How Could Anyone Believe the Gospels Are Eywitness Accounts?

[abaris]

That's why I used the Gospels themselves. The evidence that they aren't eyewitness testimony is right there in the scriptures themselves. So is the utter lack of any evidence that they are eyewitness accounts.

Yeah, but to appreciate that, you'd have to have at least some basic knowledge of how literature and history were viewed by the people of the time. And that goes for the authors as well as the readers. Not that many people were able to read at the time or could even afford something as valuable as a book or a scroll. These writings were aimed at an educated and wealthy elite.

Also, embellishment to transport an agenda, was widely accepted and not considered despicable. That's true for all the texts of that time, secular as well as religious.