None of these are expected to be unbiased sources. They're all Christian apologists, an area with a terrible reputation with skeptics. I don't trust any of these authors to accumulate all of the relevant evidence and interpret it the same way that any experienced critical thinker and skeptic would.
show me one (just one - your best ONE) person, place, or event in the Gospels that has been proven to be false.
Why? That wasn't my claim - that I could prove the opinion you asked for by starting this thread. Furthermore, you asked for evidence of embellishment of the story of Jesus in the Gospels, not proof (you're moving the goalpost now by upgrading from evidence to proof), which I provided in detail over two posts with an analysis of Mark compared to Luke and John, which came later. The evolution of the story was evident. You failed to comment on it. There's no evidence that you even read it.
As an aside, and just so you know, that kind of debating loses your argument for you in the eyes of the rational skeptic, just as it would in a court of law. Ask the prosecutor what evidence he has that you are guilty, allow him to present a cogent and feasible argument, and then go mute. Ignore the argument made and wait for the verdict. You'll lose that argument as well.
The same standards apply here. If you had a sound rebuttal, you should have offered it. Apparently you didn't, and chose to ignore the argument you requested, apparently hoping that it would just be forgotten.
You also ignored the matter of the discrepancy between the genealogies of Jesus.
What is your purpose here? If it's to promote the divinity of Jesus to educated unbelievers, at a minimum, you'll need to know and respect their rules of discourse.
@blü 2 cited seven New Testament scriptures from the Gospel of John attributed to Jesus saying that he was not God, nor the equal of the Father. And how did you answer him? You ignored his evidence and cited contradictory scripture. How do you think that you did there?
Do you have anything from a mutually trusted source? Where are the books from people with no Christian agenda? There is nothing that is true that is known only to Christians, no valid scholarship not also available to unbelievers. If you have no non-Christian scholars agreeing with these apologists, why not? If you do have such sources, why aren't you providing those instead.
I guess that you don't have anything from a mutually trusted source to offer in defense of your position, just the words of Christian apologists. It's already been explained to you why that is inadequate, and also what the implications are for there being no non-Christian apologist sources of scholarship on this topic.
Perhaps you consider this a genetic fallacy - rejecting an argument because of its source. If so, let me point out that I am not calling the apologist's argument wrong. I'm saying that I'm not even going to look at it because I don't trust the ethics of the source. You might say that I should just judge the argument on its merits, but what's the value of that if I don't trust the author to present all of the relevant evidence.
The reason this isn't any kind of fallacy is because no argument is being made. I'm simply saying that I'm not interested in anything from such a source, even if the argument is compelling, as I will explain
:
I recall a piece from a Christian creationist arguing that man could not have had a common ancestor with the other extant great apes because they all had 24 pairs of chromosomes, we have only 23 pairs, and if any creature dropped a chromosome or two, it would die - not be selected by nature over it's 24-chromosome siblings.
Go ahead and evaluate that argument on its merits. His words were, "Man cannot have descended from a common ancestral great ape because all of the other apes have 24 pairs of chromosomes, and man but 23, implying the loss of a whole chromosome, which would be fatal.”
Check it out yourself at
http://www.darwinconspiracy.com/ : The article is of one of a few on the page, so search for the one called, "One Athiest (sic) Lie After Another," directly below the statement, "You Can Bet Scientists Lie About Anything Related to Evolution and God."
I'd say that the logic is valid, and if the facts about chromosome counts as presented are accurate, the conclusion is sound. The problem, as I noted earlier, is with evidence omitted by the apologist, what is often called massaging the evidence, meaning selecting that which one thinks supports his faith-based premise that man did not evolve from earlier ancestral primates, and down-playing or (in this case) completely ignoring relevant evidence that destroys the argument, namely the existence of human chromosome 2, which is an end-to-end fusion of two ancestral chromosomes accounting for the drop in chromosome number, but with no loss of genetic material, and no reason for such a creature to die.
That's typical for Christian apologetics, and why the reputation of these people is so poor outside of their in-group, where apologetics is commonly known as "Lying for Jesus." It's unrealistic of you to expect experienced skeptics to read apologetics as if it were a legitimate source of unbiased scholarship.
How much effort would be required to successfully analyze that chromosome argument? What would lead you to discover the evidence of human chromosome 2? Nothing in the argument. You'd pretty much have to review the subject of primate genetics, not knowing what you were looking for.
How much effort would be required to assess the arguments in the books by apologists that you cited?
And as I said, there is nothing that is true that is known only to Christians. If an item can't be found in any neutral resource whose only agenda is scholarship and promoting academics, it's not believable. There's a quote falsely attributed to Patrick Henry circulating the Internet
: "It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ!" It can only be found on Christian sites, and doesn't appear before the late 20th century. Guess what? Another fabrication of Christian apologetics. More lying for Jesus From
Rational Rant: May 2008
"
Even though [the apocryphal Patrick Henry quote] doesn't show up in the Google books search, the saying apparently first appeared (at least as Patrick Henry's) in The Myth of Separation by David Barton in 1988. Barton himself has since repudiated it, describing it as "unconfirmed" in his WallBuilder's website. He does hold out hope that it will turn out to be genuine"
Are you familiar with the term
ethos from the philosophy of argumentation? Distinct from logos, or the argument itself, this term refers to the audience's perception of the speaker. Is he well-informed? Does he seem he honest? Can we trust that he has presented all of the relevant evidence in his argument as opposed to cherry-picking? Is his agenda to inform or to indoctrinate?
The ethos of apologists is shot.
So please, don't bother with the apologetics sources again. If you can't find confirmation of your point in a mutually trusted source, then your claim and your reference will be ignored.
I can't help you. You ignore solid evidences.
If you're referring to the apologist books you named, yes, they are ignored, and for the good reasons given. What incentive do unbelievers have to go out and buy and read "
The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus," by Dr. Gary Habermas? I've been a Christian or a secular humanist debating Christians on the Internet for decades now, and have heard a few arguments for resurrection, all very weak. Why would I think that this would be any better? How much work would I have to do to verify that he is being honest? Why isn't there a book like this from a skeptic?
You wrote, "
You must be a liberal skeptic. That's how they think - that anyone who disagrees with them is stupid, biased, or an apologist for fairy tales. I've read Habermas extensively and he is light years above his skeptics." Why didn't you summarize the case, citing the author's best evidence in a sentence or two? It might have attracted some interest.
