-*---- In article <C5ztJu.FKx@news.cso.uiuc.edu> cobb@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu (Mike Cobb) writes: > Why is the NT tossed out as info on Jesus.  I realize it is  > normally tossed out because it contains miracles, but what > are the other reasons?  Far from being "tossed out," the gospels are taken, almost universally, as the primary source of information about Jesus. I am curious as to whom Mike Cobb is referring.  Who "tosses out" the New Testament?  Undoubtedly a few *naive* atheists do this, but the phrasing of the question above seems to suggest that Cobb ascribes this more broadly.  Perhaps the question that gets more to the heart of the matter is why, except for some *naive* believers (who, unfortunately, far outnumber nonbelievers, both naive and critical), are the gospels *not* taken as "gospel truth" that faithfully records just what happened two thousand years ago?  This has an easy answer, and the answer has *nothing* to do with miracles: no text is taken this way by a critical reader.  There is a myth among some naive believers that one takes a text, measures it by some set of criteria, and then either confirms the text as "historically valid" or "tosses out" the text.  I suspect this myth comes from the way history is presented in primary and secondary school, where certain texts are vested with authority, and from writers such as Josh McDowell who pretend to present historical arguments along these lines for their religious program.  In fact, most texts used in primary and secondary school history classes ought to be tossed out, even the better such texts should not be treated as authoritatively as descibed above, and Josh McDowell would not know a historical argument if it bit him on the keister twice.  Let me present the barest outlines of a different view of texts and their use in studying history.  First, all texts are historically valid.  ALL texts.  Or to put this another way, I have never seen a notion of "historical validity" that makes any sense when applied to a text.  Second, no text should be read as telling the "gospel truth" about historical events, in the way that many students are wont to read history texts in primary and secondary school.  NO text.  (This includes your favorite author's history of whatever.)  Every text is a historical fact.  Every text was written by some person (or some group of people) for some purpose.  Hence, every text can serve as historical evidence.  The question is: what can we learn from a text?  Of what interesting things (if any) does the text provide evidence?  The diaries of the followers of the Maharishi, formerly of Oregon, are historical evidence.  The gospels are historical evidence.  The letters of the officers who participated in the  vampire inquests in Eastern Europe are historical evidence.  The modern American history textbooks that whitewash "great American figures" are historical evidence.  These are all historical evidence of various things.  They are *not* much evidence at all that the Maharishi, formerly of Oregon, could levitate; that Jesus was resurrected; that vampires exist; or that "great American figures" are as squeaky clean as we learned in school. They are better evidence that some people "saw" the Maharishi, late of Oregon, levitate; that some of the early Christians thought Jesus was resurrected; that many people in Eastern Europe "saw" vampires return from the grave; and that we still have an educational system that largely prefers to spread myth rather than teach history.  How does one draw causal connections and infer what a piece of historical evidence -- text or otherwise -- evinces?  This is a very complex question that has no easily summarized answer. There are many books on the subject or various parts of the subject.  I enjoy David Hackett Fischer's "Historian's Fallacies" as a good antidote to the uncritical way in which it is so easy to read texts present history.  It's relatively cheap.  It's easy to read.  Give it a try.