East of Eden wrote:
The Gospels were written by eyewitnesses or those who interviewed eyewitnesses. Both those categories are considered evidence in a court of law.
Our resident lawyer Danmark has already pointed out the falsehood of this "evidence in a court of law" claim. Of the four Gospel only gospels Matthew and John have any possible claim to eyewitness authority, both attributed, according to Christian tradition, to the apostles Matthew and John.
The history of Gospel Matthew is actually quite mysterious. Papias along with his good friend Polycarp, in the second century, indicated that the apostle Matthew undertook to write a Gospel of Jesus Christ during the period in which Peter and Paul were supposed to be attempting to found a Christian church in Rome. This is given to be the period shortly before the great fire in Rome, which occurred in 64. Since it was known that the Gospel of Mark, as well as the other Gospels, was written sometime after 70, the Catholic Church, which only came into being in the fourth century, traditionally placed the Gospel of Matthew as the first book of the Gospels, Mark next, then Luke, with Gospel John clearly the last to be written. One problem though for a book written some few years prior to the Gospel of Mark. The Gospel of Matthew (canonical, found in all modern copies of the NT) contains within it virtually the entire Gospel of Mark, excluding mainly the "long ending" of Gospel Mark, verses 28:9-20, which are not found in the oldest manuscripts of Gospel Mark. How could the Gospel of Matthew contain the entire Gospel of Mark if the Gospel of Matthew was written PRIOR to the writing of Gospel Mark? And why would the apostle, an eyewitness, rely on the work of an individual, Mark, who clearly never even met Jesus?
Another and even greater problem with the authorship of Gospel Matthew occurs however. Papias also wrote:
"For Matthew composed the logia [sayings] in Hebrew style; but each recorded them as he was able."
And in fact both Polycarp and Eusebius also confirmed in their writings that the apostle Matthew wrote his gospel "in the language of the Jews." In other words in the Hebrew language, Aramaic. And that's a serious problem for determining the authorship of the canonical Gospel of Matthew, which was written in pure KOINE GREEK. All FOUR canonical Gospels are in fact written in pure Koine Greek, the common language of that time, and show no signs of translation. Pure unaltered Greek in pure Greek verse and idiom, with no indication of adjustments from the vastly more completed Aramaic. So who wrote the Gospel According to Matthew contained in your Bible?
NO ONE KNOWS! What is clear today is that it was written AFTER Gospel Mark. Gospel Matthew IS essentially Gospel Mark, with some material original to Matthew woven in. Gospel Luke contains elements of both Gospels Mark and Matthew, and was clearly written third. Bottom line, all of the Gospels were written anonymously decades after the fact, and NONE of them can be shown to have been first hand accounts for what they are describing.
Gospel John, like all the Gospels, was written anonymously. The earliest evidence for it's author occurs in the second century, with Papias. Papias wrote:
"I received with care at any time from the elders, and stored up with care in my memory, assuring you at the same time of their truth. For I did not, like the multitude, take pleasure in those who spoke much, but in those who taught the truth; nor in those who related strange commandments, but in those who rehearsed the commandments given by the Lord to faith, and proceeding from truth itself. If, then, any one who had attended on the elders came, I asked minutely after their sayings,--what Andrew or Peter said, or what was said by Philip, or by Thomas, or by James, or
by John, or by Matthew, or by any other of the Lord's disciples: which things Aristion and
the presbyter John, the disciples of the Lord, say. For I imagined that what was to be got from books was not so profitable to me as what came from the living and abiding voice."
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/papias.html
It is to this second John, presbyter John, that the authorship of John may be traced.
East of Eden wrote:
As we've discussed, neither do many other ancient historical documents, and about all of them have a much longer time gap between their writing and our earliest copies, and far fewer copies than we have of the NT.
If you could point to any other historical documents which "have a much longer time gap between their writing and our earliest copies, and far fewer copies than we have of the NT," and which include supernatural occurrence as a part of recorded history, then you might have a point.
Since you cannot this is a totally invalid point.
So let's look around for some ancient sources which ARE similar in nature to NT documents. Although Christians like to cite hundreds of eyewitnesses to the risen Jesus, the truth is there are only five total sources for the story of the resurrection: Paul, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. As luck would have it, there are five sources for the race of one eyed giants known as the cyclops. Hesiod, Homer, Euripides, Theocritus, and Virgil all detail a far away land which contains this race of man eating giants. Homer even names one, Polyphemus The cyclops were considered to be very real in ancient times. In modern times however we consider such stories to be figments of the ancient imagination. Most of us do.
East of Eden wrote:
I'm sure nobody doubted the events the first twenty-five years, these things were set in print only when the eyewitnesses started to pass on.
So you agree that there is absolutely no indication that hordes of dead people, or anyone else, came up out of their graves stemming from the time when the event was supposed to have occurred! Only stories years later provided by individuals who were not present or cannot be identified. Because why would anyone bother to write about such an astounding occurrence at the time it occurred, when they can wait for decades? Paul's letters were never intended to provide historical documentation of anything. They were letters to friends and associates. Because people wrote letters to their friends. No letters about hordes of dead people coming up out of their graves though.
"The cursus publicus (Greek, "public road/course") was the state-run courier and transportation service of the Roman Empire, later inherited by the Byzantine Empire. It was created by Emperor Augustus to transport messages, officials, and tax revenues from one province to another. The service was still fully functioning in the first half of the sixth century in the Byzantine Empire, when the historian Procopius charges Emperor Justinian with the dismantlement of most of its sections, with the exception of the route leading to the Persian border."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cursus_publicus
East of Eden wrote:
As I've said before, only if you disregard all testimony to the contrary, which is circular reasoning. IF God exists, miracles are no big deal, and you can't prove He doesn't exist, or that if He does exist, is powerless to intervene in His creation.
Five total sources provided by individuals who either clearly were not present for what they are claiming occurred, or who, writing decades later, cannot be accurately identified.
East of Eden wrote:
You have no clue whether or not I was raised as a Christian. Many were not, yet became Christians after looking at the evidence. They're a bit more open-minded than the resident atheists here.
We've spoken before.
] cites a statutory exception to the hearsay rule specific to Illinois, rather than one of the many exceptions listed in the ER's. My qualifications, are not relevant. My arguments should be sufficient, but since you demand it: In addition to being a trial lawyer for over 30 years, (including two death penalty cases) I have had dozens of successful appeals and have frequently been asked to lecture at Continuing Legal Education seminars. The first request to teach law that I accepted was when I was still in law school and our Harvard educated evidence professor asked me to teach a section on trial practice.
