The Bible is not the word of God in any literal or verbal sense.  It never has been!  The Gospels are not inerrant works, divinely authored.  They were written by communities of faith, and they express even the biases of those communities.  The Gospels are not without significant internal contradictions or embarrassing moral and intellectual concepts.  The Gospels are not static.  They reveal changing, evolving theological perspectives.  They are not even original.  They lean far more than has yet been realized on the work of Paul and on the inspiration of the Hebrew scriptures.  They are not the words of eyewitnesses, as so often has been claimed.  Most eyewitnesses to the life of Jesus were long dead before the Gospels entered history.  The Gospels were also shaped by the events of their own time, perhaps even more dramatically than they were by the events of the time in which Jesus actually lived.  For example, the capture and destruction of Jersusalem by the Roman army in 70 C.E. is a powerful reality in the background of each of the Gospel narratives.  Seeing the Gospels in a proper historical perspective is therefore our first step into biblical knowledge.

John Shelby Spong

“Why Christianity Must Change or Die”

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