Do Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence?

[Mister Agenda]

1. The Message
1.1 The content of the message was not just be nice/aspire to serving one another. The claims of Jesus were specific (equal to God, can forgive sins, is the only path to God, able to give everlasting life, need for atonement, would be the sacrifice, judgment, etc.). Are you saying Jesus never said any of this and that this complex teaching was added later? This was 180 degrees from Judaism.

The claims of Jesus aren't truly known, only what was eventually written down about what he was said to have said. There's no way of discerning his own words from words put in his mouth by followers who wanted the deified version of their teacher to be ascendant. I doubt it was added later, more likely the sayings of Jesus were mixed with those of previous or contemporary teachers very early in the oral tradition.

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1.2 If so, why? This was a long list of blasphemy that would get you killed by the Jews. When their world came crashing down on them at the crucifixion, what made the disciples say "I know, let's make life more difficult...". What gain/reason could they have anticipated (real or imagined)?

The very story you're trying to defend as accurate in every jot and tittle illustrates that the Jews had no authority to put anyone to death under Roman occupation.

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1.3 The disciples were simple people from simple walks of life without schooling. Were they capable of making up the complex theology framework that would be different than but dovetail with the OT? Would they be able to quote from and draw parallels to the OT, weave in a few prophesy fulfillments? 

Even the doctor was without schooling? Since the disciples didn't actually write the gospels, there's no reason to drag them into it. They weren't around to make corrections.

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2. Timing
2.1 There was insufficient time between the events and when people started writing stuff down for just plain myth. People would have had to start lying so the revised version of events were believed to be the facts (message, miracles, resurrection). 

You seem to have a very distorted idea of how long it takes for events to be mythologized. It can happen in a very short time, and it's easy to find documented examples of that sort of thing happening in the last hundred years, including people who walked around healing pretty much anyone who touched them (and who weren't remarkably religious, they were just novel to the locals). It only takes a minute to tell someone a version of events that is inaccurate and the version that spreads by word of mouth is the version that is most dramatic and entertaining.

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2.2 Since there was one or more documents that preceded the gospels (Q, M, and/or L), they would have had to develop this new decidedly non-jewish religion from scratch fairly early on. Add to those Matthew/Mark/John and you have quite a body of body of claims all in the lifetime of rebuttal witnesses. How come there are no rebuttal witnesses (no miracles, no resurrection, etc.)?
2.3 The activities to get the churches started across the empire by at least 50-55 AD required that there be a critical mass of people to get things going fairly early on. There had to be an established narrative about Jesus' message, claims, miracles, death and resurrection.  In any case, there is again ample time for rebuttal eyewitness testimony in the 20 years leading up to Paul's letters.

Your arguments seem to be based on personal incredulity, for the most part.

3. Luke
3.1 A highly-educated Greek guy, who endeavored to write a chronicle of the events of the first decades or so, represents 27% of the NT. Was he part of the conspiracy when he related all the events of the life of Jesus and the early church history in Acts?

I thought you said the disciples were too unschooled to do sophisticated theology?

 
3.2 If he was deceived, he was deceived by some pretty simple, uneducated people.
3.3 He wrote within the lifetime (and certainly within the collective memory) of possible rebuttal witnesses (he finished before Paul's death before 68AD). 
3.4 Luke mentions other written accounts he was aware of in Luke 1:1.

You so often cite how many scholars agree with you that it didn't occur to me that you would actually think the Gospel of Luke was written by the apostle Luke. How many scholars agree with you on that?

4. Is Paul part of this conspiracy? If so, he had some dedication!! Prison, shipwrecked, prison, death. To what end? If not, it is hard to classify 1 Corinthians 15 as mistaken--especially where he mentioned the eyewitnesses and then went on to discuss if Christ had not been raised from the dead. Was he also mistaken about Christ appearing to him on the road when he was a such a good Christian hunter.

You're the only one proposing a conspiracy. I guess that's easier to argue against than what I actually proposed. Paul joined in on an existing movement and seems to not have known about some of the events of the gospels.

5. Extra Biblical sources back up the gospels and the resurrection as being central to Christianity. 
5.1 Epistle of Barnabas, Epistle of Clement, Shepherd of Hermes, Theophilus, Hippolytus, Origen, Quadratus, Irenaeus, Melito, Polycarp, Justin Martyr, Dionysius, Tertullian, Cyprian, Tatian, Caius, Athanasius, and Cyril.

That those beliefs are central to Christianity is not in question. Whether the resurrection and everything else in the gospels actually happened is what is in question.

1. See, I don't have to prove it. All I have to do is accept their testimony--testimony that is better than 99% of all historical documents. Don't accept it if you don't believe them. I have no reason to think they were lying. 

1. You don't have to prove it to yourself, true. What are all your posts on the topic for, then?