies have been produced. It has been and is, year after year after year, the number one "Best Seller" of all time.

Why? Because 'it is such a GOOD BOOK'.

Christians do not look at the bible as a book written by the thoughts of men, but as a book inspired by the Holy Ghost.

That while it was etched by men onto paper, God caused these men to write the message and meaning perfectly.

The bible is one whole set of Jewish/Christian Prophecy.

Yes archaeology has helped Christianity out. We have many testimonies of philosophers and pagan writers which testify to the existence of Christ and his teachings. But just the same, they are only human witness.

To us, the witness of God, is greater than man. And sure, anyone can say God inspired a writing, but the Traditions of the church have defined that which testifies the truth, by the grace and over seeing of the Holy Spirit.

If you understand that this books is a made up of 66 books, by 40 over writers, from king to slave, from governer to fisher man, from doctor to tent maker, and it is written in different situation (war, peace, marriage, etc) over a period of 1400 years, but one central theme, you will understand why.

Is there any book of that equal? Any that you have mentioned?

Frankly, I give thanks to the technology. For in todays context, we can access into many area to do research, and further proof that the Bible is infallable book. Instead of your claimed.

When books from Ancient Near East is available now, and compare to Bible, it is amazing to see how true the Bible is.

When culture is interchanged, and now that Chinese is also accessed to Bible, it is amazing to see how the history of Chinese support so many theory of the Bible teaching, even about Noah's ark, etc.

But again, putting all the fact aside, for me, this relationship with God, and the encounter of His grace is sufficient for me to believe in His word, the Bible.

It is strange, when encountering evil spirit, by the name of Jesus, they flee.

Perhaps you may again says that is nonsense. Well, try living in Asia and see for yourself.

For me, after all these encounter(experience), and all the research (congitive), I can only say, Bible is true.

Mormons believe that the Bible is the Word of God, as far as it is translated correctly.

As more original manuscripts are discovered and translated, some of the mistakes will be found and hopefully corrected.