No other document is more central to history. No ancient text has clearer historical support. You can stake your life on the sacred words of the Bible. https://t.co/MDdVS9YDGg
— Desiring God (@desiringGod) March 5, 2019
I doubt the average pew-sitter pays much attention to Biblical scholarship, or even to popular versions prepared for an educated but not-specialized audience. Nor, in fact, do most pastors want them to; they’d prefer their flock read clowns like Josh McDowell and gen-u-ine pseudo-historian David Barton. John Piper surely pays attention, however, so his claim has no more dignity than the lie of a plaid-suited carnival barker.
Probably the best single-volume introduction to the difficulties of the traditional Christian narrative is John Spong’s Rescuing the Bible From Fundamentalism. Alternatively, read Bart Ehrman’s Lost Christianities. Both books offer a good survey of what bona fide Biblical scholars believe about the early Christian era — and it’s not what Pastor Bubba is telling you.
As a contemporary analogy of what happened at the dawn of Christianity, imagine that the Breitbart and World Net Daily and Renew America crowds succeeded in controlling the historical narrative about the early 21st-Century; the result would be no more trustworthy than the New Testament.