(July 11, 2016 at 2:59 pm)Simon Moon Wrote: The NT is the claim, not evidence.
Kind of curious why you don't understand that.
You are saying that period descriptions of historical events are not evidence of historical events. By your definition, we would never ever know anything about any historical events. In addition, the NT describes the events that were already believed to have happened and either written by eyewitnesses or people with access to eyewitnesses (either personally or through additional documents). Churches (which already believed that Jesus came, performed miracles, died, and rose again) existed before Paul started writing to them and before the gospel editors completed their works. Characterizing all 27 documents as the claim, is simply either (a) a misunderstanding of what it is they contain or (b) a catchy phrase used by atheist that has no real meaning.