I ask this, because most people who research the writings of this ancient collection still believe in them on some level (and the belief need not always be religious). Some are even paid to believe in them in a certain way—to maintain a party line, a creed, or statement of faith. If the statement of faith is not public or printed, it can still be unspoken and equally normative. (This is how social pressure normally works; and social pressure is most effective when the norms are tacit.) New Testament scholarship is the only discipline in the academy in which scholars are asked to question a document in which the answers are—in some general and even in some specific ways—predetermined by their social group (the church, or a church-affiliated school).