The BBC blurb:
A large majority of people in Britain do not believe the Biblical story about the birth of Jesus to be a reliable historical account, a survey suggests. New Testament scholar Simon Gathercole, of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, discusses the survey carried out by religious think tank Theo, which also suggests almost a quarter of those describing themselves as Christians share this scepticism.
Just goes to show — truth is not ‘validated’ by a majority vote.
Thank you, Lord, for sending us Your Son!
In His Peace
Jim Elliott <>< Florida
The fact that many C of E Bishops cannot sign up to a major doctrine – says nothing about the validity of the doctrine and everything about the shameful state of many of our top clerics.
I actually blogged on this yesterday- check it out! http://sbarnabas.com/blog/2008/12/20/sorry-state-of-the-house-of-bishops/
another drip feed item from Radio 4 – designed to suggest that belief in Christian creed is primitive and redundant and not the accepted view of middle England
Sorry for this aside, Rugbyplayingpriest, but can you tell me what it means in England when a book talks about a “well metalled road?” I was reading Wind in the Willows again, and it twice mentions well metalled roads. Larry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavement_(material)
Do those deniers have any coherent (even if wrong) theory as to why we should not believe in the Virgin Birth, while believing in the Resurrection, et.?. I bet at least some of them base it in a simplistic metaphysical materialism. Then they are always trying to tell us what is the “real significance” of the various articles of belief.
Larry: from Wikipedia!
“Metal or metalling has had two distinct usages in road paving. Metalling originally referred to the process of creating a carefully engineered gravel roadway. The route of the roadway first would be dug down several feet. Depending on local conditions, French drains may or may not have been added. Next, large stone was placed and compacted, followed by successive layers of smaller stone, until the road surface was a small stone compacted into a hard, durable surface.
Road metal later became the name of stone chippings mixed with tar to form the road surfacing material tarmac. A road of such material is called a “metalled road” in British usage, or less often a macadam road, however the most common name applied to any U.K road surface is “tarmac”, regardless of its actual construction. The word metal is derived from the Latin metallum, which means both “mine” and “quarry”, hence the roadbuilding terminology.”
Simon Gathercole is a fine evangelical scholar at Cambridge, with books on ‘The New Perspective on Paul’ and the pre-existence of Christ in the Synoptics – now there’s a Christmas present!
Thanks, azusa. Larry