It happened to the people of Israel in Moses' time. It happened to the leaders of Israel in Jesus' time: it keeps on happening in today's world too - when people stop believing in God, that start to believe in anything at all, idols, superstitions, ideas, theories, self-proclaimed prophets and so on. Jesus' problem with the authorities of His day was simply that they did not believe, they did not (or could not) "read" those very scriptures on which they placed such importance. Instead, they had added all sorts of detailed rules and interpretations which effectively obscured for them the message of God's word. "Search the Scriptures", Jesus told them, because these inspired writings testify to who He is. In this time of Lent, we receive the same invitation to "search the Scriptures". The object is not 'information' or 'answers', or proofs for some debate or religious argument of theory. It's faith invitation, namely to learn how to "read" the divine word, just as we also need to "read" God's presence, His purpose and His directing in the events of our times, in the events of our own personal lives of prayer and work and family, and in the life and worship of our Christian community. There will always be people claiming to have new ideas about God and about Jesus, new revelations, even new devotions. What is their authority for these? Our faith is in Jesus and the Father's authority that He's shown us.