Why can't Christians Verify Exactly Where Jesus Was Buried?

[Aractus]

Which are the questions that you are talking about and I'll do my best?

Well, despite the fact you just attempted to attack a very distinguished Israeli archaeologist and scholar with a description of one of his works rather than a critique of it, my question was this: Where do you draw the line. You essentially tried to claim that Scholar's are hacks - does this apply to all academic fields? Does this apply to all scholars? Does it apply to Old Testament scholars and archaeologists or is this a specific prejudice you have against New Testament scholars, and if it is why is it?

According to Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistle_of_James .."Many scholars consider the epistle to be written in the late 1st or early 2nd centuries:[13]"

and from http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/james.html 
- Information on the Epistle of James
Kummel presents the reasons that most scholars suspect James to be a pseudepigraph (Introduction to the New Testament, pp. 412-3): ...

As I indicated, most scholars today place the authorship 50-65 AD. Many of the arguments made in your quoted material are based purely on assumptions. If the Bible is correct that Jesus's father was a builder, then he probably would have been quite well off by ancient standards which moots the point made about James the Just being a peasant, and it is also interesting to note this might indicate that Jesus was rebellious - i.e. he was motivated to start his ministry because he saw how unjust the disparity in equality was.

I wouldn't say that is correct. He knows nothing about his virgin birth or anything else about the nativity, nothing about the miracles, ministry, cleansing of the Temple, triumphant ride into Jerusalem or trial

The virgin birth, in fact the whole nativity, is a myth. That's easy. He might well have known that such a rumour was going around in his lifetime, but he doesn't bother writing about it. He clearly knows about what you call "miracles" (healings), he clearly knows about the message Jesus preached (even though he mixes it with his own theology). He knows about the crucifixion, and he knows about the Last Supper, thus by extension we would expect he knows about the details of the trial and the events leading up to it. That's not to say the gospels are entirely accurate at all, just that Paul knew about all those things.

What do you mean, ..."despite the fact he quotes him directly, has him interacting with real people"
Would the flesh and blood brother of the Lord leave out his bloodline to Jesus? Would a biological brother say, "James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ"? I don't think so.

Although Paul does not make a habit of quoting Jesus, he does quote him directly on occasion and he makes numerous citations to stuff that Jesus preached. Furthermore he talks about Jesus interacting with people in a way that a celestial being does not. In other words, Carrier's argument ignores everything Paul has to say about Jesus, because it is clear to anyone that Paul is talking about a person and not a celestial body.

State your reasons why you don't think James the Just would write that introduction. Again, this is a moot point anyway, I don't care which James wrote James, it doesn't change the fact that it was written before the gospels of Matthew and Luke and has detailed knowledge of two sermons in particular that only appear in those writings, which proves that Matthew and Luke couldn't have "made up" the sermons on the Mount & Plain.

Among the problems about Israel Finkelstein's Bible Unearthed: http://www.atheistcoalition.org/docs/bib...rthed.html:

According to the Biblical chronology, Abraham and the patriarchs of Genesis were active roughly 2000 BCE. The stories make repeated mention of camel caravans. However, archaeology has shown that camels were not domesticated until much later; camel caravans were no earlier than 1000 BCE.

There is no evidence for the Exodus as the Bible describes it. The Bible does not give an exact date for the Exodus, nor refer to the pharaoh of the time by name. There is a stele of Pharaoh Merneptah mentions a people named Israel living in Canaan by 1200 BCE, so the Exodus should have occurred some time before that. However, there is no Egyptian documentation of any large group of slaves of any ethnicity leaving Egypt during a likely time frame. The population of Egypt was not over 5 million at the time, and it is out of the question that nearly 1 million people could leave without some kind of record or evidence.

There is no evidence for a swift, decisive military conquest of Canaan by Israelites by 1200 BC. And it does seem implausible that a ragtag group of slaves, however numerous, could have managed a well coordinated attack on an entire region after 40 years of wandering in the desert.

According to the bible, King David and his son Solomon reigned over a large territory, from Mesopotamia to Egypt, and had the wealth to build impressive temples and palaces. This monarchy would have had to have ruled in the range of 1000 to 900 BCE or so. Yet archaeologists have not found any monumental architecture at all dating to this time in Judah. Apparently Jerusalem was a rather small village at the time.

What you have just (I assume mistakenly) quoted is a description is a description of 'Bible Unearthed', not a critique of it.