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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

The gospels are exactly the witnesses you say you are looking for. In your own words, they are "witnesses, however many people removed from the actual events."  
 
[/quote]

I'm not the PP but have you studied Gospels side by side instead of just one right after the other?  There are plenty examples where one gospel might leave out, add, or even contradict something said by another about the very same topic.  For instance compare the birth narrative of Jesus in John, Luke, Matthew, and Mark.  There are striking differences in each.  Does this mean that they're ALL wrong?  No.  But it does beg the question as to why those differences exist in the first place.  My guess is that each author is trying to make a theological point and NOT simply factually retell a story.  Not exactly the best reference material.

Even if these were "just the facts", "eyewitness stories" (and they're not - on either point), that's still a terrible source of evidence.  Do we convict murderers on just eyewitness testimony?  Of course not.  It's certainly can be powerful but people get the actual account wrong all the time.  I don't think the Bible was ever meant to be a historical text.   [/quote]

You're veering off into a tangent here, but I'll indulge you. Yes, of course I've studied them side by side. You're making mountains out of molehills. Have you ever been in court? Then you will know that witnesses will notice and report on different things, and sometimes they conflict on smaller things, but that's not always the end of the case. One witness will say that the perp was wearing a red t-shirt and another witness will say the perp was wearing jeans. Does that mean we should discount all the witness testimony? Of course not. It may or may not be a problem if one witness says the perp was wearing a Rolex and another witness says it was a Timex. But if there's a mass of other evidence that's the same in all accounts - if both witnesses agree that the perp was wearing a red t-shirt and jeans -- then you can have a fair degree of confidence that the perp was, you know, wearing a red t-shirt and jeans.

And what do you mean, we never convict murderers on eye-witness testimony? Are you claiming that even if several witnesses testify about how they saw the perp kill somebody with an axe, we still need additional evidence? Because that's just not true. What did we do before genetic testing?

OK, so you're demanding a document--from a non-Christian--putting down, line-by-line, that Jesus did this and that miracle. I'm sorry, but few people in 30AD, and even fewer among the type of person who followed Jesus, were drawing up documents that would meet the standards of today's courts. Or maybe you want a holy book that claims to be God's exact words dictated to a prophet - but the authenticity of that, too, can be challenged.

I and millions of others find the gospels, which represent a collection of witnesses, worthy of trust.

If this isn't fine with you, then to each his own.[/quote]
Maybe it would be good for the PP who suggested studying the Gospels side by side to know all the place they agree, and then to note the alleged discrepancies. Yes, they are not really contradictions but mostly different details, but the weight of agreement would be staggering, that Jesus Christ was the Son of God -- and God Himself -- who died for our sins, and rose again from the grave. Anyone comparing the Gospels honestly cannot deny this. [/quote]

PP here.   I have done this.  Again, I agree that not every discrepancy is a "gotcha" but there are some big ones that are hard to resolve without mental gymnastics.  Look at the genealogies of Jesus in the synoptic gospels as an example.  They're completely different.

I do agree that message in the NT was that Jesus Christ was the Son of God / God Himself (depending on which book you're citing) but it's not the conclusion I'm interested in but rather the reasoning that led to it in the first place.  Just because a book, a person, or whatever makes a claim doesn't necessarily mean that it's true, right?  [/quote]

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