I am often confronted with comments from people who clearly consider themselves wiser than myself that caution me against a 'fundamentalist' interpretation of the bible. When considering a gospel reading I am implored to consider the context in which the writer wrote or exactly what point the writer was trying to make. And, inevitably, the 'writer' is never Matthew, Mark, Luke or John!
Accepting the recorded words of Jesus as an accurate account of his statements is considered a rather naive viewpoint. We can accept the general thrust of the gospels without having to suspend our reason, the argument goes. The gospels are not flawless - far from it - but do give a generalised account of what happened. But modern educated Christians should not be afraid of criticising the accounts.
However, it seems to me that this position comes more from intellectual vanity than intellectual rigor. Those who promote such 'enlightened' criticism of the gospel accounts generally accept the central claims of Jesus, including the most outrageous one - his divinity. If we accept that Jesus is divine, we accept that he is God. God, that is, that created the universe and of course all the natural rules that govern the universe.
Our 'modern scholars' often start contextualising the gospel accounts when they come across a particularly challenging supernatural event. And I find that the most challenging event of all in the mind of this type of person is the actual recording of the gospels themselves. They reason that the accounts were written many years after the events and that they cannot possibly be accurate word-for-word accounts. Let us put aside the fact that parts of Corinthians, that contain detailed recounting of the central claims of Jesus, have been traced back to perhaps as little as 15 years after the death of Jesus - this is not they key point here. The key point is that if we accept that the incarnation was a direct intervention by God in history, can we not accept that God is quite capable of inspiring an accurate recording - supernatural or otherwise - of these important events by deeply committed followers?
But the most important flaw in this modern biblical criticism methodology is a fundamental intellectual floor. If you decide that one part of the gospel account has been 'adapted' by the writer in order to make this or that point, then it stands to reason that any part of the gospel could have been 'adapted'. What can we trust? If, as the former archbishop of York once said, the virgin birth did not actually happen, then why should we trust any part of the gospel account? The whole Christian story begins to unravel.
But Christians - even many criticisers - know in their hearts that the Christian story is true. Why would we chose to undermine the preeminent source of Christian theology? You do not have to suspend your reason to accept the accuracy of the gospel accounts. You just have to accept that God is God.
