The New Testament is an ordinary book. Why do you believe in it?

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The first thing I need to state is that the New Testament is not an ordinary book, by any real meaning of the word. In the first place, it’s a collection of books. In the second place, it’s a work of scripture. Like other works of scripture, it’s meant to be read in a certain way. If you approach it in that way, you can glean a great deal of wisdom from it. If you don’t approach it that way, then you won’t learn anything. As such, I choose to approach the Bible in the way that grants wisdom.

The second thing I need to state is that I do not believe in the historical truth of the New Testament. I instead believe in the allegorical truth of the whole Bible, not just the New Testament. When you study the history of the Bible this is an unavoidable conclusion, and most Christians, especially the learned ones, are of a similar mind. We’re willing to overlook unimportant details in order to plumb the depths of the spiritual truths within. And when you get right down to it, the literal claims the Bible makes are but fodder for the allegory. This is the way all storytelling works, spiritual people just choose to read deeper into the stories than other people do.

The fact of the matter is, I was going to be spiritual one way or another. The Bible is just one of the many, many books of spiritual wisdom I’ve read. I consider Christianity to be but one form that spirituality can take. All of them are as true as all of the others, but Christianity holds a special place in my heart for a few reasons.

First, the depth of the stories is much, much deeper than anything else I’ve come across. Second, it fits the way I think as a Western, cosmopolitan citizen of civilization. Third, it’s the creed of my parents, their parents, their parents before them, going all the way back to Rome.

As such I believe in Jesus over all the others in the same way a father believes his daughter is the best daughter in the world. My mom’s the best mom in the world, you can have your mom, she’s just not the best mommy in the world, because my mommy is. You can be wrong, that’s fine by me.

In short, I believe in the New Testament because it’s mine. And if you want to read the Bible as a work of fiction, by all means, pretty please, with sugar on top, read the Bible.