Isn't it a matter of whose scholarship you accept? You are entitled to hold whatever view you like.....that is why we all have free will. Our decisions make us who we are, and who we are makes us either acceptable as citizens of God's kingdom or it doesn't. Since we all receive the same judgment, we have to wait and see if we are accepted or rejected by Jesus. (Matt 7:21-23) His judgment is the only one that matters......right?
Perhaps it is what I am rejecting that should be clarified.
The core doctrines of Christendom (for almost all denominations) were formulated by an apostate church. Do you believe that the apostasy took place as Jesus and the apostles said it would?
These doctrines include the trinity...immortality of the human soul...hellfire as an eternal punishment for the wicked....a heavenly reward for all the faithful (including pre-Christian servants of God)....and the cross as a religious symbol. These beliefs were formulated or adopted into church dogma in the centuries after Jesus and his apostles died. These are the teachings I reject. Jesus never taught any of these things.
Even though the Catholic Church that was the agency through which the Bible canon was compiled, there is no teaching of Christendom that is contained in scripture. These themes are forced into scripture but none of them were Jewish teachings. As a Jew, Jesus would not have taught them.
It is my view that Christianity has presented a corrupted image of God as the Ruthless Moralist, Ruling Caesar, and Unmoved Mover. I view God more as the Cosmic Artist luring the world to greater beauty. I think that what Christ had in mind. The Trinity is certainly implied in Scripture, though not worked out in any real detail. The prologue to Jn, for example, clearly establishes the Deity of Christ. Also, it is clear in Scripture that the Spirit is God. However, the Bible is not a book of metaphysics, and putting together a coherent picture of the Trinity is something we have to do. Hence, the Trinitarian formulas are extra-biblical in nature. I am not really happy with the majority of Trinitarian formulas, as they reflect Hellenic substance metaphysics, which I reject.
Hell is also very problematic for me. Christ preaches a God of love; and when you love others, you do not seek to coerce them with threats and terrible punishments. Christ says we are to our enemies and that God is kind and compassionate with the ungrateful and wicked. Problem is, you have all these dark sayings of Christ where he does talk about some sort of Hell. I am of two minds here. Perhaps such statements were added by later spin-doctors seeking a more punitive, vengeful God. Perhaps Christ was talking about aspects of universal salvation which could involve pain. Fire is not always negative in Christianity. Christian mystics often likened God to a fire, and us to iron in this fire. Some of the iron seems to resist the fire more than others. So a cold, stony, legalistic person caught up in what some have called teh furnace of divine love might have a painful time of it, might resist becoming more open and loving and empathic. I think the immortality of the soul, you mean life beyond the grave, certainly the Resurrection testifies to that as well as the teachings of Paul. I do have trouble with Paul because I find he slips too easily back into a legalistic model of a juridical, punitive God.