Guys, is it really so important to discuss the credibility of the bible in such an unimportant manner as it is done here??

I mean, we just have to see that the bible is a collection of writings written by christians for christians. it may be worth a thought about to what extent it matches with provable historical facts and in what way it confirms archaeological research as a secondary (!) source. but as you see, the academic articles and layman opinions that have been written about that matter so far even surmount the extent of the bible itself, and they all contradict each other. so we can't talk about reliable information in historical research, either... (as for me, the state of affaires that I have been told by archaeologists I know even differs extremely from what was claimed here...)

What is crucial in the person of jesus is not how credible the writings about him are. he is, like every other guy in the bible (and even in every religious writings, be it islamic, hindu, or whatever) a mythical, religious figure and a symbol of faith.

There is a contradiction in saying 'the bible is wrong'... just because religion is about belief and faith (which is not meant as a judgement...)
Jesus as the messiah does not fulfill this function because we can still prove his story after two thousand years, but because people strongly believe in him and also trust that this belief will redeem them. It's the importance that faith can have for a faithful person (and I am not really one of them) which makes the figure jesus crucial in human history...

Although I am not exactly religious (at least not in a common sense) I do trust people who say that their faith gives them strength and rest, why shouldn't I? (They will know what they talk about...) And it makes no difference arguing about historical facts: belief is about believing and not about knowing: these two are totally independent categories of the human mind.

So what sense does this whole dicussion make in connection with the score of a movie which the religious director himself meant as an adaption of the biblical (!) sources?? Gibson never wanted to make a critical film about historical research, anyway...