Being christian while rejecting important OT figures?

OpinionatedB
He was the Messiah that was prophesied by those prophets you don't believe existed.

Adam and Eve weren't prophets and they didn't prophecy about Jesus.
Noah didn't prophecy about Jesus.
Abraham didn't prophecy about Jesus.
Moses didn't prophecy about Jesus.

Belief or disbelief in them is irrelevant to believing that Jesus came from Heaven to save people from their sin. Belief or disbelief in them is irrelevant to loving God & neighbor.

You should stop trying to tell Christians what they should believe. Hell, you Muslims can't even figure out what a Muslim is supposed to believe. All your infighting .... Shia. Sunni. Whatever. You people should figure out your own religion before you try to tell Christians what they should or shouldn't believe in.

reply to post by babloyi


I know you are talking to Nenothtu, but I am going to answer somewhat. He is saying to me that all people have a sinful "nature"... it was not something inherited from one person (Adam) it is simply something we all have.

He classified even our thoughts when evil as a sin, not only actions alone... so he says that all of us needed a savior because we all cannot remember to /and ask forgiveness for every single thing we think and do each day.

He says that God is so pure and holy He cannot abide with sin, not even a sinful thought that never develops into an action, nenothtu said that our thoughts are seeds... and evil thoughts are the seeds of evil.

I don't really get it, but he said he will explain it more tonight. I don't get it because to me if it is not action it is not sin, ie: we cannot be punished for a thought. But Neno seems to think we can...

Anyway, since he said he will try to explain it all where it makes sense to me tonight, he will probably reply in the thread on that topic too...

cause I don't understand it at all. lol

reply to post by FlyersFan


I know exactly what I believe, beyond doubt. I also have basis for everything I believe.

You reject your own basis. I am not so ignorant as to be unable to realize that if you reject all basis for faith then your faith is on shaky ground...

reply to post by OpinionatedB


Hundreds of millions of Christians disagree with you. And yes ... they are all Christians. Like I said .. you Sunni and Shia should stick to trying to figure out which of you are 'real Muslims' rather than go around trying to tell Christians they 'hate God' just because they worship Him differently.

babloyi
reply to post by nenothtu

 

I'm not a christian myself, but having studied some of the stuff, are you sure you're not getting it backwards?

I'm in an agreeable mood this evening, so I'll agree with you - that's entirely possible. I know what I believe, and why I believe it, but I can't pretend to have a decent handle on the rest of the 400 odd Christian sects. I can tell you for certain that most Christians turn just the prettiest shade of purple from the shoulders up when discussing religion with me. Once upon a time, one of them got so angry that he couldn't even speak, he could only stutter, and slapped me. True story. I made a point of turning the other cheek to him, and I thought he was gonna explode.

I think I may have mentioned before that I'm not a very nice guy - one more reason I can't claim to be Christian. I just ain't good enough.

As far as I understand the Catechism of the Catholic church, it seems to me they believe that all of mankind inherited their sinful and fallen nature, with the inclination towards evil, from Adam (although they also assert that baptism is for the remission of sins, so I'm not sure what, exactly they mean).

You could probably teach me loads about the Catholic Catechism. I know nothing at all about it. I've tried to learn about what they think, but they always lose me at the part where they say that it's not just scripture, but scripture and dogma, and then proceed to recite dogma that can't be supported by scripture. I guess that's why they have to include dogma in their formulae. Then when they get to the part whee they think the Pope is infallible, I lose the plot completely.

It is the Protestant/Calvinist idea that along with this inclination towards sinning, mankind inherited the actual GUILT of adam as well, no? A couple of Protestant branches (7th Day adventists and methodists at least, I think) differ on this point (they too say it is only the sinful nature that is inherited), but the rest, deriving their theology more exactly from Martin Luther and Calvin (who got it from Augustine) have it that the guilt is inherited as well.

I can't speak for protestants in general, either, but am on firmer footing as regards Calvinism. I was raised as a Nazarene as a child, but can't recall much of it beyond pretty pictures in Sunday School. I was a Quaker for a while, solely on the strength of having attended their meetings 3 Sundays in a row, but can't tell you much about Quakers, either. I bailed over the whole non-violence issue. They didn't strike me as entirely sane regarding the matter of defending themselves, and I'm not sure how the denomination has survived as long as it has.

