At this point, who determines what is pure Christianity and what is adulterated?
========================================
The leader of each and every sect and denomination knows precisely what this is: it is THEIR interpretation that is best: the others are either mistaken to some degree or outright heretical.
If Jesus had left behind a "Book of Jesus" that spelled it all out, then I imagine that we might have fewer denominations, sects and cults.
In the Jewish religion, the written word (such as the Ten Commandments, written in stone) are valued more than common spoken words. Had Jesus followed the traditions of his own religion, he would have written a Book of Jesus. But apparently, he didn't.
Mohammad was illiterate. Why would Allah choose an illiterate to write down what he said? How does that make sense?
Muslims say that Allah dictated the Suras to Mo and he had them transcribed later, and they are so perfect that this PROVES that they were Divine Words. Yeah, sure. Read it sometime. Among a few pearls of wisdom, there are a whole passel of Arab folk beliefs, wrapped up in a huge mess of gibberish. Okay, in Arabic, it rhymes. But really, so what? Does rhyming make anything true?
No, it just makes it easier to memorize. "If the glove don't fit, you must acquit" .
Or did OJ just have a pair of gloves that someone gave him as a gift that never fit well, and were shrunken from being all bloody? Who the Hell wears dress gloves in LA anyway?
But poetry SOUNDS truer, that much is true.
If we accept that Jesus or Mohammad were the ideal messengers of a perfect and all-knowing (meaning: He knows everything there is to know about people as well) God, then we are not thinking with a full deck.
To posit that a sinful thought I had in 2004 could be canceled out by someone enduring suffering on a cross in AD33 or thereabouts defies all logic about the nature of cause and effect. For starters, it rules out the unidirectional nature of time. The effect must always follow the cause: first, the act, then the forgiveness for said act.
You cannot fix a flat tire before it is punctured. You cannot cure the disease before it is contracted. There is also more than a bit of illogic in the concept that suffering is a good thing.