Doubting scripture’s divine authorship shifted Christian concern onto historical reliability

Evidence

But as skepticism about the source of inspiration thought of as communication led to a questioning of the idea that the scriptures were divinely given, a concern with their historical authenticity—with true origins—became increasingly urgent. If God did not directly inspire the Gospels, then Christian belief demanded that at least the accounts of Jesus they contained should be “reliable,” because only then would they guarantee the life and death of Christ in this world, and thus bear witness to the truth of the Incarnation. — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 194

Categorization

• QUESTION: This connects to why historical positivism became the dominant evidentiary regime — worth tracing how historically-grounded reliability claims replaced revelation across the Western canon.
• XREF: Corroborates the Asad-Cooper bridge: ‘secular’ historical-critical method is itself Christianity’s internal doubt responding to its own theological needs.