Help! Joseph of Arimathea.

[King_Charles]

You can't offer credible evidence to the value of scientific truths when you're dealing with ancient history, you just have to try and feel your way to the most likely conclusion, and that involves a lot of educated guesswork. That is the nature of the discipline.

Whenever claims of fact are made for any sacred text, I demand the same standards of proof historians use generally. Any educated guesswork must based on evidence to be credible. Generally, historians demand supporting contemporary evidence. Neither the Torah nor the New Testament meet that minimum standard. As such neither are credible prime source historical sources.

Then, I'm sorry to say it, but you really don't have a good grasp on how ancient history works... just because a text isn't credible, (I challange you to fine one that is 100% credible!) it doesn't mean it was created in a vacuum. ALL ancient texts are historical sources, what you can infer from each one, whether it be nothing more that social or cultural valuee, or perpectives on issues of the day for a group of people, or things more concrete like the life of an individual or political changes is what varies.

And for Bart Ehrman, who you have in your references, the New Testament is certainly a historical source for the life of Jesus, not a reliable one, not an unbiased one, but still a source.

"Ehrman points out that only about 3 percent of Jews in Jesus' time were literate, and Romans never kept detailed records. (Decades after Jesus' crucifixion, three Roman writers mention Jesus in passing, as does the Jewish historian Josephus.) Though the Gospel accounts are biased, they cannot be discounted as non-historical. As for Jesus being a Jewish version of the pagan dying and rising god, Ehrman shows that there is no evidence the Jews of Jesus' day worshipped pagan gods. If anything, Jesus was deeply rooted in Jewish, rather than Roman, traditions."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/03...00465.html

Sorry, I'm at the end of my interest in this discussion.

That's a shame, I learned a lot of interesting things researching things for this thread. See you around!