Indoctrination & Mental Gymnastics

[goodwithoutgod]

is that easier for you? I offered you cited work, recommended multiple christian sourced scholarly books that say the SAME thing. I don't use wiki, unless it puts into short layman terms a point I am trying to make, rather than regurgitating and typing up an exhaustive book review, or the hundreds of pages of notes I have on this subject. Point is, they were not written when or by whom people think, and very few scholars say otherwise...are there naysayers? of course, Ken Ham is one, people blindly believe in all sorts of nonsense, but that doesn't discredit the forensic analysis of the historicity of the bible, or the copious amount of holes within the story, the book itself, and the plethora of anonymous after the fact hearsay based authors.

As for Papias who was probably most influential in identifying the gospel writers, here's how he described his method for gathering information:

I shall not hesitate also to put into ordered form for you, along with the interpretations, everything I learned carefully in the past from the elders and noted down carefully, for the truth of which I vouch. For unlike most people I took no pleasure in those who told many different stories, but only in those who taught the truth. Nor did I take pleasure in those who reported their memory of someone else’s commandments, but only in those who reported their memory of the commandments given by the Lord to the faith and proceeding from the Truth itself. And if by chance anyone who had been in attendance on the elders arrived, I made enquiries about the words of the elders—what Andrew or Peter had said, or Philip or Thomas or James or John or Matthew or any other of the Lord’s disciples, and whatever Aristion and John the Elder, the Lord’s disciples, were saying. For I did not think that information from the books would profit me as much as information from a living and surviving voice.

Papias lived 100-220 CE, and gathered stories up. Lets look at this factoid concerning papias: Later scholars have been questioning of Papias' reliability. Much discussion of Papias's comments about the Gospel of Mark and Gospel of Matthew is concerned with assessing Papias' reliability as evidence for the origins of these Gospels or with emphasizing the apologetic character of the Gospels in order to discredit their reliability. Concerning the Gospel of Mark, many modern scholars have dismissed Papias' reliability regarding this Gospel due to the purpose of Papias in vindicating the apostolicity of Mark's Gospel. I am very familiar in this quote, and have used it many times in debates. One must read it carefully to see the flaws...."but only in those who taught the truth."...and how exactly does one determine that specific stories told were true, while others were not true when you were not present to witness any of the events, and have no way of knowing who is spinning yarns, and who isn't it...and therein lies the flaw..and then when you look at the reliability issues......

oral tradition is like the telephone game....and as accurate.

One must ponder that when events like the earth going dark for 3 hours midday, ground shaking, temples twain in two, and corpses bursting out of the ground and walking around town...that no one who lived at the time thought these events were noteworthy...no, lets wait 60-110 years later for the anonymous authors of the pseudepgrapha known as matthew, mark and luke to tell these stories based on passed down "tradition"...sounds totally legit. Come on, you seem to be an intelligent fellow, surely you see the gaping holes in this fairy tale..