Just because the originals burned up doesn’t mean what was written in 400 AD was made up or embellished. If nothing was written down for 400 years, and then someone attempted to write the history of what happened, that would be different. But that is not what occurred. There were written records out the wazoo. Paper tends to burn, but luckily, copies exist elsewhere.
Gee, I got a flurry of comments, so I will try to address them all at once:
"...Just because the originals burned up doesn’t mean what was written in 400 AD was made up or embellished. If nothing was written down for 400 years, and then someone attempted to write the history of what happened, that would be different. But that is not what occurred. There were written records out the wazoo. Paper tends to burn, but luckily, copies exist elsewhere..."
"...People didn’t wait 500 to 600 years to start writing - the originals were lost along the way and what remains are copies or texts that reference original sources..."
"...Early Christians had no bibles. But they had prayer, and a personal relationwhip with their Creator. The bible helps, but it is not a requirement..."
"...Don’t worry, Rebel Ace. There’s no lack of ancient texts..."
These comments basically boil down to something like this:
"The writings of these sorts of texts were based on copying even older texts, and we are confident that the copying was done accurately."
My point does not depend upon whether ancient texts preceded these or not. To illustrate, and to try to remove the emotional attachment that discussions of religious beliefs invoke, let's just talk about the American Civil War.
We have copious documents from that time. We even have PHOTOGRAPHS from that era. We have ORIGINAL, CONTEMPORARY news articles from that era. It has ONLY BEEN about 150 years since the events. None of that is in dispute.
Now, compare the works of CONTEMPORARY (to epoch 2000) Authors.
Bill O'Reilly wrote
. Doris Goodwin wrote
. I could go on listing many, many more.
My Point is the Honest Answer to these questions:
Are these accounts all the same?
Do the Author's opinions color their choice of words, and what material to include or dismiss?
Do Author's have specific, goal oriented agendas when creating these works?
All of these questions, and their honest answers, lie in the domain of human limits and behavior. These behaviors, motivations and limitations shape the works of Man.
If you ignore these realities when evaluating ancient written artifacts, you do so at your own intellectual peril.