Chapter 13: The Bethlehem Star, by Dr. Aaron Adair, in Christianity in the light of Science: Critically Examining the World's Largest Religion (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Press, 2016): 297-313. [Used with permission].
About two
centuries ago, there was a major transition in the way scholars were
approaching the stories of the Bible, both the Old and New Testaments. There
was a greater attempt to look at the historical context and formation of the
holy book and its stories, and the tales of Jesus were a major issue for
critical scholars and theologians. It was also at around this time that the
acceptability of wondrous stories was not palatable, at least for the educated
where a deistic god was more ideal, one that did not perform miracles and was consistent
with the universe of Newtonian mechanics. A naturalistic understanding of the
world, inspired by the success of the physical sciences, along with inspiration
from Enlightenment thinkers, changed the way people looked at the world, and
that caused for a significant reassessment of the spectacular stories of the
ancient world. What was one to do with the miracle stories of Jesus if miracles
don’t happen? The solution was a series of rationalizations, none seen as
terribly plausible but preferable to claiming a miracle or a myth. For example,
Jesus walking on water was a mistake on the part of the Disciples, seeing their
master walk along the beach shore on a foggy morning and not actually atop the
water. Even the resurrection of Jesus was so retrofitted into scenarios that
are unlikely, to say the least, but at least they weren’t impossible.
Every Monday morning I'm posting submitted essays, excerpts from my books, and some of the best posts of the past. Here's one from January 17, 2012.
This topic interests me to no end. Why don't most believers seriously question their faith? Does it take a special type of individual? Does it require some personality trait that believers don't have? Does that make skeptics different people? Could it be intelligence? Could it be that skeptics have a higher self-esteem than others? Is it that we don't need social approval? Is it that life's experiences have shown us we cannot accept the dominant opinion on a matter? Is it that we question what we're told in general? Perhaps, but when we look at skeptics in general there doesn't seem to be a set pattern. Perhaps a scientific poll might help answer that kind of question. What I do think is that the following ten reasons are almost certainly necessary conditions even if they are not sufficient ones:
