Challenge to atheists: I find your lack of faith disturbing!

[Aractus]

2. Your claims of the dates of authorship for the Gospels are fringy even by apologetic standards. Scholars date Mark to no earlier than 70 CE because of the "little apocalypse" reference in chapter 13 (or the destruction of the temple). Even apologists largely agree with this date with a few fringe apologists like yourselves who seem to pull mid-first century dates out of the air. The others came after Mark.

Okay, I'll address this because it's an easy point. I agree that Luke is the last of the synoptic gospels to have been written. Almost all scholars agree with this. So I work backwards from Luke. Almost all scholars, even those who are sceptical that "Luke" is the author, believe that Luke-Acts is written by the same author. The book of Acts makes it clear that the author is a companion of Paul (even more clear via Paul's letters if it is indeed Luke). Paul and Peter by all accounts (via early church records) are martyred in the mid 60's AD, and most scholars agree with this. We actually don't know how either of them died, however most people are taught that Peter is crucified upside-down and that Paul is beheaded. As I've mentioned earlier I believe it's most likely that they were both beheaded.

Therefore there's virtually no chance that Acts could have been written after 67 AD. What's more important is that it seems to end in AD 61, for instance this allows it to end with Paul under house arrest and other events that point to that time. Even if Luke was written only 1 month before Acts, that would still make it AD 61 at the latest.

Working back from here, we get to AD 53-58 being the most probable dates that Mark/Matthew were written. However, I then ask the question of whether the Gospel of the Hebrews was written before, or after Matthew. Although most scholars place it later than Matthew (shock horror, look at what I just admitted), I have yet to see any compelling argument as to why are more rudimentarily work was written after the Gospel.

I'm also deeply concerned that if Matthew was written in 53 AD then why is he writing to a Jewish audience, and not a Greek audience? I have as of yet seen no explanation as to how this would be possible.

So what I think, personally, is that Matthew and Mark were written sometime around 45 AD (or even as early as 39 AD) and that Mark predates Matthew by about 2 years.

I have "pulled" nothing out of the air.

The evidence is there for anyone to examine and come to their own conclusions, and I have come to mine. Although I may still change my mind, I already have in the past! So I can't be closed minded, if that was the case I wouldn't be saying now that Matthew was written before 50 AD.

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Well, considering that neither I nor just about anyone else is convinced that the James ossuary is 100% genuine (although it may be, but I don't know), I can't imagine that it would be an easy thing to prove.

I don't understand how you could not have a response to such a straight forward question regarding something that is so central to your life. You don't seem sure about what it would take to make your belief falsifiable.

Really? I gave you a completely straightforward answer. Inscriptions can be forged, just about anything can be forged.

There have been people that cut/tore blank leaves out of ancient books and then wrote on them using specially formulated period-accurate ink in the correct script (following no-doubt years of practising), with charcoal (ash) mixed in the ink in case it should ever be carbon-dated.

Surely you would expect me to be sceptical of new works until proven?

What evidence would it take to satisfy you that they were actually the bones of Christ? You haven't answered my question.

You're right, I didn't. Because just as the James ossuary, I'd be sceptical as to whether the inscription on the Ossuary is really 100% authentic. So yes, to be honest, I do think you would have to have more than the Ossuary inscription alone.

If you could never know-or if there would be no way for you to know-that they were the bones of Christ, then your belief isn't falsifiable. If your belief isn't falsifiable the do you really believe on the basis of evidence?

Incorrect, you ignored the crust of my response to you.

Yes I do not think that it's very likely, even if Jesus was an ordinary mortal man, that his bones would ever be found.

But as I said before, your argument rests on the claims that the gospels were written after AD 70, or were tampered with, and that's the kind of evidence I expect you to produce.

I don't say this lightly, but I don't think you're being sincere. You know that there's absolutely no evidence one could present that would make you change your mind.

No, I repeat myself. If you had an Ossuary, I would be sceptical. I am sceptical that the James ossuary is in fact genuine, I'm on record as saying that, and it would in no way be hypocritical of me to be sceptical of it!!

You say that there is, but that's just verbal behavior. You've created impossible conditions and you're okay with that? That's not the intellectual attitude one has when forming one's beliefs on the basis of evidence.

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Impossible conditions? It's not my fault that IESOUS would be inscribed upon hundreds if not thousands of period correct ossuaries, and that it'd be a rather simple task to carve in some extra inscriptions that make it appear that your random, bland ossuary contain the bones of somebody important!

If you opened it up, and there was a crown of thorns inside, with crucified bones, and the piece of wood which read "king of the jews", buried in a family plot with James, Joseph and Mary, then yes you would have sufficient evidence. If all you have is the ossuary with an inscription, and that is it, then it's my right to be sceptical.

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. Paul, 55CE - In 1 corinthians we're already 25 years removed from the events described, and we've got a letter to the Corinthians, living 1500 miles away. The resurrection story here is comparatively straightforward: No earthquakes, no wailing women, no ascension in to the clouds. We've got a paragraph in which jesus appeared to the round figure of 500 people, some other random folk and then "last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me". There's convenient. Barker even comments on the use of the wording in the resurrection; Jesus woke up, he was not resurrected.
. Mark, 70CE - 15 years on (40 years from the events, basically everyone from that epoch is dead at this point). We don't know who wrote Mark, and there is only 8 verses here for describing the most miraculous event in christian history. There's now a bloke in a white garment (an angel?) this time. No preachings of a risen christ, no ascension still, no earthquakes. Mary Magdeline and Salome were knocking about this time though.
. Mathew, 80CE - 50 years on and this time there's a monster earthquake, a huge moving stone, and Mary Magdeline and someone else called Mary. There's a definite angel this time.
. Luke, 85CE - Now we've got two angels AND an ascension finally. We've also got Mary Magdeline, Joanna, another Mary and another woman???
. Peter, 85CE - Soldiers and a crowd watched the stone roll itself away, but no earthquake this time. Two angels swoop down, then a third angel character appears, and then a flying and TALKING cross (I have to chuckle when I type that bit).
. John, 90CE earliest - Angels again, a fish miracle, an ascension, and some closing words of objective historians wisdom "And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples [too many to fit in a book he says in another verse]. But these are written, that ye might believe that jesus is the christ; the son of god, and that believing ye might have life through his name". No propaganda there.

Provide references, and reasoning for your dating. I've already done this, just asking you to provide the same level of information.