Calvinists are a vanishing breed. I only know of very few churches who actually believe all five points of Calvinism, and some of them slide a little off the rails. The Primitive Baptists (which my mother was) are Calvinists to the core, and take it to extremes. They add a lot to Calvinism that doesn't sit well with me - for example, they allow no music in church services, sing everything acapella, and as near as I can tell use the exact same tune for every song, which is monotonous to me. Then when their preachers get wound up, I can't understand a word they say with all the chanting and hollering - they may as well be speaking in Mandarin Chinese for all I can understand of it. That strikes me as odd, and counterproductive to the purpose of preaching in the first place. Shouldn't the congregation be able to figure out what the preacher is saying?

Some "Independent Baptists" are Calvinists. I guess they have to be independent because other Baptists, the big boys like the Southern Baptist Conference, seem to believe that Calvinists are the spawn of Satan, and won't accredit them or something.

Calvinism is predicated on 5 points, which the mnemonic "TULIP" can be used to remember.

T - Total Depravity of Man

U - Unconditional Election

L - Limited Atonement

I - Irresistible Grace

P - Perseverance of the Saints

I won't go in depth into all of those points here, since only the Total Depravity of Man is salient to the discussion. That one means that man's nature is entirely sinful. It doesn't go into any inheritance of Adam's sin, but rather speaks more to the nature of humanity as being inherently sinful. In the sense that all people inherited a sinful nature from Adam, it could be said that they "inherited Adam's guilt", but that is misleading. They didn't inherit Adam's guilt for HIS sin(s), they inherited his guilt as far as his nature as a human being goes. That means that they didn't inherit his guilt from eating the forbidden fruit, or his guilt in blaming it on Eve, but that they inherited the human nature that made him do those things.

Because we are all human.

They would have inherited that nature from the first man WHOMEVER that man was, and WHATEVER his origin was, because he was the first human, and it's human nature, which is also passed on to all of humanity. If the first man had gone to bed one night as a monkey and got up the next morning thinking "I'm gonna be human from now on, and jut not walk on my knuckles any more", than that human nature would have been inherited from him.

Surely that counts as mainstream? I don't quite see "Original sin" as a categorisation of sins as such (I don't think most people do, either?), more as a concept, but even if either as JUST the idea that humanity inherited its sinful nature from Adam, or that they inherited his guilt as well, most Christians believe in the Original Sin, no?

edit on 11-12-2013 by babloyi because: (no reason given)

Calvinism is anything BUT "mainstream", but many of the other Protestant denominations should probably be considered as such, right along with Catholics and Orthodox. I may be amiss in my concept of "original Sin", because I take most of the definition of it from discussions around here, and it seems that the thrust is that Adam's action in eating the forbidden fruit was what they are thinking of as THE "original Sin". I'll have to study up on it and see what the rest of the world has to say about it, for the sake of argument. It seems to me to be an odd notion to think that men are still paying for one guy's actions a few thousand years ago - I can't find any support for that notion in the Bible. Adam would be responsible for Adam's actions, and Adam would have to answer for them. There are some few places that say that the sins of the father will be visited on the sons to the seventh generation, but we're way beyond seven generations from Adam.

If Christians are separating "The Original Sin" out from sin in general, and making it special, how could that NOT be categorizing it? I don't know about Christians in general, or what they think. There are billions of them, and I've only spoken with a few thousand - and that may have been the wrong few thousand for a meaningful sample. I rarely ever get to talk to them for very long... because their heads start turning purple and they start stuttering.

sk0rpi0n
reply to post by nenothtu

 

That may be part of the problem in the misunderstanding - Christians don't recognize Adam as a "prophet". Only Muslims have that association.

I also said "OT figures" in that part which you quoted. My point still stands.

I'll quote it again, then, with a bit of bold this time:

However, I am addressing the people who outright reject/denigrate OT prophets... and yet hold on to views that are dependent on OT teachings.

Yes, the point stands in my mind as well, even though I don't consider every guy down the pike to have been a prophet, either. Some Christians, however, seem to put less weight on the matter specifically because they DON'T believe most of the "OT figures" were prophets unless they were specifically called such. The more entertaining ones seem not to believe in prophets at all, which I find fascinating. if they acknowledge no prophets, no men who speak for God, then how can they claim any knowledge of God at all? Who told them there even WAS a God?

I don't believe as they do - the entire notion is nonsensical to me - but I AM trying to explain to you how they seem to think - as nearly as I can figure it out myself.

I didn't rephrase it, I contradicted it.

