Hi, Tuliplane
I just had a piece of bread right out of the freezer with egg salad together with caramelized onion hummus. And I am now 71 years old; so you are welcome to take whatever I offer with a grain of salt.
For one thing > what matters about what you eat is if it gets digested. What combination it is in when you chew and swallow it is not the main issue. Likewise > you might get some things of God's word while you do this study, and what matters is how it digests, not necessarily who brought it to your attention.
I recently signed up to take a class on the New Testament that gets into the history of the early church, the origins of the writings, etc. I read the first chapter in the textbook so far.
Do I assume the teacher of the class is not the atheist who wrote the book? In case the teacher is not the author of the book, you might get to know your teacher and see where he or she is at, and discover how the teacher uses the book.
One might be "objective"; or one might use the book to show how writers can be wrong; or the teacher might feel the author is correct.
So, what has been the slant of the teacher?
If I were to use an atheist's book, I am a born-again guy; but I might use it for intelligence gathering, to show how atheists and former liberals are representing things and who and what they consider to be authoritative sources.
And I am informed that very high-level scientists and other scholars have at times been mistaken about things which they were convinced were true. So, I would not assume anyone really knows anything, including myself.
But God is able to communicate. You can test everything with God >
"Test all things; hold fast what is good." (1 Thessalonians 5:21)
The author makes it clear that he is only offering history and no leanings as to what the reader should believe about spiritual matters.
Again, like I say, the teacher might or might not have some leaning. And the atheist can claim he has no leaning or is being objective, but . . . this does not guarantee that what the atheist claims is true.
And . . . by the way . . . in a way an atheist might not have any leanings about spiritual matters, because he or she does not believe there is such a thing as spiritual being in existence. And the person is possibly studying church stuff in order to get some sort of entertainment, feeling ones are being silly, plus the atheist might be looking to discover why so many folks can be what the atheist considers to be misled . . . though they are also, even, human like the atheist and very highly educated and some number are scientists.
I did some research on him and found out he recently declared himself an atheist after years of being what he referred to himself as a "liberal Christian".
So, his perspective will not be exactly the same as that of some number of other atheists. You might get to know him, some, from things he says. You might grow to see his motives, deep down inside.
And some number of Christians might have not exactly correct motives, even the same as those of some number of atheists. So, you might see however you need to evaluate yourself, in the sight of God.
Our character and motives can have more or less effect on what we want to believe.
There are people who just do not want Christianity to be true; and they can point the finger at how false Christians live, then claim that the fakers are proof that Christianity is not for real. And ones can say look at how Christians do not agree, but it can be the person is acquainted with people who all are mistaken, all not really Christian the way the Bible means.
Anyway, thank you for sharing
God bless you