Please provide such "evidence".
The Nag Hammadi texts for one. This shows the level diversity of thought in the early Christian communities. Rather than being some monolithic line from Jesus to Orthodoxy with later aberrations coming in corrupting the one pure message, as the myth attempts to create, you begin to see that the proto orthodox line was one of these branches of Christianity's evolution.
This makes a lot more sense considering the nature of evolution itself. It never follows one straight, clean line. We impose linearity on it, and our origin myths like to reflect that.
However, with that being said, the Church was in a stage of major transition when the Jesus and the apostles passed away, therefore the Church had to rely on what they ascertained them to have believed and taught, so perfection is not logical under these circumstances. Nevertheless, the Church had a major obligation to try to sum up their teachings and then get into possible applications.
This is all part of the evolution of the proto orthodox group consolidating its position as the "official" strain chosen upon at a later date, crafting and choosing what to include that supported the preferred views over other views, which were subsequently culled out and literally burned in fire. Fortunately for us, lovers of knowledge hid these away from the righteous one's, and we have them today by pure luck to be able to re-examine our assumptions provided to us by the myth of the "Great Story", as Bauer called it.
We can never be certain of how accurate the "red letters" are, as any theologian well knows. However, it's a mistake to assume that just because we cannot declare inerrancy, thus we should just throw everything out.
There is a difference between truth and factity. It's a relationship between the subject and the object of belief. There is a dynamic between these which creates truth to us. For instance, someone assumes that if they can just get to the facts of what Jesus said, then you can get to the truth and you will know it. However, the reality of this is quite different. I take a very different approach with this.
It doesn't matter if Jesus was a completely different animal than what you or I might assume based upon what we read, or have been taught. The real Jesus on the ground is less important than the "Jesus" that we see. That's what matters. That's what is the truth to us. And in reality, the facts have a way of diminishing the truth of it to us, changing a
symbol into a mere
sign, taking transcendence and making it mundane. So yes, throwing out the baby is exactly what happens when you have literalists trying to find out the "facts" about God and such. The baby is the transcendent nature of symbolism.
In the words of Carl Jung, "t
he mechanism that transforms energy is the symbol", which he named his later work, "Symbols of Transformation". That energy, is spirit, and it is spirit that hears truth and responds. The rational mind is a bit of a dullard when it comes to that, so "facts" are really only an exercise of the rational mind seeking to satisfy itself, but the relationship between the truth and facticity, is the eye of Spirit. It's what is held in one's own degree of Consciousness, or spiritual awareness. Truth resides in the heart, ornaments of the Spirit hung on the structures of the mind to be beheld and marveled at with wonder.
A dove is just a bird. But when it becomes the Holy Spirit to us, we transcend ourselves through its symbolic reality. That is what the Christ is. Our transcendent Self.
Technically, that is simply not at all true, nor is it even logical. If that were to be the case, then we should just stop going to any church, stop reading any "scriptures", stop having any supposed "Christian" beliefs, because we know nothing.
And this right here is exactly what I just said is throwing out the baby with the bathwater. The myth of the Great Story, while factually untrue, has symbolic truth and meaning to people. Even if not factually true, it holds a certain symbolic value.
I got the pleasure of being asked to go out for coffee by one of the NT scholars who was part of the Jesus Seminar work, as she wanted to discuss further some of my thoughts I had shared with her as the speaker. We talked for a couple hours or so, and one of the things she said really stuck true for me. She was talking about the story of the Nativity, and how someone had asked her if she thought it was historically true. Her response was, "If it didn't really happen, it should have."
What she meant by that, which I got right away, was that is a timeless story of human truth. "If it didn't happen, it should have". This is what a good mythology is. It captures a deep, timeless truth of the human spirit expressed through symbol, creating a transcendent reality which both draws us to itself, and transforms us into itself through its symbolic vision. Does it really matter if a virgin girl biologically became pregnant without having sex? Is that what the story is actually about? Does it matter if it wasn't historically true?
Is symbolic truth dependent on facts? If it is, then how is it still symbolic, if it's factual? It serves a different function, and operates at a different level. If it is not symbolic, then it's just a sign of something mundane.
As it turned out, the basic Protestant line of "sola scriptura" made so little sense, as did their claim that the Church was not an extension of the church of the apostles. There's no magical dividing line between the two, and if you think there is, then maybe produce your evidence. I've studied this for literally thousands of hours over the years, and have yet to see such a line.
There's more, but I gotta stop here anyway for a while.
This is good. I too have spent literally thousands of hours studying these things from different angles and have come to understand things in a more complementary way for me. I agree with you about how "sola scriptura" makes little sense. As a religion a traditional line of teachings has a cumulative knowledge and wisdom to its followers. Contrast this with the Protestant strains and you have all manner of pop-up truth churches centered around some charismatic preacher who creates a certain following which branches off hither and yon. Hardly anything one could consider as a vehicle for inherited Wisdom!
In this sense, the Catholic church as an institution bringing in the wisdom of tradition of early saints and others within its particular lineage (recall I see this as one strain of Christianity which gained prominence and later taught history through its eyes as the 'original' church), has in fact a greater claim to "historical Christianity" than any one of these little upstart churches. But that still does not make it historically factual. It means it's the oldest surviving Christian voice in the world, of what became Christianity to us.
Where I come to in my thinking here, to attempt to share that with you, is that however the means a person, or story is transformed from scant historical facts, into symbolic truth, it becomes Truth to those who believe in it. It represents the Truth of God on earth to them. It doesn't matter if its claimed origin is factually true or not true, or if it is the natural product of evolution through of social and cultural pressures, and the whole range of considerations in those entire areas. Rather, it's how it is held symbolically that becomes the truth to the followers.
The important thing is what is inspired in the heart. It's the truth of the heart, not to be confused with the facts on the ground. The facts on the ground is mundane. It's functional and curious. But it's not symbolic truth. It does not transform from within by opening the soul beyond its own sense of self in this world. The same Truth, can be found in anything, if the heart and the will imbue it with intentions and meanings.
It's occurring to me at this moment that this is somewhat akin to the issue one runs into with Creationism. There is an enormous resistance to the idea of Evolution for them, because they see that these "facts on the ground" don't match how they have envisioned the facts based upon their inherited mythologies. They cannot separate out the meaning of the symbol, from the symbol. "It it wasn't as I have believed, then it's false". And that is what is throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
In other words, so what if the Great Story is myth. "If it didn't really happen, it should have".
Once one can hold these things lightly, then that real Truth begins to be seen and the rest is just window dressing. Ornaments of the Spirit.