The authors of the four gospels sourced from myths, not directly from eyewitnesses (debate #2)

New Testament Scholars from the earliest ages have been overwhelmingly in favor of the Gospels as early accounts within the first two generations. Whether they are believed to be accurate, or false does not change the vast majority from concluding an early date. Additionally, I wish to point out that my opponents heavy overuse of minority opinions are comparable to citing a pimple to ascertain the overall dermatological health of a patient. “My God! You have a pimple… your flesh is rotting! ” We are not overly concerned with unsubstantiated minority opinions. After all, History Channels airs “critical” experts that believe the Moses Arch was an alien Quantum Machine that killed people when turned on--- All of these new “hypothesis” to solve problems of errant understanding by the “critical” scholars are largely just absurdities in a landscape of prestige posturing and getting airtime. Contention 1 – The Greek Manuscripts show no evidence of change. Fact – Early Scholars and Historians had a vast bulwark of Greek manuscripts available to them. Far more manuscripts were available to them than we have today. They had them all. - St. Jerome 350-400 A. D. applauded the consistency of the Greek manuscripts and was very critical of the Latin variations. - There was a scholarly process very early on that checked for “generational” changes to the Gospels. None were found. No generational changes within the Gospels can be pointed to today or have been found even to today. - When additional books, that were unknown to the Church, appeared on the scene they were rejected due to the fact they were unknown to prior generations. There was a process to stop “mythical” concepts from being added to the Gospels and even the Bible as a whole. Conclusion: We have zero evidence pointing to generational revisions of the original manuscripts that my opponent suggests. We in fact have very stable manuscripts and scholars reviewing those manuscripts within just a few generations of their original creation. The Gospels only manifest stability. . http://www.gettysburgseminary.org... Contention 2: The Gospels historical citings date well before even the second generation. Fact: - Act’s (the sequel to Luke’s Gospel) details ends prior to the death of Paul and even his final incarceration. It does not give a complete account of Paul’s life. It would have had the author known of his death. This places the Gospel of Luke well in front of Paul’s death in 68 A. D. - The fall of Jerusalem was predicted in the Gospels. Yet there is no mention of the fulfillment. - the Rylands Papyri that was found in Egypt that contains a fragment of John, and dates to A. D. 130. From this fragment we can conclude that John was completed well before A. D. 130 because, not only did the gospel have to be written, it had to be hand copied and make its way down from Greece to Egypt. - Dead Sea Scrolls Cave 7. Jose Callahan discovered a fragment of the Gospel of Mark and dated it to have been written in A. D. 50. He also discovered fragments of Acts and other epistles and dated them to have been written slightly after A. D. 50. - Bishop of Antioch, wrote a letter before his martyrdom in Rome in A. D. 115, quoting all the Gospels and other N. T. letters There is of course tons of information I could post but these destroy any argumentation of a speculative nature my opponent has already posted. . http://bible.org... Rebuttal to 1. Language and literacy problems My opponent is asserting a false dilemma fallacy: My opponent asserts – - They were rural bumpkins - They only spoke Aramaic - They were uneducated Conclusion they could not have written the Gospels much less in Greek. As with most things in life asserting a false dilemma is absurd. There was of course another option, which is what actually happened. Fact: - The Roman Culture had a scribe in every agora. You need only hire a scribe for a small sum of money and any rural bumpkin could write anything that he wanted in any language. . http://rsc.byu.edu... - Additionally, all you needed was a few fellow believers in your “new” Gospel to write it as you dictate it. - The majority of the Roman Empire was Greek speaking as Greek was the common language. This also includes outside of the Roman Empire East into Bactria and India. We see proof as the Book of Romans even had a scribe name himself, a believer who was recording Paul’s letter that was being dictated to him. Romans 16:20 The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you. 21 Timothy, my co-worker, sends his greetings to you, as do Lucius, Jason and Sosipater, my fellow Jews. 22 I, Tertius, who wrote down this letter, greet you in the Lord. 23 Gaius, whose hospitality I and the whole church here enjoy, sends you his greetings. Erastus, who is the city’s director of public works, and our brother Quartus send you their greetings Any critical assertion or complaint/critique of the Gospel scriptures by citing literacy rates, grammatical hiccups, multiple authorship and so forth is blatantly absurd and shows a lack of understanding about the Roman culture and their use of scribes. Rebuttal on 3 Miracles: Not a problem if you believe in God--- This is only a problem if you are presupposing naturalism as the only possible background of a text. Is my opponent suggesting that the miracles in the ancient “mythical” texts were not legitimate? How can he hope to prove that? I have not seen any proof that secular documented miracles were not in fact true. We have countless healing miracles documented for us via CBN that have happened today. The Catholic Church has also graciously recorded and documented miracles from God. I personally have experienced direct communication from God. I have witnessed my own son be healed miraculously. My opponent states “But miracles are simply not expected of eyewitness accounts. ” What on earth could possibly make that statement true? You may need to rephrase. I just gave an eyewitness testimony above about my own son being healed. It did not take five generations--- Here are miracles attested to by St. Augustine in his own time and him giving an eyewitness testimony. City of God Book 22 Chapter 8 “The miracle, which was wrought at Milan when I was there, and by which a blind man was restored to sight” He goes on to cite many confirmed miracles. Is my opponent stating St. Augustine and myself are not giving eyewitness accounts? Rebuttal on 4. The synoptic problem This is just creating a problem then asserting a solution to that problem and getting everyone to discuss the solution rather than even if the problem exists. Why does there have to be a Q document and not just the actual event? Why must it be from a previous document? These guys spent decades together reciting the same event over and over again. This is just an assertion. Provide a Q document. Otherwise the Historical view is far more reasonable: - These guys spent decades together sharing the details of the same event over and over again with each other and their converts. Why would they not relate a consistent event? Conclusion: You do not have to be a Christian to recognize it is scholastically inept to call the Gospels a generational story building myth as the resolution states. They could be dead wrong, full of lies, a laughable story or even a Pauline conspiracy. No matter what you believe about them we know the resolution is false. We will drop 2 and 5 for the debate as per the guidelines from my opponent. We will take my two positive arguments instead due to character constraints.