[156] than a small amount of probability, at MOST of the historical events in the biblical literature, including those events which have produced the biblical picture of Jesus insofar as he is called the Messiah, the Christ. But analagous things have been done and can be done with the holy writings of non-Christian religions. There are also many legendary traditions and mythological elements. And if modern historical methods have been applied to them, then the same situation has become evident. But all this does not necessarily mean that there is a conflict between religious truth and historical truth^a. The truth of faith, the religious truth, the truth about our ultimate concern, cannot be made dependent on the historical truth of the stories and legends in which the faith has expressed itself. And l would say this as strongly as possible: it is a disastrous distortion of the meaning of religion if it is identified with the belief in the historical validity of stories. And it is a disastrous distortion of the CHRISTIAN idea of faith^b if it is identified with the belief in the historical validity of the BIBLICAL stories. Unfortunately this disastrous situation exists both on high and on low levels of sophistication. People say that others, or they themselves, cannot have faith---for instance Christian faith, or Jewish faith---because, they tell us, they are not able to believe, for instance, in the biblical miracle stories, because they don't think they are reliably documented---more reliable, they would add, than most of the miracle stories which were told at the same time, and very often had the same content in the whole pagan religious world around Judaism and Christianity.