Then you also contradict the Bible, which teaches that Adam had something to do with "original sin".... something that Jesus' "sin sacrifice" tried to fix.

That's why there are so many sects of Christians. They can't seem to figure out what the Bible really says, either. I have nowhere contradicted the Bible, only your particular understanding f it, which I find flawed. That isn't your fault - it is your Teacher's fault. Whomever your teacher was, you should perhaps have a word with him, and demand a refund.

There is no problem of "original sin".

Tell that to Christian who believe in the doctrine of "original sin"

I will, if I ever find one. I promise. I LIKE watching their heads turn purple! I pledge to you that from here on out, whenever I get into a theological conversation with a Christian, I will make a point to ask them what they believe about Original Sin. Perhaps I can find a lively one!

The actual names and existence of Old testament characters is immaterial

I'm just going by the names I read in the Bible. Most Christians know who I am talking about when I say "Ezekiel" or "Jonah" or "Isaiah".

Yup, they should know who you are talking about. They should ALSO know the lessons taught, immaterial of whether they believe the story ever actually happened. It's the story itself, and the lessons drawn that matter, not so much Whether they can actually dig up the wrist watch that Ezekiel wore. Therefore, they don't have to believe in the actual occurrence, but neither can they dismiss the story. In doing so, they throw out the baby with the bath water.

Christian doctrine does NOT rest of "original sin"

Then there was no reason for Jesus to become a "sin sacrifice".... and Paul was in error the whole time... Jesus' "sin sacrifice" took place for no reason.



You must have missed the whole "sinful nature of man" thing then. I thought I had spoken at length on it, probably TOO much length. I have a tendency towards long-windedness. How did you miss it? are you just skimming my posts for things to argue with, and throwing the rest out?

With the bath water?

FlyersFan

That is all what I said before.

I apologize and stand corrected, then. I was under the impression that you had done away with the OT entirely. I seem to recall you even claiming the Ten Commandments were spurious, not of God. That would be a dangerous thing, digging the dirt out from under the foundation of your entire house.

I must have misunderstood your thread on how the Ten Commandments were the work of Hammurabi or whatever it was. I apologize. So you DO recognize the validity of them as being of God, right?

But then you came up with this ...

nenothtu

Riddle me this - how can he have died as the Christ if the entire foundation for his messiahship was made up? How can a Christian believe in a Christ that never was one?

You are contradicting yourself. I think you just want to argue with someone.
The first quote of yours on this post agrees with what I was saying.
Jesus can stand alone. He has no need of fictional OT characters who were invented
like bedtime childrens stories that are just passing on moral lessons and not to be
taken literally.

Nope, I'm not contradicting myself. Whether the people and stories are real or not, they ARE the basis for Jesus' mission, the explanation for it, and without them he HAD no mission. You don't have to believe in their literal existence, but neither can you simply disregard them. Without the stories, Jesus simply came out of nowhere, for nothing.

The God he called his Father does not exist without the OT foundation (or, more properly, is entirely unknown, which for all practical purposes as far as human interaction and awareness is concerned is a "lack of existence" - we cannot have any interaction with what we do not know is there to be interacted with), and so Jesus' mission was useless without it.

He died for nothing if there is nothing to die for.

FlyersFan
THIS is the topic of the thread -

sk0rpi0n
Christians, is such a thing even possible in your belief system? Can one really call himself a 'christian' if he/she dismisses key Biblical characters such as Adam, Melchizedek and Noah as myths...while speaking ill of the prophets Abraham and Moses?

Can a person be Christian and not take the Old Testament literally?
Answer ... ABSOLUTELY. Large numbers of Christians do not take it literally
and they are still very much Christians.

1. Better read what you quoted again. I'll make it easy and re-quote it here:

Christians, is such a thing even possible in your belief system? Can one really call himself a 'christian' if he/she dismisses key Biblical characters such as Adam, Melchizedek and Noah as myths...while speaking ill of the prophets Abraham and Moses?

He did not say "if they do not take them LITERALLY. He said if they DISMISS them. It could be that I am in the wrong argument entirely, and should just go back to sleep. Maybe I read it wrong.

2. Anyone can call themselves ANY THING, but simply calling themselves that does not magically make them that. I could CALL MYSELF a ninja, but I had better not run into any real ninjas if I do.

That's actually one (of many) reasons I don't call myself a Christian - I don't want to get mixed up with all the wannabes who want to wear a name, but not walk the trail. They want to wear the T-shirt with his name on it, but not take up their cross and actually FOLLOW him.

