Whether Biblical literalism is valid seems unanswerable, however, from this type of historical analysis, which a literalist would reject. A person who sees the Gospels solely as documents of faith, written by Jesus' actual disciples at relatively the same time period despite their different perspectives, versions of events, and literary motifs, would naturally try to reconcile the two different versions of Jesus of Matthew and Mark and suggest that they made up the 'same' person of the same whole. One Jesus demands care on the part of His followers, the other demands trust, but both are important values for a Christian. A literalist would be reading for spiritual sustenance, a Biblical historian would be reading to try to get a sense of how the teacher Jesus was viewed and constructed by later authors -- perhaps Mark wrote in a time of need, while Matthew was trying to preach about the...
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