How sacrosanct is the "source material" of Buddhism? In this answer to my question about why we keep referring to antiquated old parables and similes, Inzenity wrote,


  "The scriptures are part of the teachings, the source of the teachings. It makes sense that to learn the teachings, what you call true Buddhism, they must go to the source material."


The source material is not really straight from Buddha's pen, is it; nor is it even from the pens of his contemporaries or his disciples. What anybody may call source material was first committed to writing many centuries after the death of Gautam Buddha.

Isn't that's a bit like a whole bunch of us on this forum sitting down to commit to writing what was said by some guru who lived 10 generations ago, after about 500 years of oral transmission at least?

And then all that was translated from Pali into English -- possibly not in a single step either. And in between, there were commentaries in many languages, and many diverse traditions of speech and thought...

So, is it really "source material", just because it has bits and pieces of Pali tradition and ancient similes attached to it, imparting a certain quaint orientalism to the whole conglomerate? And if this body of work somehow acquired bits and pieces of Nordic or Mayan similes, parables etc, then would it stop suddenly being "Buddhist source material"?

Inzenity also wrote (about use of original explanations and logical arguments, as against the old well-worn ones from various Buddhist texts), 


  When they go to another person's teachings, are they still Buddhists or followers of the new guru? New religions are created this way.


True that! Being original about it may mean that we may drift away from Buddhist teachings, and end up starting new religions or, alternatively, following new religions. 

Are we hanging on to quaint old parables and similes and Pali aphorisms translated painfully into English, for the luxury of calling ourselves Buddhists, instead of, say, "Robertists" or "Umeshists" or "followers of Osho Rajneesh"? 
How sure are we that we haven't unknowingly gone to "another person's teaching" already -- those persons being numerous disciples and commentarists who willy-nilly added their own substantial philosophical DNA to Buddha's teachings, or alternatively, excised crucial teachings from Buddha's body of thought?
What is Buddhism about, anyway? Is Buddhism about learning precepts about the nature of existence "at the feet of a master" as it were? Or is it about a fearless enquiry into the nature of existence, guided by numerous masters who broadly follow Buddha's school of thought, but not enchained to the philosophies of these masters?
I think there are some very good and apposite questions here. I find I meet two kinds of Buddhists online. Those committed to the idea that the Pāḷi Canon is something like the Bible, the words of the Buddha and thus an ultimate authority. These kind are mostly, but not only, Theravādin Buddhists. To a lesser extent one also sees this kind of ideological commitment from Mādhyamikas about Nāgārjuna as well. The second kind take the opposite view. That the texts are worthless and that apart from the some of the practices that there is nothing worth saving.

There is a kind of middle way. No modern historian treats the Pāḷi Canon as historically accurate any more. Apologetics which argue for the authenticity of the suttas tend to come from establishment figures within one or other Theravādin movement. Thanissaro and Sujato have both written apologetics in recent times for example. But this is what we expect of men who have made a strong commitment to a Buddhist sect (especially one which involves life-long chastity). 

However many of the stories in the texts are still of considerable interest for their insights into the historical development of Buddhism and the changes that Buddhist doctrines undergo over time. I am particularly interested in these kinds of changes. And of course some stories are timeless. This is why we preserve and retell stories from the distant past: the Mahābharat in India and the Greek myths in Europe are good examples. Good story telling is timeless and fictional characters no less moving and educative for being unreal. 

It's widely acknowledged, by scholars at least, that Buddhism is syncretic from the first evidence we have of it. The earliest records of Buddhism show influence from a number of other cultures not limited to Brahmanism, Jainism, local animistic cults, and Zoroastrianism (the latter discovery is relatively old, my own contribution to the field has been to put the case more systematically). Such syncretism continues throughout the life of Buddhism in India and outside it, right down to the present. With more or less success. Usually the process involves subordinating the assimilated material to Buddhism in some explicit fashion, though sometimes the process is implicit, and often it is transparent to Buddhists (e.g. the Vedic myth in the Agañña Sutta quoted time and again as a "Buddhist" creation story).

That said I think the identity of "Buddhist" is meaningful for many people in many ways. The history of Buddhism is not one in which everyone is a full-time practitioner devoted to awakening. Such people were and will continue to be relatively rare. Most of us aspire to more than we can achieve. This does not invalidate the aspiration or the achievement. Most of us require positive conditions to flourish, and a positive experience of Buddhist community can contribute to that. As such membership of a Buddhist group is a necessary facet of life as a Buddhist for many of us. And part of group membership is conformity to group norms, including taking on the jargon and mythology of the group. Being able to recite popular stories is a mark of membership.

That said I think there is a problem in Buddhism with people not correctly assessing their own limitations. The wide availability of Buddhist texts to lay people with no training in linguistics or critical thinking has led to a glut of uncritical opinions. The internet has only exacerbated the trend. Some of us have very limited experience of living a Buddhist life, but full access to multiple translations of Buddhists texts. With no basis for assessing the value of translations or other sources of information, they tend to be cited indiscriminately (to support views). I notice it is routine in this website to cite Thanissaro's translations, which happen to be the easiest to get hold of because they are online for free. But Thanissaro is an eccentric translator, to say the least. All his translations need to be carefully assessed before being cited - but they never are. I would put Access to Insight on a par with Wikipedia as a source. Use with caution.

It is good to see some hard questions being asked of Buddhists.