3. I just deleted all the links. Screaming them repeatedly only takes up column space, it doesn't add anything to their weight.

4. A wise man once told me "it ain't over until I say it's over" - so that's not a unilateral declaration you can make. Other folks might be convinced otherwise, and just repeating yourself ain't gonna make them listen any closer to you.

Just ask a Jehovah's Witness.

FlyersFan

As I've shown with the statistics ... Hundreds of millions of Christians do not believe in sections of the OT as literally having happened as written, and they are still Christians.
conclusion: I'm a Christian just as those hundreds of millions are.

I agree with you here. You ARE a "Christian" in just the same way and to the same degree that those hundreds of millions are.

What is at issue, I think, is whether they legitimately ARE, or whether they just want the T-shirt.

In all honesty, that isn't for me to determine, or Skorpion. In the end, that is and will be between them (and you, since you include yourself in those ranks) and God.

babloyi

Wrong? How is it wrong? Belief in evolution is not disbelief in Adam and Eve. In fact, many christians (nenothetu right here, for example, I think) accept the existence of Adam and Eve, just not as the first humans ever. Again, your links talk about the belief in literal truth of the Bible, NOT OT figures.

That is essentially correct. I believe in Adam and Eve, and am not sure if they were the "first" humans or not, or even when they really lived. I am certain to the nth degree that they were not the ONLY humans (or "human-like critters"?) around then, however. Set apart, perhaps, "special" in some way, perhaps, lonesome in a paradise, perhaps, but NOT alone of humankind on the Earth.

After all, Cain went eastward from Eden and got a wife in the land of Nod, which evidently already had a name, so someone had to name it - someone had to live there for it to even need a name!

FlyersFan

All that is required to be a Christian - Believe that Jesus came to save souls .. and try to live out His commandments of Love God and Love Neighbor. That's it.

"Save souls" from what?

Don't use the OT, or any references from the NT thereto, to make your point.

Definition of Christian -
a person who has received Christian baptism or is a believer in Jesus Christ and his teachings.
THAT IS IT.

Teachings on what? What did Jesus teach that had no basis in the OT?

babloyi

If I asked a random christian if they believed that Moses parted the Red sea, or turned his staff into a serpent, or if Abraham's wife was literally turned into a pillar of salt

I think you mean Lot's wife. People still point to a particular column of salt there and claim it's her.

FlyersFan

You can't separate the people from the stories. That's the whole point of the stories.

You absolutely CAN separate the people from the stories!

I'll use myself as an example here, When I was younger, I would just disappear for varying lengths of time. Sometimes fairly long varying lengths of time. One day I would be there, and the next day I wouldn't, and would not have told anyone where I was going. the most I did was to tell my dad "I'm gone. I'll be back when I get back". When I got back, I never told where I had been, I was just "back".

Imagine my surprise when I got back from one of those trips, and heard STORIES being told about me! My favorite one had me on the run from the law, living in the woods, and eating raw buzzards for two years (might as well have been raw - they said I cooked 'em with a bic lighter)! Now, I am absolutely real, not just electrons striking your computer screen. You can pinch me, slap me with a THWACK! sound, and even make me laugh. I'm as real as you are.

Those stores were NOT real. No one knew where I had gone, and could not tell the story of it. They made stories up accounting for my absence, and incorporating what they knew of my character. Now, the moral of the stories may have been that I was One Bad Dude back then, or it may have been that I was crazy as a bedbug, unpredictable, might do anything - both of which may or may not have been true. The story itself, however, was not.

I was and am real - as real as you. The point of the stories - "there are those around with whom thou shalt not screw" - was valid. Yet the stories themselves were utter bullcrap.

So yes you CAN separate people from stories.

When I am dead and gone, I will STILL have been every bit as real as you... and those stories will STILL be mere mythology... but mythology with a point, constructed around a reality that had a core of truth, that tried to explain that truth in ways that were erroneous but understandable to the people of that place and time.

And the truth of it stands.

FlyersFan
reply to post by OpinionatedB

 

Hundreds of millions of Christians disagree with you. And yes ... they are all Christians. Like I said .. you Sunni and Shia should stick to trying to figure out which of you are 'real Muslims' rather than go around trying to tell Christians they 'hate God' just because they worship Him differently.

