It's an interesting question, and my immediate (and rather odd) answer will need unpacking a little.
“It depends on what you mean by the Bible.”
If you mean the physical book, then I would suggest that the core content could have been preserved by oral tradition reasonably well (like the hadith). However, given the invention of writing, it was inevitable that the NT would have been written down eventually.
If you mean, “Why not just have Jesus appear, die and get resurrected? The rest is just padding”; there are Christians for whom this would be not far off the mark.
But I would disagree, and for the same reason, if you mean the meta-narrative of the Bible, then I would call that indispensable to Christianity and indeed humanity.
The meta-narrative of Israel and God defines and drives the human story. That story of sin, exile, forgiveness and restoration is our story.
(Tough bits in the Bible are often very informative, in my experience, but you have to be patient...)
I hope this is helpful.
“It depends on what you mean by the Bible.”
If you mean the physical book, then I would suggest that the core content could have been preserved by oral tradition reasonably well (like the hadith). However, given the invention of writing, it was inevitable that the NT would have been written down eventually.
If you mean, “Why not just have Jesus appear, die and get resurrected? The rest is just padding”; there are Christians for whom this would be not far off the mark.
But I would disagree, and for the same reason, if you mean the meta-narrative of the Bible, then I would call that indispensable to Christianity and indeed humanity.
The meta-narrative of Israel and God defines and drives the human story. That story of sin, exile, forgiveness and restoration is our story.
(Tough bits in the Bible are often very informative, in my experience, but you have to be patient...)
I hope this is helpful.
