That's a great question and one that I'm not really qualified to answer. It's a huge theological topic, though. In my own life, I don't identify as a Christian

That's a great question and one that I'm not really qualified to answer. It's a huge theological topic, though. In my own life, I don't identify as a Christian anymore but I continue to draw inspiration from Christ's life and the few teachings I felt I could attribute directly to him. Even when I called myself a Christian, I never believed that the Bible was the literal word of God. It's just a book. When I studied for my confirmation my pastor took our group through a lot of interesting history around how the Bible was actually written and put together. There was tons of material that never made it in, so it's at best an approximation of beliefs that people who call themselves Christians have had over time. For what it's worth the history of Christianity is fascinating. There were many schisms and lots of infighting within the Church even prior to the Reformation. I suspect the same may be true within Judaism and Islam - there are "mainstream" sets of beliefs and then people on the fringe. Likely the fringe folks were more tapped in to the real mystical teachings but got shut out.