(January 28, 2015 at 12:26 pm)Esquilax Wrote:(January 28, 2015 at 11:31 am)SteveII Wrote: The events described in the gospels and Acts are the best attested to set of individual events in ancient times. There are 4 sources (with supporting documentation from Paul) easily within a lifetime of eyewitnesses AND subsequent historical chain of events that support them.
I think you forgot a few inconvenient facts here, like how all the gospels were written anonymously, and none of them list any eyewitnesses that they were drawing their knowledge from. Or how the early church chopped and changed what counted as a canonical gospel over time.
Or how, quite simply, the gospels are the claim of what happened, not evidence for that claim. The claims of the gospels exist only in the gospel, there are no secondary historical texts that reference the pertinent divine claims of that book, therefore the book itself is the claim, and not evidence for itself. You can't say "the events depicted in this book are true, because the book says they're true!" Steve.
"But you can't ask me for any evidence for the supernatural stuff! It's just more likely that it happened as they said!"
In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to Liberty.
- Thomas Jefferson
- Thomas Jefferson