Human Beings Should not be Followed

In this posting, I want to urge the reader to use extreme caution when reading and listening to the opinions of human beings, especially when it comes to forming their worldview. Virtually every human being is inherently biased when it comes to nearly any topic and just about every statement a human makes has a specific agenda behind it. Many human beings will try to reassure you that they are not biased, and have no agenda and that their words are reliable but they are wrong. They are simply another human being with an opinion that rests on either side of a given argument.

Take myself, for example. I am a Christian who believes that the Bible is the inerrant word of God, and He inspired the authors through the Holy Spirit.

Some liberal Christians do not believe in miracles and believe the Bible is full of embellishments so they pick and choose what they wish to believe out of the Bible.

And of course, non-believers believe it is just another man made religion.

When human beings process the historical evidence, our natural bias projects through the evidence so that human statements are blurred interpretations of the evidence. This is particularly important to remember when reading the works of scholars and other "professionals." It is important to know where the author of a given work stands in regards to the topic they are writing about. Knowing their history in regard to the topic is also important.

Sir William Mitchell Ramsay¹ for instance, was a late 1800s, early 1900s archeologist who was raised an atheist. He was determined to set out and prove that the Bible was fraudulent by going through the book of Acts and comparing the accuracy of the book with his archeological findings along the way. However, he found that the book of Acts matched up with his numerous findings and actually converted to Christianity.

In contrast, modern day scholar Bart Ehrman² grew up as a Christian and graduated from a seminary school. Through his investigations into early Christianity he actually lost his faith. I find his reasoning to be a fatal flaw as he bases his reasoning around human action. He is often heard speaking about multiple Christian sects, similar to the different denominations of today, and somehow draws the conclusion that this means Christianity must be fraudulent. He also often brings up so-called contradictions in the Bible such as the Gospels not agreeing on what day Jesus was crucified which is clearly incorrect on his part.

My point is that extreme caution should be used when taking statements of human beings as anything more than biased opinions. When it comes to Christianity and the Bible, one should find out for themselves through prayer and reading the Bible and talking with God rather than putting much weight in the words of humans.

Christian History can be very interesting, but can also be very dangerous when reading the biased opinions of others. It can test one's faith and in some cases, such as Bart Ehrman's, their faith will fail the test. Ultimately, the question of "Who is Jesus Christ?" is a question of faith, and not a question of history.

God Bless.

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¹ - Sir William Ramsay
² - Bart Ehrman