MERGED: The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ (Part 1) & (Part 2)

[pocaracas]

So, now that I'’ve successfully made a case for and defended the historical evidence supporting Jesus of Nazareth'’s existence in human history,

Sorry to burst your bubble, but you did no such thing.
However, I (and others here) am willing to grant you the possibility of that existence and work from there.

The authorship of the Gospels: Who wrote them?

So how do we know who wrote the books? Well, what we have is testimony from the early church, men that were second generation apostles. The authorship of the books were uniform, unanimous according to the early Church, and there is no evidence of any competitors of authorship, no bickering, and no quarreling over who wrote the books.

There are, however, competing gospels... like the gnostic gospels... or just all the apocryphal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Testament_apocrypha.
I'm sure you've studied them all thoroughly and have your reasons to dismiss each and every one, except for the canonical ones.

Also, we have the dead sea scrolls... which reveal something about those times... like The Teacher of Righteousness!!
Hmmm.... a teacher, knowledgeable of the scriptures, a "counselor to the king", "dissatisfied with the religious sects in Jerusalem, and in reaction, founded a "crisis cult". While amassing a following, the Teacher (and his followers) claimed he was the fulfillment of various Biblical prophecies, with an emphasis on those found in Isaiah. The Teacher was eventually killed by the religious leadership in Jerusalem, and his followers hailed him as messianic figure who had been exalted to the presence of God's throne."

Sounds familiar?
See how it IS possible that such a person was around and was revered by the people?... he was just a century before what the christian church wishes to acknowledge, but who cares... that time period is so muddied that a century is of no consequence.

It seems that the authors of the books were a given. If the early Church were so hell bent on giving “credibility” to the Christian faith and wanted to give potential converts more reasons to join the gang based on authorship, why would the early Church attribute names of the books (particularly the Gospels, in this case) to less respected men?

Possibly because they were obviously not written by any of the apostles themselves " and jesus did this miracle and all the apostles were amazed"... clearly a 3rd person account.... so a friendly 3rd person must be manufactured... a friend of the apostles, a disciple of an apostle, a meeting with one of the apostles...
From a position of relative reliability, anything can then be told about the original... errr... teacher.

Another point that can be made, a point that will likely be carried over to part 3 but is worth mentioning here...is the fact that whoever wrote the Gospels must have been living during the time, and in that region. How do we know this? Because only someone living during that time would know certain FACTS regarding the time and location...these facts include cultural customs, historical figures, and even the "nature" of things during the time.

Think about it.... Harry Potter lived in London, he visited the London Zoo, he went on the train to school from Paddington train station...
All this written by someone who obviously knew Harry and his environment.
Blimey! Wizards exist! There is a ministry of magic in the UK and in several other countries! There are evil people with magical powers!
We're doomed!!!!!

And last, all four Gospels are of the BIOGRAPHICAL genre. What is a biography? According to Merriam-Webster.com

Biography: the story of a real person's life written by someone other than that person

All four Gospels fit the definition, as they are all the story of a real person's life written by someone other than that person.

"real"... you keep using that word...

Now, as mentioned previously, the vast majority of all scholars agree that the historical evidence points toward a historical Jesus (the man)..and if the Gospels are biographies of Jesus, they could have only been written by someone that knew Jesus personally, as there are to many details regarding Jesus' travels, his sermons, his actions....to many details that someone that never walked with him would know.

You see... there was this teacher... he taught people... people listened... some wrote it down to remember it better.
The teachings got handed down... the name of the teacher morphed a bit.

Also... Harry got hit by an Avada Kedavra spell, went to some sort of wizard limbo where he met the dead Dumbledore who told him he must return to the world of the living.... and so he did.
Only those closest to Harry would know of this detail as he would have to tell them in order for them to write about it.

Have you all ever watched a crime television show where a person gives details that "only the killer would know"...well, the authors of the Gospels gives narratives that only the disciples would know. Only someone that was there would have known that kind of information? What information? ANY INFORMATION.

Any... indeed... that is why the Harry Potter books are biographies of a real person....

I wonder... can I say the same thing about Bilbo Baggins?

3. Gospel of Luke: the preface states "Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled[a] among us, 2 just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word."

That right there is the mark of the con.
And your present day blindness to it only attests to how well the con must have worked 2000 years ago.

So in closing, it is because of ALL these reasons why I conclude that the Gospels were all written by either the disciples, or friends of the disciples. So now, between of parts 1 and 2, we can conclude that Jesus existed as a historical person, and that his biography was written by his friends, or friends of his friend...either way, reliable testimony nevertheless.

Or not.