From atheism to Christianity? How so?

[agapelove]

Well hittites for one. And then the ones you omitted in this reply would be what I said about William Lane Craig. You basically asked me if I was rejecting your sources just because I didn't like it (implying I was being intellectually dishonest), and I've shown why WLC isn't worth one bit credulity and you don't reply. Do I take it that you concede?

I didn't come to the thread to defend WLC or anything, really. I just posted my testimony in this thread because Ivy invited me to. Since then I've been involved in a protracted conversation with a dozen different interrogators hostile to my position who are peppering me with questions on complicated matters of theology, history, philosophy and other topics. It's not that I mind, I like talking about these matters but as far as this thread goes to be honest it is wearing me out and it is taking me an inordinate amount of time to answer of all these questions. I would rather just engage someone in a 1 on 1 conversation about a single topic. So, please forgive me for not answering all of your questions..I am trying to cover what seems relevant to our conversation. I'm not trying to score points or "win".

Ok, I looked this up after talking to you about the new testament. So they were written like 80 years after the resurrection supposedly happened. If they were 10 year olds they would have been like 90 when they wrote it. How reliable is that? And we know they weren't kids, they were adults when Jesus was there, what are they all more than a 100 years old? How reliable can you be at that age? And some historians think that the gospels borrowed from each other. So not really independent sources are they? Flavius was born in 37 AD, how could he have seen anything? Whatever he wrote would have to be hearsay.

That's one theory of dating, other theories place the gospels in the 50s and 60s with John being written in the 80s or 90s. So you can't really claim that they are unreliable because of the age when the ages are widely disputed.

In fact if a source isn't archaeologically verified, it would be thrown out.

Except that isn't what your highlighted parts say. It says a relic would be superior to a narrative, but that doesn't mean a narrative doesn't count for anything. It only talks about preference, not about throwing anything out. The other part about any source being corrupted also doesn't prove your point because what would verify it would be the originality of the source.

It really doesn't look that well preserved from this angle. King James' bible was translated at a time when the church of england was experiencing factionalism in the congregation, namely protestant and puritans weren't getting along. So he translated a new bible.

I don't think I claimed anywhere that the KJV was perfect and that isn't what we are discussing. The manuscript evidence is what attests to whether the bible is well attested to, not a specific translation.

The compilation of the bible, the gospels at least, was made because they wanted 4 gospels. No more no less. So they picked whatever 4 best suits their needs and put it in the canonical bible. (it's on wikipedia, which has links to sources) That's an alteration to the bible.

That's one of many theories, so my question to you is, how do you evaluate which theory you believe? These are not simple matters and I think it is only fair to understand the evidence, for AND against before you can say what you think actually happened.

You said it would leave no archaeological evidence, you said a resurrection can only leave eyewitness accounts. Testimonies are not evidence.

I don't know, what is your theory about people who claim Elvis resurrected? Has he resurrected, in your opinion? And if not, what is the difference between the testimonies we have for Elvis and those for Jesus? Elvis has way more independent sources and better documented too.

Eye witness testimonies are evidence; how do you think the american justice system operates? You have asserted that we should have archaeological evidence of the resurrection..so my question is, what does that look like? You haven't answered my question. When you answer my question I'll consider this new question.

List this 40 sources. Even the gospels themselves weren't written by people who've seen Jesus. If that makes it into the bible, I'll be surprised if any of these 40 sources are contemporaries.

Here are some of the best and most recent sources. I'll track down the other sources later on.

http://carm.org/non-biblical-accounts-ne...dor-people