Protestantism

» Brian Tubbs - Point of Perspective

In response to Gnostic Gospels posted by Migisi:

It's true that, as a Baptist pastor, I only accept the sixty-six (66) books in the present canonized Protestant Bible as divinely inspired and authoritative. I accept these books of the Bible as the Word of God and preach from the Bible every Sunday at Sligo Baptist Church. HOWEVER....

That really is NOT the perspective from which I'm carrying on this discussion with you. I'm actually setting aside my personal, conservative, evangelical POV and arguing from a much more inclusive, moderate position.

That being that there is at least SOME value in all of the ancient religious literature. There are DEGREES of credibility that we can assign to the books of the Bible and also to the apocraphal books and the Gnostic writings and so on.

I'm saying that all these books should be respectfully engaged as ancient literature - that they should be analyzed with the same degree of scholarly respect that historians and/or literary scholars would give to ANY ancient works.

THAT is the position I'm arguing from right now. And within that perspective, I'm saying that there is at least some degree of credibility that any scholar - conservative, moderate, or liberal - would have to give the Bible. Otherwise, the person is being a truly irrational critic.

So, as a Baptist pastor, I would say to you - No, I do not accept the Catholic Bible. And I do not accept the Gnostic writings. But when I say that I don't "accept" them, I mean that I don't embrace them as divinely inspired. It does NOT mean that I think they're worth nothing more than fire kindling.

Does that make sense?