I had no idea that the production of doctrinal material was supposed to be the criteria for measuring the authenticity of someone's alleged relationship with Christ.
Well, you do now.
It seems to me that the philosophers and theologians are doing a fine job of filling the libraries.
That is to be expected, if they have no relationship with Christ, and are doing what Christians just about always do: argue from doctrine and personal preference.
Take the goal that Mika Zibanejad scored a couple of nights ago against the Montreal Canadiens. Millions of people saw it, we can play back the tape over and over, we can slow down the footage as much as we like and yet there are a million people in Montreal who think the goal should have been disallowed and an equal number in Ottawa who think the opposite.
At least we have the tape.
In the case of the Apostle Paul, he laid down a large amount of text, that Christians take seriously, and as you say, could just be one incredibly biased chap's interpretation of something completely different. Jesus may have been up there, saying, "Paul, you have to follow Jewish law", and Paul could be saying, "Yeah, we should follow the bits that make sense!". And Jesus could be, like, "No, Paul, ALL of it." And Paul could be like, "All the bits that make sense, right". And Jesus could be like, "No, it all makes sense." And then Paul could say, "What? Did you see that grasshopper?"
What I'm saying, is that Christian interpretation of information from Jesus, is about as reliable as the Canadiens who think the goal shouldn't have been allowed. (Here, I make the grand assumption that there is
any information from Jesus, at all. If there were none, it would explain the complete disarray on doctrinal issues.)
Though, we do have a general consensus on how we should spell Jesus' name, because iesu would be mad if we got it wrong, and worshipped the incorrect Joshua, or Yehashua, or whatever. Jesus
would have taken the time to tell us his real name, right? You can't ask Jesus for a relationship, if you don't know his name. Maybe that's half the trouble.
Personally, I think his name is FROG. Do you have any objection with that? Every night, I pray to FROG, and ask him to make me successful in battle, and for penis extension. FROG has two parents, named the WHOLY FROG, and FRILLY FROG SPIRIT.
You can see, I have got it basically right? Can you ask you Jesus to clear up some facts for me, about life in 30AD. There is some stuff we'd like to know. More especially, we'd like to know what the hell Paul was talking about in Galatians.