Two opposing pints of view? Dale, in last Sunday's sermon, reckons absolute belief in the Virgin Birth is essential because the Bible would fall at all fences if it fell at one. Would he go on to say that the Universe was created in 144 hours?

I tend towards believing that the bodily resurrection of Christ is the first and (by far) the most important miracle so let the enquirer start there lest he never gets there. It's also the most easily provable miracle. One of the first Alpha Course talks expresses it well... only three conclusions are possible from the evidence. 1) Jesus was mad. 2) He was bad 3) He was God.

I believe faith in the Lordship of Christ is sufficient for eternal life.

At the last midweek Bible Study we were onto Mark 8:10-26 where there's plenty to chew on.

Someone described how he had earlier that day been to his Life Drawing Class and described his frustration at finding that one of the upper arms of his sketch was too short. Initially he'd measured several times, the subject was six and a half hands and the other proportionality was derived from that. Upon the late discovery of his mistake he measured again and the subject was now seven hands - like some mysterious intrusion by a wobble in the space-time continuum. He erased much of the day's work and angrily almost restarted. He would have saved much effort by noticing the evidence of his eyes earlier but he didn't. Why not? (Incidentally the tutor had said to never measure).

Coincidentally the evening's theme seemed to be about blindness - the Pharisees requiring a "sign from heaven" even though two very large crowds had just been miraculously fed, and the blind man who required two healing sessions with Jesus before being healed.

It seemed a great story to draw parallels from. The early missing of a vital error and the eventual realisation of the result and all the subsequent work being useless due to having been built on dodgy foundation.

We noticed briefly that this could seem to happen over a much longer timescale and I can readily identify having made many mistakes and wrong turnings! The artist however was far from down now, and normally he can be quite grumpy.

The moral? It may be very late before we realise our errors and attempt to correct them (as much as possible). I'm reminded of the AA chap warning that Step Nine, putting things right, is a dangerous one and needs much wisdom.

It's very reassuring to know that the Lord will stick at it with us till we can see clearly.

I've jumped forward in my "faith and evidence" book to the NT and it's riveting stuff. I was well into it on the train when this nice young couple with giant suitcase sit down, she next to me (an empty seat between us) and he opposite and diagonal. He rests the case on his knees (a little awkwardly I thought) and after a few minutes she tells hims to put it on the floor - she'd make room by sitting across the aisle. He consents with barely a grunt and I notice, for the first time, he's wearing white in-ear headphones. I go on to witness them completely ignoring each other, in their own worlds. He just, well, listening and she studying her pink mobile - completing some SMS business involving scribbling in her pink notepad. How sad, I thought. If they're like this now there's surely no hope for them further down the line. Communication is so important in a relationship, isn't it? Perhaps he doesn't like talking on the train, or might he be sporting a hangover? Perhaps he really opens up as the day unfolds. After a few stops she just gets off without a look back! Neither of them had seemed in a bad mood and it dawned on me... they don't know each other. Back to reading! I remember nothing more of the journey.

I was miles away at the piano when the doorbell rang, not the J Dubs again I thought. No, it turned out to be the lass from 217 (MW's RC mates next door but 2 down) pointing out my multiple collision Primera. I must have dangerously left off the handbrake and she'd rolled forward and slightly away from the kerb into Jean's Vitara. It's not been mentioned but her handbrake can't have been on that well as I'd shunted her into 217's thankfully unmarked saloon. Of course I straightaway knocked 215's door and explained. He dealt with it (she was "getting ready" for something or other) and he was happy for me to sort things out with my garage, trusty Brian Ward Engineering. After sorting out my poorly nearside wing and sidelight for a very reasonable £40 (working his magic) we arranged he'd pop up saturday afternoon, weather permitting, to review the damage to her vehicle. At monday's debriefing I agreed with Brian and we agreed that I'd seek out a 2nd hand bumper. It should have been sooner but today I'd the courage so I popped round (while W was out!) to bring 215 up to speed. They must have been talking cos they've instructed me to forget the whole thing, "Life's too short!" she explains. So they're happy and I'm extremely relieved. I even told W (after she asked who I was talking to on the phone - it was a speedy getback from my online enquiry about scrap bumpers).

I'm imminently going to be reunited with a book I lost years ago on the homeward bound plane from Australia. I'd placed it down by the side of the seat as I spread myself around but forgot to check there when deplaning. It was a fascinating text book on bible archaeology by John R. Bartlett called "Bible: Faith and Evidence - A Critical Enquiry into the Nature of Biblical History" that I'd snapped up at the British Museum bookshop and it became a favourite for "dipping" into. It covered the area of textual criticism rather than "dig the dirt" archaeology and I was, for instance, for the first time alerted to the idea that Moses may not have actually authored (i.e actually written down) all of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible) but it seemingly was assembled later by editors compiling aural and written records. I was happy that some stewardess or aeroplane cleaner was making use of the book and wanted to replace it but my problem was that I couldn't remember the title! Yesterday morning (while reading Psalm 98) it came to me in a flash as I once again tried to visualise the writing on it's red cover - "faith and evidence". Bingo! Amazon found it straight away and it will arrive shortly.

In an attempt to get myself back into a similar area I recently aquired two books, William G. Dever's "What did the Biblical writers know?" (William B. Eerdmans 2001) and "Scriptures and other Artifacts: Essays on the Bible and Archaeology in Honor of Phillip J. King" ed. Michael D. Coogan, J. Cheryl Exum, and Lawrence E. Stager (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994). Dever confesses to be a "secular humanist" and very fair-mindedly points out the large acrimonious clash in his world between believers keen to prove Biblical historicity, plain scientists seeking data and others pushing hard to discredit the Bible as anything but fiction. He impressively occupies the middle ground.

My interested had became reactivated at the beginning of the year when a couple of people from our "Searching Issues" group, as far as I can make out still atheist/agnostic after graduating Alpha, told us of a TV programme over Christmas which, according to them, rubbished the idea that the the Scriptures weren't fiction. This is one thing about the Wednesday night sessions (and Alpha) that I love! It really keeps one on one's toes.

Whilst waiting for others to show last Wednesday Adam compared fact with truth when I related my historical quest. I've since been fascinated with trying to work out what he meant! Now I find the following...

By "fact" (derived from Latin factum, past participle of the verb facere, "to do") we usually mean those discrete, irreducible, empirically observable things or events whose existence cannot be doubted by reasonable persons. That is, facts are theoretically provable and correspond to reality. In practice, however, facts are merely inferences that each person draws, based not only on observations, but also on our own social conditioning and the intent of out investigation. Even in the natural sciences this is true and is increasingly recognized, and in all the social sciences such as archaeology and history, the factor of individual bias is even more operative. Thus, while in theory archaeology does recover objective "facts" from the past - for example, a pot, a stone tool, a figurine, the foundations of a building, perhaps the entire plan of a village, or even a written text - the apprehension of reality of any of these is always dependent on present, subjective human interpretation. Facts do not speak directly. They may in principle have a concrete existence of their own; but they come to life, empowered to speak to me of the past, only as I am able to incorporate them into my consciousness. This process is obviously an extraordinarily complex matter. ("What did the Biblical writers know?" by William G. Dever).