a book in the bible

[isabelp]

Forgive me everyone for asking, but I am a brand new christian still trying to learn the Bible.
I had a friend tell me about saint birgitta.  Should I believe this because it is not in the Bible?
Thank you in advance.

[Pokhara]

Saint Birgitta is not in the Bible, but I believe that her life is sufficiently well-documented to allow us reasonably to accept her existence.

The word saint is used in the NT to refer to anyone who was a Christian at that time.

[CDHealy]

I'm not clear what it is about St. Brigitta you are unsure whether it's proper to believe, so my response is going to be broad.

Your question appears to be about whether is something isn't in the Bible as to whether you should accept it.  I think the answer is rather obvious: I have to assume you accept a whole ton of things that aren't in Scripture--simple mathematical rules, the second law of thermodynamics, the ratio of gravitational attraction between to bodies, the speed of light, and so on.  So, yes, of course you can accept things that are not in the Scripture.

But perhaps you don't mean it so broadly.  Perhaps your question is more about history, particularly the lives of the saints: that is to say, presumably the things about St Brigitta you have questions may be more along the lines of can one accept as true descriptions about miraculous things the saint may have done or had happen to her.

Here the answer is simple.  Since none of us presently alive were present to be eyewitnesses of what happened, is the historical evidence such as to be trustworthy?  For many historical sources, this question will not always be readily answerable.  But, if, on sifting what we do have, it appears that the sources are reliable, then we have to further ask, do we have presuppositions about these matters that will affect our decision about whether to accept them or not?  If we do have such presuppositions, and if the sources are reliable (or as far as can be determined they are reliable), then at most we have to say, Well the history looks reliable, but I can't believe it.  And leave it at that.

In other words, there is nothing in Scripture that would prohibit an acceptance of accounts of historical events and persons outside the narrative timeline of the Scripture.  So what we're left with is an examination of the historical evidence.  If the historical evidence seems reliable, then there is nothing in Scripture that would prohibit our acceptance of such.