It is more probably that the historical figure Jesus was in fact God than he was not

When I mentioned the uniformity of the early church attributing the gospels to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, I did not mean all the gospels said the exact same thing. I'm saying the early church claimed Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wrote the gospels and there are no competing authors. If you do not believe they are the original 4 writers you must explain that. "Keep in mind that some of the most sensational miracles are only mentioned by one author" Just because only one author writes of it does not make that claim any less credible. Think about when Paul wrote of Jesus appearing to 500 people. No one of the gospels mention this and we know for a fact that Paul's letters were written before the gospels. If the gospel writers were making up everything don't you think they would have included this? However, just because they didn't doesn't make Paul's claim any less credible. This is because he even said most of the people Jesus appeared to were still alive. He was inviting any sceptic who didn't believe him to check it out for themselves. I don't have enough space to refute all of your claims about Matt. so I will do the one I feel will be most compelling in this debate. You said in Matt. 2:23 he quotes a non-existent text. "It should be noted, however, that the formula introducing the quotation differs from the regular pattern in two ways: it refers not to a single prophet but to the prophets, and it concludes not with saying but with that. This suggests that it is not meant to be a quotation of a specific passage, but a summary of a theme of prophetic expectation. . . . Thus it has been suggested that Matthew saw in the obscurity of Nazareth the fulfillment of Old Testament indications of a humble and rejected Messiah." - Enduring word bible commentary You said that in 180 AD was the earliest confirmation of the gospel authors, but however that is just a false statement all together. In 125 AD Papias confirmed authorship. While we do not have all of the documents there are still pieces of it that show authorship. (http://www.mindspring.com...) Also, you said Irenaeus said that Matthew wrote Hebrew. That is not true. He said "Matthew published his own gospel among the Hebrews" I am not making a case that the similarities in writing styles between Homer's works and the gospels is by chance. I have read Homers Iliad so I am familiar with that. However I am not seeing how that makes the gospels any less credible. At this point, in much of the known world at the time, most writers are writing in that style because that's just how everybody wrote. I would even expect the gospels to have literary parallels to Homers work. You are correct that the disciples were not Greek scholars however it is a strong possibility that they got someone who could write Greek to transcribe for them. Irenaeus did confirm authorship in his writings "Against the Heresies" You can read it if you like. I have already proved that the resurrection of Jesus could not have been manufactured stories but I will restate and give more evidence. Paul made a creed in Corinthians somewhere in between 32AD and 35AD which includes Jesus resurrection. Tell me why people are so accepting of the reliability of the bibliographies of Alexander the Great when they were written 400yrs after his death but when numerous credible people write biographies of Jesus between 30-60yrs of his death everyone thinks those are written way to far after his death to be reliable? The statistics about discrepancies in the gospels is actually a huge piece of evidence for the reliability of the gospels. We have more than 5,000 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. The second most of any literary work near that time is in fact Homer's Iliad with 650 Greek manuscripts, and those manuscripts were written a thousand years after. You said the number of variations was between 200,000-400,000 however I have never heard any scholar throw a number around that big, so I checked out the source you listed. You got your information from qdj.50megs.com That is a free hosting site. Literally anyone with a computer can make a website threw 50megs.com. The numbers I have seen repeatedly are in the tens of thousands. That may seem like a lot but scholars Norman Geisler and William nix said, "The New Testament, then, has not only survived in more manuscripts than any other book from antiquity, but it has survived in purer form than any other great book - a form that is 99.5% pure." (Case for Christ p.65). Bruce Metzger who has a masters degree from Princeton Theological Seminary and both a masters degree and a doctorate from Princeton University said that no major Christian doctrines are in jeopardy with the discrepancies. (p.64) The fact Paul says Jesus was resurrected is evidence because he made the creed, as I said earlier, somewhere in between 32-35AD which is a short years after Jesus' death. You said there are a lot of reasons that contribute to the spread of Christianity. I agree but I think the biggest is the resurrection. And if the resurrection was a myth, the spread of the myth can be explained but not the origin. The early Jewish believe was that the Messiah would not suffer, much less die. So if the resurrection is a myth you must explain who started it because it certainly wasn't any of the disciples. We can be sure of that. You said that the crucifixion does not prove the resurrection. I completely agree. I was just showing the point because some people will argue Jesus was not even dead when we have other early writers claiming he was clearly dead which I already included in the earlier round. You said there were conflicting stories about the resurrection in the gospels. I do not believe they are contradictory but I did not make the claim that they aren't. I said there are no competing burial stories. I am not going to waste character space talking about whether the body was stolen when that theory is almost universally dismissed by new testament scholars. Whether a physical ascension violates what we know about physics is irrelevant if there is enough evidence to believe Jesus is God, which I believe there is. This is because God is not bound by the natural laws of the universe. You responded to about half of my arguments and I believe I refuted all of your claims. If you don't feel I have done a good enough job on one of the arguments please let me know and I will try to make my opinion more clear. Thank you and good luck.