I’m not sure what’s led to a complete and utter lack of discernment in this world but we’re there. As a Christian, I basically speak directly to two “facts” of 2012:
- The Bible is written by men thousands of years ago and can’t be trusted
- Everything said in current day should be assumed fact immediately
Sure, some of you reading this will contest one or both of those, most likely the latter. We want to pretend we have discernment but in an age of retweets it’s push the button first – tobe first – and then worry about the truth and the fallout afterwards. Which brings me to the article that prompted this:
Read the blurbs and the Tweets and what we have is an original manuscript that finally proves Jesus was married. This is good news for false Christians because it means Jesus was more human than we thought (read: sinned) and now we’re justified in our human actions! Good stuff. All this from one single cellphone-sized fragment of papyrus.
Except that’s not what the story was. The actual story, possibly best laid out in The Christian Post, is that someone found a tiny single fragment of papyrus that said Jesus was married. What does that mean? That at some point in history someone thought Jesus was married. Which we already knew. Which has been proven false through 19,300 fragments of New Testament writings dating as far back as AD125.
But in 2012 a single fragment of papyrus that tells us something we want to hear is far more important than a book written by men that has no doubt been translated poorly over time and no longer tells the same story. Ignore that we have almost 20,000 fragments of varying sizes that have been used as recently as the past decade to translate, ignore that there are thousands of single fragments that aren’t reliable.
The truth is the information is out there. The New Testament is the most historically accurate translation in print, above and beyond any other book you could find. We’re confident in the translation. It’s written closer to the source material than any other historical book, so those of us who’ve taken the time to research are confident in the material. Where the true issue lies isn’t in translations or material, it’s in a book that tells us how to live when we’d rather guide our own ship. I have far more respect for someone who simply admits that than those who choose to perpetuate ridiculous “facts” online.
“Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.”
– GK Chesterton