You feel I have so much of my work before me for one very simple reason: you accept the 5 points you make as "evidence." They are, unfortunately, not really evidence at all. The first and most obvious (to me) point that I must make is that not a single word attributed to Jesus was written down until decades after his death, and in general not by those who were really "eye witnesses." A lot of hear-say (which would be inadmissible as evidence in any court of law). Now, you may claim that John was written by an eye-witness, but really, it comes so long after the events (50-60 years minimum) that this is quite unlikely, and the fact that it is so wildly different from the Synoptic Gospels should also make you extremely skeptical.
1. They are not my claims.
2. They are the consensus of NT historians.
3. They are not evidence.
4. They are the conclusions from the evidence.
New International Version
But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.
It could have been two millennia later and still be perfectly revealed. Claims like the bible makes if mythical usually can't begin to gain any traction until at least the generation of eye witnesses dies off.
Concerning how early the events were recorded and how many early extant copies we have today no other manuscript tradition even comes close to the bible. One example, Caesar's Gallic wars was known to be propaganda when written, we have 2 extant copies from a thousand years after the events. The NT has over 5000 Greek manuscripts alone and date to within a few hundred years. Paul's source material (hymns and passion narratives) date to with a few years or even months of Christ's death. The rest were all pre - 70AD.
And I guess we'd have to consider, further, the fact that all 4 Gospels were written in Koine Greek. It seems surprising to me that, since Jesus and has disciples spoke Aramaic, and all the scriptures available to them were written in Hebrew and some Aramaic -- zero in Greek. And further, or so it would seem, they were reaching out to the Roman world.
I have spent decades reading thousands of critiques of the NT. Not once have I read anyone pointing out that the use of Koine Greek was of any concern.
Greek was the leading written and spoken language of the eastern Mediterranean world when Rome ruled the world during the New Testament period. Indeed, it remained the dominant language, especially in the large cities of Alexandria, Antioch, etc., until after the Arab Muslim conquest, long after the time the Western Roman Empire fell in 476 A.D.
By the time of the New Testament church in the first century A.D., Hellenism had greatly influenced and changed the people and culture of Judea. Greek, not Hebrew, was the commonly used language of Palestine during the rule of the Roman Empire. The ability to speak this language was a needed skill in the Roman world as it was used as the standard way of communicating, carrying out business, and so on. Greek was written and used during the early church period to communicate between people who grew up in different areas of the world and whose native tongues were quite different.
The well-known Jewish historian of the first century, Josephus, stated that the ability to speak Greek was very common not only among the general populous but also among servants and slaves.
Why the New Testament was Written in Greek, Not Hebrew
Why was the New Testament written in GREEK?
https://www.quora.com/Why-was-the-New-Testament-written-in-Greek-rather-than-Aramaic-or-Latin
And further, Paul wrote before any of them, and does not quote Jesus, and seems surprisingly uninterested in just about everything to do with the life of Jesus that the Gospels were written in. (That Paul wrote in Greek isn't surprising -- as a Cilician, he would have known it better than he knew Latin.)
Wow. Paul may have been anything except neutral concerning Christianity.
1. He was picked to persecute the earliest Christians specifically because he did whatever he did with wreck less abandon. How can you call a guy who participated in the stoning of a Christian, uninterested?
2. Once he converted he went on to write more of the NT than anyone (perhaps everyone) else.
3. Paul's apostleship was accepted by every other apostle in Jerusalem.
4. He prevailed in every single disagreement he had with the other apostles.
5. He knew more about the law than the other apostles combined, yet wrote more on grace than them all combined.
For the below. I gave you the consensus among historians, not my own most reliable biblical scriptures. Being the conclusions of others I do not have on hand their own justification. So at best I am just going to make a comment or two.
"1. Christ appeared on the historical scene with an unprecedented sense of divine authority." Was it really "unprecedented," do you think? Did not the Pharaoh Akhenaten do exactly likewise, and make the most sincere effort to replace Egyptian religion with a monotheistic one of his own? And has history not produced other such hugely charismatic figures come along and claimed their own authority directly from some "communication with God" along with their own miracles (The Bab of the Baha'i faith springs rapidly to mind).
