Now looking at the link you gave me. One thing that made me suspicious is that it does not use any other sources, other than the Gospels, which have been proven to have contradictions, and have been written after the time of Jesus. It also says that Matthew was the first to write down the tales of Jesus, when in reality it was Mark that was the oldest Gospel. It doesn't really matter, because they were all written after Jesus' supposed death. So they can't really be considered historical accounts unfortunately.
I told you I had little time yesterday. I have less today than at anytime in the last two months. The lab I work in has multiple instruments down and I have two other very long posters that I have spent all morning trying to get to follow simplistic arguments to no avail. Let me add a few comments on this post and I will go back and fully respond to everything you posted here as soon as possible.
1. That paper is an exhaustive legal evaluation of the Gospels as documents. I can give similar papers from histories greatest historians and they may cover what Greenleaf's legal evaluation left out. It was not a work meant to fully examine it's historical claims. It was more along the lines of what a court would do to establish reliability of a witness. Did you know the Bible is a modern primary archeological resource even with secular scholars? It routinely proves true even when large groups of historians claim it is wrong. A classic example is a museum now full of artifacts that the secular scholars said never existed but the Bible said did. I think it was the Moabites.
2. The Gospels are 4 accounts. For that period of time that is more than most claims have. The very accurate Peloponnesian war is one man's account. The Quran is one man's account, the Gallic wars is one mans account about himself. In those times writing was rare and so was literacy. Having more than one competent account is a luxury for that time frame. The Bible gathered together 4 and put then in one collection that it considered apostolic. However there is much more.
3. There exist texts of al kinds that record events concerning Christ. For example the Gospel of Thomas, etc... as with most of them they are not apostolic but do add much confirmation.
4. There are also over 40 extra biblical authors of a historical nature that mention either Jesus, the virtual instantaneous explosion of a Christianity and Christ's teachings it was based on, one even mentions the darkness that occurred when Christ was dying.
I have spent years debating 'supposed contradictions and have found even few potential possibilities for any. The claims made by atheists or Muslims in general are based in ignorance and their rabid resistance to allow very simplistic explanations like cultural language use present in every text ever written or apocalyptic literary styles made hyperbolic on purpose. I would have to have a contradiction to evaluate before I could even think about granting they exist in our case. Before we get into that please review any of the several dozen Gospel harmony sites as they go step by step and cross reference everything. Almost all claims of contradiction soon disappear after those sites are reviewed. There are a few but a very small few possibilities of any actual contradictions. I will add a footnote about what I can concede upfront at the end.
Mathew is first in order but not date. I think you assumed that. They are not arranged by the chronological order of documentation. I once knew why they are in that order but it escapes me.
Last even if they were not written at the time Christ lived that would not make them inaccurate or the least non historic. It almost never occurred that any history was written at the very moment it was occurring. In the Bible's case those stories existed as oral tradition and written from the moment the events occurred. Not only that but as Luke tells us up front he went around interviewing eyewitnesses and cross examining people. His book has been called the earliest perfect history. Greenleaf gave along with dozens and dozens more a very very telling point about testimony. If those apostles were lying then why did they do these three things alone.
1. Why did they spend a lifetime suffering and in some case dying for what they knew was a lie without any Earthly gain at all?
2. Why did they choose to go through the vastly more difficult (empirically) claim of stating Christ rose spiritually if lying. No one expected him to. They could have much easier claimed he spiritually rose. Instead their claims would have been nullified by the producing of the body. Not even the Roman's who guarded the tomb could do so. It has never been found.
3. Why did they claim that every person who wished to be a Christian must experience God directly if there were no God to experience? They could have done what other faiths have said: To simply agree with them and they are one. Christianity based on experiencing a God who was not there should have died in the cradle. It exploded even when persecuted by the greatest empires on Earth instead.
You mentioned somewhere whether Jesus existed. The overwhelming consensus of NT scholars on every side are three historical facts.
1. Jesus appeared on the historical scene with an unprecedented sense of divine authority (could be false but he existed and had it).
2. He was crucified by the Romans and died (there are even roman records that mention it).
3. The tomb was found empty.
That is what historians are wiling to claim is true.
For every claim here I could have given 50 or more just like them and I think you may can tell why I need large amounts of time to debate.
My concessions. The Bible has scribal errors. Between 5% and .5% depending on what scholar is asked. They mostly concern numbers in the OT and one entire chapter at the end of Mathew. Even the biggest atheist scholar admits not one affects core doctrine and they are all known and indicated in all major modern bible's.
I am sure some contradictions exist but it is less that 1% of what are claimed and I know of none specifically.
I can provide many of histories scholars who point out we have more than enough evidence many times over to justify faith but not quite enough to prove every claim in the Bible but it does have 25,000 plus historical corroborations.
Demand links as needed I just did not have time. I will get far more detailed and comprehensive as soon as possible but maybe this will keep you buy for a bit. I type for 30 minutes and feel like I have not even gotten started.