The Historical Reliability of the New Testament

[robvalue]

I've made it pretty clear what I think. I'll concede all the arguments, right up until the point someone suggests it's reasonable to believe supernatural claims. That is the ultimate goal here.

If this was only intended as textual analysis, that would be different. But this is by admission just the first stage in a larger argument. I'm giving Randy as much as he could ever gain through these arguments, allowing every point, but then saying there is this one obstacle which appears to be insurmountable. I'm doing the equivalent of removing thousands of henchmen for him, giving him all the power ups they were holding, and moving him straight to the boss fight. How much more generous can I be?

So I'm not dismissing the arguments, I'm conceding them to show that they are irrelevant as a basis for proving Christianity is "true" because even if they are all sound, they don't reach the desired conclusion.

If yourself or Randy really wants to just discuss historical realiability for its own sake, then that is fine. I've debated the existence of Jesus on the forum endlessly, my position being that saying he is based on a real person is not saying much at all. The very best I've seen is people linking together someone called Jesus who was crucified and had a brother called James. Even that part is not completely convincing, and anything after that is incredibly shaky. So to say "Jesus existed", in terms of what can actually be pinned down to him, is saying next to nothing. There were probably hundreds of people back then who would fit an extremely vague notion of "Jesus", depending on what aspect you're looking at. I think Jesus is most likely a compilation of many people around at the time, as a foundation, then built on with an almost entirely mythical life story.

On the atheist experience, they are trying to do the same thing, cut to the chase. They know what is coming at the end, and that it's the part where the non sequitur is going to happen from experience.