The Historical Reliability of the New Testament

[Jenny A]

Actually, yes, it is. If the authors are unknown, it damages the credibility of what is supposed to be an eye-witness account. 

Uh...no. All that matters is that we determine whether the authors wrote early, had access to inside information, desired to write accurate history and did so. If that was done by an actual apostle, then so much the better.

The fact that the writers are unknown is one of a list of reasons why most historians do not think the authors either were or had access to eyewitness. If they were they would have attempted to add veracity to their books by telling you they were. Instead: they wrote in a language other than the languages most of the events would have taken place in; wrote at least thirty years after the events they describe (news flash that's not early); are literate when the bulk of the participants and spectators would not have been; frequently contradict each other and what we know of history from other sources.

it is indisputable that if the gospels can be shown to be written by eyewitnesses or by men who had access to eyewitnesses, the argument for the reliability of the New Testament as a whole is greatly advanced.

Actually, no. Eye-witness testimony is the weakest evidence in a court of law and of no value whatsoever in science. Furthermore, this statement conflates eye-witness testimony with hearsay testimony (reporting what someone else heard or saw), the latter being totally inadmissible in a court of law. 


So, which is it, DP?

Is it really critical that the gospels be written by an eye-witness as you first said? Or is it that "Eye-witness testimony is the weakest evidence" as you have just said?

If eye-witness testimony is the weakest, then it shouldn't really matter who those weak witnesses were, should it?

But this is another example of you trying to have it both ways.

Now to be fair, I gave you quite a bit of time when I responded - no, destroyed - your "Occam's Razor" post(s).

You had your chance. Now, you need to let the other children have a turn.

Now you are just being silly.

Eyewitness testimony is indeed a very weak form of evidence in comparison with physical or circumstantial evidence. But it is much better evidence than stories recorded thirty years later after having been been passed by word of mouth and translated into multiple languages by many, many anonymous tellers. That ought to be obvious. And that is what we have in the gospels.