It is more probable that Jesus was God than that He was not

You said, "My problem with this is that there is absolutely no logical connection between ones supernatural powers and his claims about his own divine status being true." I think that since we have already seen the gospels are reliable and that there is a high probability that the resurrection did occur and Jesus claimed to be God, it would lead us to the conclusion that Jesus is God. Yes, just because someone claims to be God and "supposedly" has supernatural powers doesn't make them God but I haven't seen you give any other reliable evidence that someone else claimed to be God, had historically accurate text written about them, and was resurrected. You then said in your next point, "it's a good introduction because it highlights the fact that there are so many conflicting divine claims - and as I argue - no decent evidence to suggest that the gospels/Paul should be taken with any more seriousness than the rest." In nearly all of my points in the second round point to the gospels or Paul being historically accurate. If you feel that one of them is not "decent evidence" just let me know and I will gladly explain it for you. When you somewhat quoted Matthew I like how you included the beginning and end but left out a lot in the middle. Your conclusion was based on a bad interpretation of the verse. I will quote a bible commentary (enduringword.com) If you feel that this is not a reliable source please tell me and give me a reason why, but until then I will use this commentary. For the problem you talked about this commentary says, "What generation did Jesus mean? It cannot be the generation of the disciples, because they never saw Jesus return in glory as described in Matthew 24:30. It is undoubtedly the generation that sees these signs. These events and Jesus' return won't be on some 1,000-year timetable, but will happen in succession." Your argument was based on a misinterpretation. Glad I could clear that up. Just because supernatural parts of the Illiad developed through years of oral storytelling doesn't mean the supernatural parts of Jesus did. In fact you are making a great case for my point of view. You said, "threw years of oral storytelling" this can not be the case because Paul was making claims as early as 3 years after Jesus death which is exceptionally early compared to other text written at that time. You just proved my point that these things could not have come up threw simple oral storytelling. In your example of John 3:3 I apologize but I don't understand completely, but I will try to interpret and make my point as best I can. Whether it says born from above or born again does not make a difference theologically. So which ever way one interprets the Greek word, it makes no difference to my claim that someone trained in Greek could have written the books for Matthew, Mark, Luke, John You then said,"However, because they are used by us as primary sources, the fact that they have a purpose other than giving an objective historical account is a reason not to take them as such." I have already given evidence they are historically reliable pieces of information but regardless of that, you saying we use them as a primary source adds to my point that they are reliable. According to wikipedia a primary source,"is an artifact, a document, a recording, or other source of information that was created at the time under study. It serves as an original source of information about the topic. Similar definitions are used in library science, and other areas of scholarship. In journalism, a primary source can be a person with direct knowledge of a situation, or a document created by such a person." Just because they are historically reliable and converted people to Christianity doesn't mean they are unreliable as you claim. And remember, a lot of people have already heard about Jesus and his resurrection. You said, "Why else would it be repeated throughout Matthew that Jesus was the Old Testament Messiah, in addition to the test being filled with Old Testament references, than to convert unconvinced Jews?" We must remember that these were not new ideas. The disciples and people like Paul had already been talking about those things for years. So if the Jews didn't believe them when they told them, why would they believe it when Matthew wrote it down? Matthew was just writing down what he, and everyone else, had been preaching already for years. The "contradictions" you pointed out, are very easy to explain. For your question about who carried the cross, Jesus had gone threw such physical torture that day that it is perfectly reasonable to think He would not be able to carry the cross all the way. After Jesus could not carry the cross any longer the Romans drafted Simon of Cyrene to carry the cross. You also asked where the disciples frightened or overjoyed. There is no need to over think this. When they saw Jesus, yes the were terrified because what were they doing at the time? They were hiding with the doors locked for fear of the Jews. Think about it, if you were hiding from someone, in a locked room, already scared, and all of a sudden someone just appeared in that room wouldn't you be terrified? But then when they realize its Jesus, who the disciples had been following, who the disciples believed was the Messiah, who had been crucified on a cross before their eyes, and now they see Him resurrected standing right in front of them! Wouldn't if make sense for them to be frightened at first and then overjoyed? Of course! I am so glad you brought up the point of the "broken-telephone system." You said, "If one eyewitness said something along the lines of [...]" The problem with that statement is, it wasn't "one eyewitness" saying something. This was numerous, credible eyewitnesses going out and telling people what happened. If one person had tried to start something that wasn't true no one would believe it because there was so many people saying what actually happened. So in short, no, this is not like a "broken-telephone system." You also said "Even if only one disciple had a hallucination of Jesus and said he saw him, rumors can easily alter that to "all of them saw Jesus" in the course of 3-6 decades." The main problem with this is, in Paul's account, Jesus appeared to over 500 people at one time. Now, looking at when this was written, it would not have been even close to 3-6 decades after. In that same account he even says that most of these witness' are still alive. He is basically inviting any skeptic to go and check it out for themselves! If he was lieing wouldn't it make sense for him to say everyone who was there was now dead? I want you to give me a reason to believe that the gospels are unreliable. The fact that they were written 30-60years after Jesus death is an argument that they are reliable based on all the other text we have of that time which I have clearly demonstrated. Jesus performed miracles, claimed to be God, died on a Cross, and was resurrected as prophesied. Wouldn't that lead us to believe it is more probable that Jesus was/is God than that he was not?