I am trying to have this discussion as an agnostic, which I am not, so forgive me if I step into my faith tradition. I think all of these gods, and folklores have some elements of truth inspired by the true God. Most every religion has a creation story, story of the fall of man, apocolypse stories, and other common themes. These simple stories are often allegories that speak to universal truths. There was a creation. Man's disobedience broke perfect union with God. The Earth was destroyed by a flood. These stories were often reasoned by diverse groups of people and have differences, but they all share the universal truth. The differences may be due to imperfect understanding or perhaps demonic interference. God chose the Jews to reveal the word to and gave the world the possibility of salvation through them. Christ promised us prior to his ascension into heaven that he would leave us a visible Church and that his Holy Spirit would guide the Church. His Holy Spirit protects the Church from teaching doctrinal errors. Aside from the 4 cannonical Gospels the most cited mentions of Christ or from the Jewish historian Josephus and the Roman Tacitus. This link will take you to a well cited website that has some of the quotes mentioning Christ.
That word scares the crap out of me. Let's trust the Nicaean Creed to determine what we take as "truth". Try reading the non "cannonical" gospels. You will surely learn more about who Christ was.
Some of them are pretty good and held in high redard like the Protoevangelium of James, but are not considered inspired because they have no impact on salvation. Most of the "other gospels" are 5th through 7th century forgeries that were created to support one heresy or another.
thats the main way ive heard muslims invalidate christianity. that, and that grace is quite convenient. what supafan just posted, and the qumran texts (sort of) no. doesnt have to be proved to be true. of course im not going to believe it---unless i have some revelation on the way to damascus.
I have read most of these books, and histories of them. The four cannonical gospels were written in the 1st and 2nd centuries and have been widely quoted by Christian leaders since then. The other books called gospels popped up througout history to support the popular heresy of the day. They were widely dismissed in their day, are never mentioned or quoted in the writings the Church Fathers, and are given little credibility by 99% of the secular historians. Only the crazy conspircy theorists really believe books like the Gospel of Thomas are legit. If you want to debate this post the name of a book and why you think it is real and I will shred it 10 different ways.
Watch out all of the non-cannon gospels are not real and made up. Boy I could have predicted you saying that. LOL
If you can prove a universal negative I would love to see it. Typical neo-gnostic. Loves to build up the false gospels, but scared to defend their merit.
