Theologians are not historians. That's the first thing you learn when you start listening to their arguments. Historians study how a group of people worshipped, but it doesn't make a distinction in the truth claims of each religion. Theologians want it both ways. Not only to look at the bible as sober history, but also infer inerrancy.
It happens subtly. No Christian apologist will start off an attempted conversion from a historical avenue. The process will start with an appeal to emotion tied to personal responsibility to the moral teachings of the bible. If there are some questions about historicity, they are dealt with tactfully without discussing the gaping holes in the record. The goal is to bring the "sinner" to the foot of the cross and make an emotional decision. Everything else will be explained by the "spirit of God."
The "Four Spiritual Laws" does not have an appendix that shows historical footnotes that support the claims. No altar call is preceded by a discussion of the authorship of Mark. The purpose is to commit to the emotional appeal of the faith and get you invested in it! Once you are emotionally invested in the theological end of the arguments, historical inaccuracies are easier to explain away. Then you can appeal to interpretation and discover the myriad of arguments meant to simply fend off "unbelievers."
Pretty soon, you hear yourself saying the same things as other Christians. "You don't want to be believe in Jesus because of your sin, not because of the history around it."
The arguments turn into you having a value of truth in your statements that are backed up by the Spirit of God who has placed these in your heart. All of a sudden, you have an upper hand on these people attempting to throw "secular" arguments (like historicity) at the gospel. It is a short jump to seeing a giant "atheist conspiracy" in the historical arguments and that their lack of a moral center is the deciding factor in not accepting the inerrancy of the bible.
A good apologists will have the Seminary level expertise in dodging the common questions on: genocide, free will, marriage, omniscience and transubstantiation but that dodging is not meant to convince a person of the historicity of the bible. The goal is to dodge the surface level questions in order to get a person to think of the bible as a A-Z book of answers and focus the spotlight on the spiritual condition of the questioner. Staying on the historicity debate will soon show the holes in the work and that's not beneficial to the theologian. The statement is made that the bible is a great history book because its "His-story."
The dabbling into historicity is a tricky scenario for the theologian because then you have to reckon with the thousands of episodes of miracles, zombies, talking animals, 900 year old people, rock giants (nephilim), floating zoos and virgin birth. All of these can be found in works that are contemporary to the bible and that's a problem. There are a number of smokescreens that theologians put up to divert attention away from this. The unique character of Jesus is usually stated to counter any argument. There were a lot of people claiming to be divine in history, but Jesus was what one of my pastors referred to as "the only original in a world of carbon copies."
The problem is, you can't just accept the interesting and edifying teachings of this character, you have to face his claims of divinity. And that is tied to your own personal responsibility as a person before the God that created you... In other words, guilt will bring you to the cross and general statements about "have you broken God's laws?" The "Way of the Master" ministry takes this approach with Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort confronting people with the Ten Commandments and getting to the quick fact that we all break "God's law." Its a quick jump to personal responsibility without having to go through the heavy lifting of discussion if this is all true.
The first appeal is made to the element that will do all the heavy lifting for the Christian: feeling.
Feeling will bring you to biblical inerrancy without having to go through the hard questions. You fully accept the inerrancy of this book before even reading it. In fact, so many Christians throw up the defense of inerrancy without having looked at the claims at all. Because the fuzzy warm feeling inside is enough for them, it should be enough for anyone.
Listen to any atheist call-in shows like the "Atheist Experience" and its clear that the arguments every Christian uses show the progression of their conversion. They weren't saved through historical arguments and can't counter the hosts points, but they CAN and WILL make the claim to inerrancy and personal responsibility in a heart beat! How many times has the argument been made "you are rejecting the almighty God because of your hatred and because of sin."
In my life, I had a knowledge about God inside but didn't realize it was made of the same material any other shared idea was made out of: feelings. And its hard to go back to that first moment when I was saved but the basis of that decision was not intellect first, but feeling! I have discussed this before in the blog where I was face to face with this caricature of Jesus and had to make a split second decision because I could walk out of the auditorium and be faced with a Christ-less eternity!
You assume that the factual work has already been done. So you accept whatever is thrown out there until you realize that you joined something without reading the fine print. But by then, you have so much invested in the belief and your eternal destiny, there's no point in going back. That's why Christian apologists create endless wiki pages about young earth creation, biblical history and archeology sites. There is a guise of historicity without the sober examination of this era versus any other era.
That's why history was the sword that cut through my faith. Because I could not understand how archeology showed hundreds of thousands of years of development which countered any 6000 year old earth and historical "orchard thief" event. History cut through the inerrancy of the bible as I found the claims of hundreds of thousands of people in an exodus and conquest of Canaan to be unfounded. The development of the Hebrew God from polytheism and through the influences of other cultures like Persian Zoroastrianism. And then the attempt to smoosh this all together in one book that is supposed to be A-Z. Instead, its a hodge podge of ancient works that fit together as Jewish history and teachings... but that's about it.
History is the knife that cut through the claims of the New Testament and showed 4 anonymous gospels written year after the fact with no direct claim to sources. Also, most of the other books were written by Paul who made the claim he did not receive his message from human sources, but from the glorified Christ in visions/revelations. And that's all we should need to know to see this book for what it is, a compilation of stories around a figure in the 1st century, just like any other.
But, if you come to that conclusion, the appeal is made again to feeling. And fire and brimstone.
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