(June 29, 2018 at 3:40 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote:(June 29, 2018 at 3:05 pm)SteveII Wrote: Something outside the Bible? Okay. There were dozens of churches in dozens of cities across the Roman empire within 20 years of Jesus.
I don't think that it's in much dispute that there were Christians then. It's not in dispute at all that the Branch Dravidians were real, but it does not imply that David Koresh was a real prophet.
Historical scholars care about the WHY and make inferences and tie things together with the WHY. WHY were there relatively widespread Christians in the decades between Jesus and the Gospels? The answer is that the general beliefs about Jesus did not come from what we now call the Bible. Where did they come from? The most obvious answer is that the momentum of the eyewitnesses/contemporaries following Jesus death and resurrection motivated serious, early efforts to propagate the Gospel and repeated the events we eventually learn about. While not conclusive of anything but belief, it is another piece of evidence that 1) supports the overall NT theme and 2) cripples any theories of late fabrication/hoax/simple misunderstanding.
