Determining a book's truth.

Hi,I'm interested in examining reasons for believing that the Bible is the literal truth. I'd be interested in any comments people have around this subject, but I have particular questions and assumptions I'd like to describe here.My assumptions for the discussion are;(1) There are many writings about the subjects covered in the old and new testaments. We have copies of around twenty gospels, several apolcalypses, other epistles to early christian churches, other books of anceint hebrew history, pseudopygrapha, apocrypha, other books of new-testament-era history, etc.(2) The bible is an anthology of 66 books selected from the many writings mentioned above.(3) Some Christians ('literalists') claim the bible is true; this is a shorthand for the 66 claims, one for each book, of the form "This book is literally true".(4) Literalists do not claim the same truth for the other writings, such as the Book of Enoch, the Gospel of Thomas, or the writings of Josephus. That is, for each other writing, you can only say "This book _may_ be true, in parts."Given these assumptions (and I'm hoping there's nothing controvertial so far) I am wondering how literalists reason about these claims.So, to start the ball rolling; I'd like to present a hypothetical situation, which is no doubt similar to that experienced by early Christians.Esaias, a literate greek living around 150AD, has heard a little about a holy man called Jesus, and decides to learn more about him. He talks to other people in his city. One, Ioannis, tells him that he has heard the good news, has been visited by the holy spirit, and in fact has the written story. His tale starts "In the beginning was the word." Another man, Jude, makes the same claims: visited by the holy spirit, accepted the good news, has a written story. His book starts "These are the secret sayings that the living Jesus spoke and Didymos Judas Thomas recorded." Both men lend him a copy of their texts.If this man is to read correct scripture, he must conclude two things;(a) The first book (the gospel of John) is utterly true.
(b) The second book (the gospel of Thomas) could be true, in parts, but is not utterly true. It may be misguided or a total fabrication.How can Esaias come to these conclusions?(For the record, I am an atheist, and I am interested in understanding Christianity on it's own terms.)

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And you shall know the truth,
and the truth will set you free.
-- John 8:32

quote:

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However, for the majority of the world's Christians, the bible is composed of 73 books.

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Absolutely true.

I chose that as a date where the books themselves were distributed, but no canonical anthology had been settled upon. You could get a copy of many different gospels, but there was no single-volume 'bible' available.Our imaginary Christian is reading one orthodox gospel, and one gnostic gospel, but he has no way of knowing that. He has the individual texts, and he has to assign a status to each one. The question is how should Elaias discern the true book from the false one? That's all I really need. Someone who is willing to say;* The gospel of John is literally true
* The gospel of Thomas is not literally true
* The bible is the result of gathering together all the literally true books into one volume.and to offer some theology* explaining how to discern good books from bad. Although I am a skeptic, I've posed the 150AD Christian situation in order to suggest an honest search for the Christian truth.*not sure that's exactly the right word

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And you shall know the truth,
and the truth will set you free.
-- John 8:32

Hi, Juraikken. Thanks for posting.Would you say you agreed with the three statements I made above? If so, can you tell me how you believe the books of the bible were chosen, from all the possibilities in earlier centuries? How so? The bible is a collection of many books, and each one is judged separately. It is possible to believe the Gospel of Mark but to disbelieve the Revelation of John, for example. They are different books, with different authors, about different subjects, written in different centuries*. It would be no different from me putting a non-fiction book and a fiction book on the same bookshelf.* I believe that 'different centuries' is true, but I'm not 100% on this.

Not really necessary for this discussion, as such, I don't think, and although a worthwhile question, I suspect it'll move the discussion away from the main point. My question presumes that some books are scriptural, and some books are not scriptural. The question asks how a Christian might go about determining this, in his/her own terms.The question is interesting in a larger sense because the answer, I think, relates also to two similar questions;* When a new book appears, is it possible for this new book to become scripture? The Dead Sea Scrolls, Nag Hamadi library, Gospel of Judas, etc are all recent arrivals and have been judged non-scriptural by most. Could a new book (for example, one conclusively proved to be written by Jesus himself) be declared scriptural, and on what authority? What does this imply about the bible as it exists now?* Given the large number of religious texts available to any modern reader, how is scripture to be distinguished from non-scripture? Esais had to choose between two gospels; we have to choose between gospels, torah, sutras, and more. The process of determination is the one which formed the bible; do we have access to this process now?

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And you shall know the truth,
and the truth will set you free.
-- John 8:32