You know, I can say the same thing about Christians. I believe Jesus saw the same thing among the Jews of his day, hence the parable about a necessity to separate the sheep from the goats, separate the wheat from the tares, etc.

I DO keep in mind just whose job it is to do that separating, though, and it ain't mine. The best I can do is just not hang myself out with the ones I think may be on the other side of the fence after the separating is done.

Sectarian divisions, even sectarian violence, is not an exclusively Muslim thing.

Having divisions in your OWN camp and still giving the Other Guy hell over how HE chooses to worship seems to not be an exclusively Muslim thing, either.

Some stories, just like human nature, seem to be timeless.

OpinionatedB
reply to post by babloyi

 

I know you are talking to Nenothtu, but I am going to answer somewhat. He is saying to me that all people have a sinful "nature"... it was not something inherited from one person (Adam) it is simply something we all have.

Keep in mind this is just what I believe - everyone else's mileage may vary, and it seems it certainly does!

Humans have a sinful nature. They inherited that nature from a single human, because there HAD to be a first human from which we all came. Only God is eternal - humans were not. Now, the origin of that first human is immaterial, as is his name, but he had to BE. We all got our human nature from that first one (whether Adam or Igor), but did not inherit specific sins from him - just the propensity FOR sin, that thing which generates sinful thoughts, which in turn can grow into sinful actions.

The Sinful Nature of Man.

He classified even our thoughts when evil as a sin, not only actions alone... so he says that all of us needed a savior because we all cannot remember to /and ask forgiveness for every single thing we think and do each day.

Evil thoughts are the inward evidence of a sinful nature. Anyone who tells you they never had an evil thought is a liar - they are sinning right there! Evil thoughts cannot be controlled, because they are under the blanket control of our human nature. They come, you may dismiss them or act on them, but either way they were THERE. Some of us (perhaps me) have more of them than others, and so a greater struggle to wage, but EVERYONE has them, at least from time to time.

We need a "savior", an intermediary, someone or some where we can hide or dismiss those sins before going face to face with God, because God will not countenance a sin - it has to be purged in some way. We cannot do it ourselves, because of the sinful nature - they just keep coming back, regenerating, if we are thrown to our own devices. According to the Bible, God throws them into "the sea of forgetfulness" - I presume that is allegorical for forgetting them as if they never were... but in order to throw them away and forget them, he first has to get hold of them to throw. That's where an intermediary comes in, someone who can handle gathering them up for the toss.

As an aside, that is also what forgiveness is, whether human forgiveness or divine. It is forgetting slights against you as if they never were. It is NOT saying "I forgive you", then holding on to the slight for a rainy day when you want to be mad at someone again. Once something is truly forgiven, it is gone, not to be dredged up again. If you can dredge it back up, you never really forgave it, and told a lie when you said you did.

He says that God is so pure and holy He cannot abide with sin, not even a sinful thought that never develops into an action, nenothtu said that our thoughts are seeds... and evil thoughts are the seeds of evil.

I guess that only holds if you believe that God is capable of knowing your inward thoughts - but if he isn't, is he really a god? Evil thoughts are the seeds from which evil actions grow, and are therefore sin in their own right, just as an acorn contains an oak tree in embryo (an acorn contains the root, the trunk, and the first two leaves of an oak tree, as do all seeds of their respective plants. They ARE the plant, just in a simplified form). Evil thoughts are in turn the result of a sinful nature. Without a sinful nature, evil thoughts would not come, and evil actions would not grow from them.

I don't really get it, but he said he will explain it more tonight. I don't get it because to me if it is not action it is not sin, ie: we cannot be punished for a thought. But Neno seems to think we can...

We can be "punished" for the thought because it IS the sin, just an embryonic form of it. We can stamp it out of course, and most do - or at least try to - but that doesn't mean that it never was, and it doesn't mean that another won't come along the pike when we least expect it, because they spring, they generate, from our sinful nature as humans.

In it's simplest form, we are not "punished" for either the thoughts OR the deeds, we are "punished" in essence for the sinful nature, because it is the root from which both thought and deed spring.

Now, that "punishment" varies from one belief system to another. Some claim it's a fiery pit, some claim it's torture by demons (fiery pit evidently optional), and some claim it is final and eternal nothingness, among other variants. What all of those have in common, however, is an eternal separation from the Divine, whatever else is tacked on. I don't think that the form one believes the "punishment" takes is nearly as important as realizing that it is, at its core, eternal separation from God. For some folks, that won't evidently be a problem or a punishment. More power to 'em. They'll never know what they missed out on if that turns out to be the case... OR maybe they'll get just a taste of it at the end so that they DO know what it was. Either way, it's their own decision, not mine, to make for them.

