Can't prove the supernatural God

[SteveII]

I will agree that the NT passes on the claim, but you are missing my point. People already believed that claim (as stated above) prior to any of the 27 books writing it down (beginning around 50AD). So, if there were never any books/letters written, there would have still been a claim. Why do I believe this, because there were already churches outside of Palestine for Paul to write to and established doctrine to discuss 20 years from Christ's death.

Pretty much all religions already existed by the time somebody decided to write something down about them. The claim already existing when somebody recorded it is not evidence that the claim in circulation was true. Why would you even think that?

We are not talking about all religions. We are talking about a specific set of facts.  In all cases, the authors believed the "claim in circulation" was true--not simply reporting it (an important distinction). Under all your supposed rationale for denying the events is simply a belief that they did not happen. This faulty reasoning does nothing to undermine the NT books.

This moves the 27 books from the claim column to the evidence column.

No, Steve. It does not. Those 27 books are a catalog of claims. They are only evidence of ancient scribes writing a book and what those scribes believed. The claims made in the book must be proven by something other than the book itself. It does not matter that the claims were already in circulation when the book was written; the book is merely documenting the claims, and therefore is effectively the claim.

That is not a defensible position.  How are all historical events known? The writing down always follows the event. Then you say that the claims in a book must be proven by something other than the book. How about 26 more books? How about the fact that churches existed outside of Palestine 20 years and all the way to Rome in less than 30 years after Jesus? How about the fact there is literally an unbroken chain of people who believed these events to be true with surviving writings from almost every generation since. 

Regarding why should we expect to see other contemporary sources to Jesus refer to him, three things: 1) 99.99% of documents are lost to history, 2) why would anyone write outside of Palestine about Jesus until it became obvious that the church was growing a generation later? and 3) why wouldn't your standard above apply to this "missing proof"? By your own rationale, this "missing proof" would not be reliable either because it is simply another claim for which there would be no proof. The regression has to stop someplace.

I have asked this before and have yet to get an answer from anyone. What ancient series of events has more background information than the life of Christ? I don't expect you to believe the content. However, you knowingly or unknowingly are using bad excuses to justify your disbelief.