Nope.
I meant 'exhausting'.
Once you've had your brain fried with theologians from Augustine to Anshelm, Oestrigen to Neimuller, you seek relatively easier pastures in Stott, Green, Barcly and the rest, in an effort to drain some of the former stuff from your mind.
I remember Willie Barclay saying in a lecure;
"Read my books...read everyone elses'...then thank God you follow the New Testament and not us."
Works for me.
My reaction to this is similar to Jeremy's. I find it odd coming from you, considering your much more critical attitude to the Old Testament. However, I suppose it is not so odd in the light of your strong faith - which I could uncharitably say confers a great deal of confirmation bias.
However, in one matter alone - the comparison of the Synoptics with John's Gospel, we are faced with irreconcilable contradictions. Even if the authors of the Synoptics did arrive at the conclusions that Jesus was "the Son of God" (in some sense of incarnate divinity), the words of Jesus himself as recorded don't provide much corroboration that the gospels give a unified message on the matter. In John, Jesus shouts his unity with God from the rooftops, in the Synoptics, he urges his disciples to be quiet about such things (and of course,it is only in the notorious exchange with Peter in
Matthew's gospel that we find the affirmation "Christ, the Son of the living God" - the other Synoptics merely have Peter saying "the Christ".
No doubt many of the other contradictions have been argued out here before, but they are so abundant as to make none of the gospels compelling as truthful narrative - least of all John (except, probably, over the details of the Passion story).
That is why I find such claims as "Jesus said he was God" utterly absurd - and I'm surprised that other well-meaning non-believers even try to give a 'metaphorical' interpretation of such statements as "I and the Father are one"*.
I'm definitely with Gordon (as well as JP) on the question of the reliability of the original text.
*e.g. trippymonkey