Carolina QuotesThe question must also be raised as to whether we have the actual words of Jesus in any Gospel.
John Shelby Spong Carolinian
Source
p. 78
- work
- Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism (1991)
- year
- 1991
- locator
- p. 78
Cite this record
“The question must also be raised as to whether we have the a…” John Shelby Spong. Carolina Quotes, record CQ-ABF4A81A3B. https://carolinaquotes.com/quote/abf4a81a3b
More from John Shelby Spong
The Christian story did not drop from heaven fully written. It grew and developed year by year over a period of forty-two to seventy years. That is not what most Christians have been taught to think, but it is factual. Christianity has always been an evolving story. It was never, even in the New Testament, a finished story.
[T]he discovery of an empty tomb would never have issued in an Easter faith. If there had been a tomb, and if that tomb had been found empty, it would have meant only that one more insult had been delivered to the leader of the tiny Jesus movement. The disciples, whoever they were, would have concluded that not even the dead body of this Jesus had been spared degradation. No Easter faith would have resulted from an empty tomb. Therefore such a tradition could not have been primary. It was but a story incorporated later into the narrative.
If the resurrection of Jesus cannot be believed except by assenting to the fantastic descriptions included in the Gospels, then Christianity is doomed. For that view of resurrection is not believable, and if that is all there is, then Christianity, which depends upon the truth and authenticity of Jesus' resurrection, also is not believable.