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Originally Posted by photon
Wow, I never thought about it like that before, but yeah the Bible itself does hold a supreme position. Very interesting!
It makes sense that eventually scripture would become so important to Christianity. Before Christianity religion was mostly about ritual, religion was defined by the actions taken (sacrifices, observing the law, making a shrine, whatever).. With Christianity, when it turned from the religion OF Jesus to the religion about Jesus with Paul, all of a sudden what was believed was the thing that was important. If what is believed is so important then a source (EDIT: source is a bad word, authority maybe?) of that belief has to be established.
It's almost like a circular argument.. beliefs came out of oral histories and authoritative figures, which became writings.. and the writings that were chosen to be authoritative were the ones that were in line with the beliefs.
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Precisely.
Personally, I believe that the vast majority of Christians miss the point altogether when it comes to who Jesus was and what he accomplished. Jesus was never about establishing a new religion. He was a Jew, and only ever engaged with fellow Jews, so all of his own teachings were limited to what happens within Judaism.
"Christianity" was essentially invented by Paul and the Apostolic fathers out of their devotion to Jesus. Jesus himself probably cared less about whether one practiced Christianity, or Judaism, or any of the Greek and Roman cults. While we really do not have any evidence for this, it is quite interesting that in his parable about the Good Samaritan, he contrasts different forms of religious observance and tradition—his conclusion has NOTHING to do with religious belief and observance, but everything to do with right conduct. Perhaps with the benefit of several centuries, this parable could be re-written to feature a Christian, an Orthodox Jew, and a Shi`ite Muslim. Would Jesus conclusions be any different?