Akhenaten is still dead. Anyway, Christ claimed to be the mechanism through which the universe began to exist. Egyptian God's are all derivative and contingent. I did not mention Charisma.
"2. That he practiced a ministry of miracle working and exorcism." Well, now, you see this is one of those things for which there is much, much less evidence than there really ought to be. I assure you, if somebody at a faith healing that I witnessed regrew a leg, I would be all over it -- you'd never see the end of my writing about it. So it seems that almost nobody during Christ's ministry was around when a miracle happened, and certainly didn't write it down. We might not have inherited very much of it, but if -- just for example -- there were 5000 people being fed by a few loaves and fishes, we would truly expect to find some mention of it somewhere. But we don't. (This is shockingly true of the certainly apocryphal story of graves opening and the dead wandering around Jerusalem after the crucifixion. Certainly enough people would have made a written comment that a few of them at least would come down to us. None do.)
"3. That he died by Roman crucifixion at the request of the Hebrew priestly class." Odd that the Romans, who kept really good records, don't mention this, nor do the Jewish authorities. For somebody important enough to have direct, face-to-face interviews with both Herod and Pilate, the Governor, that's simply too surprising to overlook.
"4. That his tomb was found empty." By whom? And by the way, if you had visited the Great Pyramid at any time while King Khufu (Cheops) was building it, you would have found it empty, too -- because he hadn't yet died. In any case, it was empty when we got inside anyway, since others got there before us an stole all the good stuff.
"5. That even his enemies claimed to have spoken with him post mortem." Where are the testimonies of these "enemies" outside of the Gospels, written (as I said) many decades letter and with an obvious agenda to convince? So far as is known, none of those enemies ever made a report of such a miraculous conversation privately to anybody -- which is surely immensely surprising. Had it happened to me, I'd be writing about it still!
Ok, I said I thought I had posted these claims to you before so I didn't have to clarify what mistakes not to make. Apparently I was mistaken.
These claims being of a single person are cumulative and therefor cannot be subdivided and picked on in exclusion.
1. Note I said nothing about how much divine authority Christ had, just that he claimed to have the most. Being he claimed to be eternal, have created the universe, and died to save mankind, I think my actual claim is safe.
2. Note I didn't say if he worked any actual miracles or casted out any demons. Just that that was the specific type of ministry he practiced.
3. Ok, please produce the documents for any act what so ever Pilate did that day.
Professor Thomas Arnold, cited by Wilbur Smith, was for 14 years the famous headmaster of Rugby, author of a famous three-volume
History of Rome, appointed to the char of Modern History at Oxford, and certainly a man well acquainted with the value of evidence in determining historical facts. This great scholar said:
"The evidence for our LORD's life and
death and resurrection may be, and often has been, shown to be satisfactory; it is good according to the common rules for distinguishing good evidence from bad. Thousands and tens of thousands of persons have gone through it piece by piece, as carefully as every judge summing up on a most important cause. I have myself done it many times over, not to persuade others but to satisfy myself. I have been used for many years to study the histories of other times, and to examine and weigh the evidence of those who have written about them, and I know of no one fact in the history of mankind which is proved by better and fuller evidence of every sort, to the understanding of a fair inquirer, than the great sign which GOD hath given us that Christ
died and rose again from the
dead."
Evidence That Demands a Verdict - Ch. 10 p. 2
The Testimony of History and Law
Every single apostle knew for a fact whether Christ died and rose from the tomb. They had and did have everything to lose, but nothing to gain for claiming Christ died and rose again if he hadn't.
If then their testimony was not true, there was no possible motive for its fabrication.
Professor of Law at Harvard, Greenleaf
But the funniest reason why your wrong here is that the Romans were tearing their eye balls out trying disprove Christianity. They could conquer the Mediterranean world for hundreds of years but they couldn't get anyone to remember what had occurred the day before or find a guy who preached from atop mounts and wondered the streets of Jerusalem.
4. I also noticed that without even hinting at a reason you neglected the primary documents by which these events can be examined.
5. Jesus' tomb was found empty after three days of it being occupied. Hardly a comparison with the pyramids.
Your not even being serious at this point.
