DNA Proves Existence of a Designer

[Bucky Ball]

You mean the gospel writers?
Can you call them historians? or were they more story tellers?



Verily I say unto thee... heed the false words of others, as you trust mine own, for you know in your heart that I speak the Truth.
- by Every-Snake-Oil-Salesman-Ever

I mean historians in addition to the gospel writers.  

Snake oil salesman are bad in Christianity but it is good to be able to discern the true men of God from the wolves in sheep clothes.

Actually no. The gospels are not "history" in any sense. 
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline...spels.html

The finest most conservative (religious) scholars agree that the gospels cannot be taken as historical. 
They are statements of faith ... by people who already believed. 

In 1952, a team was set in place by the world-famous, preeminent scholar, archaeologist and pioneer discoverer of Holy Land historical sites and documents, Dr. William Foxwell Albright, the professor of Semitic languages at the Johns Hopkins University. Their job was to write criticisms and scholarly work concerning all biblical texts. The team was composed of the most respected biblical scholars in the US and Europe, including Dr. John W. Bailey, Professor Emeritus, New Testament, Berkley Baptist Divinity School, Dr Albert E. Barnett, Professor Candler School of Theology, Emory University, Dr. Walter Russell Bowel, Professor, The Protestant Episcopal Seminary, Virginia, Dr. John Bright, Professor, Union Seminary and many others.

The team of 124 clergymen and scholars came mostly from conservative, mainline universities and churches for the most part, the likes of whom will never be seen again in one place, whose names evoke the utmost and deepest respect, even if one completely disagrees with their religious views. They wrote the huge 13 volume set, now considered a valuable rare book, called "The Interpreters Bible". Today it is usually kept under lock and key in seminaries and libraries. This set includes an introduction to scholarship and looks at every single verse and word in the Bible, discusses their origins and possible meanings from various points of view. It has been updated in the 1990's, but the original scholarship is still the central fundamental summary of knowledge, which summarized scholarship from the Medieval period (1850's -1950's) and is therefore considered to be an interesting historical snapshot. It is also an assurance that these absolutely respected leading intellectuals from the 20th Century scholarship, of whom most were religious, have agreed to have each other's names associated with their own and that they felt comfortable with what each other were saying in an academic setting and commanded world-wide respect as conservative, careful, and sincere, life-long teachers, academics and scholars. 

On page 15 of "The Interpreters Bible", Dr. Herbert F. Farmer, Professor of Divinity at Cambridge University wrote about the indispensability of the texts, their importance and how the "truth" of them should be approached, after an exposition of the traditional conservative Christian view of person-hood, sin and the salvific actions of Jesus (aka Yeshua ben Josef), known as "the Christ" in human history.

"The reason has to do with the evidence afforded by the texts themselves, and calls for fuller treatment. Scholarly research into the texts themselves, has convincingly shown that they cannot be accepted in detail as they stand."

He then continues by discussing the details of what a "faith document" is and how it differs from what we would consider an historical text today. The next chapter, authored by Dr. Arthur Jeffrey, Professor of Semitic Languages at Columbia, deals with the formation of the Old Testament canon. He wrote what is seen as the fundamental insight in modern Biblical Study and summarized the central academic position of every mainline, respected, and credible center of Biblical scholarship in the world today :

"Historians can merely state that a canon of scripture is not something given, but something humanly devised. From the historical point of view, the canon is the result of human decision as to which among the religious writing existing in a community are those in which it recognizes the authentic voice of religious authority speaking to man."