The reason for that "punishment", that separation, Is that a sinless God and sinful man cannot commingle - it's sort of like oil and vinegar. Therefore, the sin must be removed from man's nature somehow.

Anyway, since he said he will try to explain it all where it makes sense to me tonight, he will probably reply in the thread on that topic too...

cause I don't understand it at all. lol

Didn't get the chance. Maybe tomorrow... and the next day, and the next day, and the next day, and so on, until you DO understand what I believe, or get worn out with trying. No reason you or anyone else should believe the same as I do, however. I'm told pretty often that I'm out in left field anyhow, but heck, it's peaceful out here! No crowds!

If you want to understand, we have a lifetime for me to explain. Keep in mind, however, that understanding is NOT the same as believing that way. hundreds or thousands of Christians I've talked to will confirm that for you - with vehemence!

... and purple faces.

reply to post by FlyersFan


FF, just riddle me this,

1) Do you believe that Jesus pbuh died to rid you of your original sin?
2) Do you think Adam pbuh is fictional? and so there is no original sin?

reply to post by nenothtu


Oh I totally know that just because someone understands something it does not mean they will or even have to believe it, but understanding goes a long way toward... well... understanding each other.

I'll be honest, I think I get some of this but much is going way over my head, but if and when I do understand, I promise not to turn purple and slap you!

nenothtu
I was under the impression that you had done away with the OT entirely.

I will answer you with your own quote because you said it perfectly -

nenothtu
The actual names and existence of Old testament characters is immaterial - the lessons to be drawn from the accounts is what is of importance. Whether the accounts themselves are factual or fanciful is not important theologically.

For that matter, most of the NT characters could be fictitious, and Christianity would still work - the only one wh has to have been literally real for Christian theology to work is Jesus himself. The rest could ALL be stories and object lessons without affecting Christianity.

I seem to recall you even claiming the Ten Commandments were spurious, not of God.

The Ten Commandments had been around for hundreds and hundreds of years prior to Moses saying that the hand of God wrote them on stone on top of a mountain. There is no reason to believe that the 10 commandments were handed to Moses on the mountaintop. However, as I said, they are still good rules for civilization to live by.

reply to post by FlyersFan

I'm a Christian just as those hundreds of millions are.

Dead wrong. As I have shown by the statistics provided

Your "Christianity" holds no water, theologically.
Because without belief in Adam, there was no "original sin". Without original sin, the doctrine of Jesus' "sin sacrifice" is without foundation.

Your "statistics" only show that millions of Christians not believing their own bibles... thereby indicating that that Christianity is on the verge of collapse.

The bible stories are rejected as they are written by hundreds of millions of Christians.

Millions of Christians have rejected their religion completely and live as atheists.
It doesn't mean their stance on things automatically becomes the universal truth.

nenothtu
What is at issue, I think, is whether they legitimately ARE, or whether they just want the T-shirt.

A muslim (skorpion) reading the bible and having an admitted agenda that he hopes Christianity dies is not the person to decide if a Christian is really a Christian or not. It's a matter of theology and he isn't qualified.

In all honesty, that isn't for me to determine, or Skorpion. In the end, that is and will be between them (and you, since you include yourself in those ranks) and God.

I agree ... it's between the person and God.

nenothtu
"Save souls" from what?

Their sinful human nature. (notice I didn't say 'original sin' ... it's really a sinful human nature)

Teachings on what? What did Jesus teach that had no basis in the OT?

His teachings are capable of standing alone. Some of what he said is mirrors Buddha.
Just because something may also be in the the OT doesn't mean it's dependent upon it.

nenothtu
You absolutely CAN separate the people from the stories!

Skorpion can't. Go ahead and try it with him .... see how that goes.

Take the folklore around Abraham. IF he existed, the stories around him were just word of mouth stories for 1500 years. It took that long to write them down. IF he existed, we have no idea if any of those stories are true. And really, it's unimportant if they were or not. Jesus teaching of love God and love neighbor can stand without Abraham. There may have been an Abraham ... but the stories around him are untrustworthy. So why bother with what is untrustworthy? If someone wants to ... that's fine ... that's their choice. But I prefer to use my time on more trustworthy information.