>Bart Ehrman, a New Testament historian who is well known for his critical eye on this stuff
He is not known for any such thing. Ehrman's claims are all on the historical chain of evidence for the books, not whether the books are true accounts. I'm very familiar with his work. In fact, in his book "How Jesus Became God", he suggests that there's no evidence at all, historically speaking, that Jesus ever even claimed to be the Son of God or anything supernatural and that, if he did exist, he was just a preacher. Jesus was not mentioned by any of his contemporaries or the Romans at all and they kept excellent documentation of official events of their empire.
Either way, by your own admission, there were no eyewitnesses. If the books are dated 120 years after the birth of Jesus, then the people that wrote them were not around when those events occurred.
Also, your evidence is simply showing that the books existed. It doesn't prove or support the idea that the events in them were true. Your argument here is akin to saying that Ghostbusters is a true story because it takes place in NYC and that's a real city that exists now.
Quoting a book as evidence that the book is true is tautological.
> Quoting a book as evidence that the book is true is tautological.
I wasn't arguing that the books were true. I do believe that, but you'll note my reply above simply tries to show that your bold claim that "the earliest known manuscripts of any biblical text post-dates Jesus by 300 years" is widely discredited.
I didn't "admit there were no eyewitnesses" at all -- my response wasn't related to that. Overall it seems like your reply had very little to do with my response above?
Yes, you did admit that there were no eyewitnesses. You stated:
>Other scholars date the NT books from between 70 and 90 AD.
Jesus lived to be 35 years old. Even if you take the most supportive version of this statement, the earliest NT book was written over 35 years after Jesus' supposed death and there's no evidence to support the idea that they were written between those dates. Even the Wikipedia link that you sent says that there's no evidence for it:
>The New Oxford Annotated Bible states, "Scholars generally agree that the Gospels were written forty to sixty years after the death of Jesus. They thus do not present eyewitness or contemporary accounts of Jesus's life and teaching."
He is not known for any such thing. Ehrman's claims are all on the historical chain of evidence for the books, not whether the books are true accounts. I'm very familiar with his work. In fact, in his book "How Jesus Became God", he suggests that there's no evidence at all, historically speaking, that Jesus ever even claimed to be the Son of God or anything supernatural and that, if he did exist, he was just a preacher. Jesus was not mentioned by any of his contemporaries or the Romans at all and they kept excellent documentation of official events of their empire.
Either way, by your own admission, there were no eyewitnesses. If the books are dated 120 years after the birth of Jesus, then the people that wrote them were not around when those events occurred.
Also, your evidence is simply showing that the books existed. It doesn't prove or support the idea that the events in them were true. Your argument here is akin to saying that Ghostbusters is a true story because it takes place in NYC and that's a real city that exists now.
Quoting a book as evidence that the book is true is tautological.