Is God good?

He puts up with you doesn't He?

Hi JazznsI copied this from the other thread as it is more on topic here and I think that it was just a matter of time before it would be pointed out to us. I do accept the NT as being personally and culturally conditioned. However that doesn’t mean that what they wrote should be rejected. People recorded things for a reason. Every Biblical author had a point of view and he would write in a way that supports that point of view.Certainly Matthew had an agenda to connect Jesus to His Jewish roots and looked for ways to make that point. Certainly the writer(s) of the Pastoral Epistles had an agenda that they wanted to convey but that doesn’t make them wrong. Yes there are conflicting opinions in the Bible but IMHO that just makes it more alive. The Christian story is of God working through His created humans beings. He has given us intelligence coupled with enquiring minds along with a sense of morality.So yes, there are contradictions in the Bible. We don’t have certainty. There is ambiguity. Just look at the different views of Christians on this board.My own view is that the one constant in the NT is that Jesus was crucified and that He came back in a physical resurrection body. IMHO there is no plausible reason for the Christian movement to get off the ground unless the first Christians, (Jewish though they were of course), were convinced of this fact. I believe that the writers of the Gospels and the Epistles to the best of their ability wrote down the stories of what happened and what it all meant.Personally I can see no motivation for them to manufacture the whole thing and the Gospel accounts tell a story that isn’t what anyone would write if they were just making it up. It seems obvious to me that they believed what they wrote even if they are writing with their own personal biases. The question then becomes whether or not they were right about the resurrection and then how accurately they recorded the actions and words of Jesus.We all make up our minds of what we believe about it all and at that point it becomes a faith issue. I believe that the Gospels do tell the story of the resurrection of Jesus in a way that aside from some details is historically accurate. I also believe that the resurrection vindicates the message that in some way the man Jesus was the embodiment of God.If we just get away from the idea that the Bible has to be inerrant, and that it is God as articulated through Jesus that we worship then we can get an understanding of the nature of God, and that through the teachings of Jesus it is clear that God is good. However, like I said, and no matter how sure I am of what I believe, it is a faith.Cheers

I've already been told that I was off topic on that other thread and it is my view that I was a lot more on topic then than we are now.I guess if admin agrees she'll tell us.