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

The historical view of the eyewitness accounts stands completely undefeated in this debate. To recap we saw from my opponent mere speculations. If you had inserted the words “this could possibly be” in front of each of his proposals you would wind up with the same debate. To summarize: 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. The Gospels 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. They indeed were written in the lifetime of the Apostles between 50-70 A. D. and we have zero documentation from the real Apostles that demands these are fakes. My opponent at the end stopped asserting that the Gospels were many generations later and even agreed to them being written well within two generations due to the overwhelming evidence. My Positive Contention 1: -I prove that these documents did not change over time or “evolve”. These are static documents (I cited Jerome’s early work in 300’s A. D. )-I prove definitively they were early and within the lifetime of the Apostles (See Contention 2)-I prove there was no manuscripts claiming these Gospels were faked, by the “real” Apostles. (I point to Jerome again)-I show there are ZERO competing theological documents with as early a date as the Gospels and even Acts. (I again cited Jerome’s work on the Vulgate) My opponent refutes none of this. My Positive Contention 2:- I gave several (but there are literally hundreds of early citations of the Gospels that could be given) early citations of the Gospels. - My opponent agreed to these early accounts. My opponent has only chosen to attempt a refutation at a couple of the positive evidences. Dead Sea Scrolls Evidence: I disagree with my opponents view as clearly these scholars assert that the fragment is from Mark. They point to the first century term for the Sea of Galilee as clear evidence and the verse is very close to that of the Gospel of Mark. The other scholars are uncertain and simply state that it is unidentifiable. Luke should have included Paul’s death within Acts: I cannot see how my opponent suggests that it is outside of a given frame of the historical narrative, when he cannot give any metrics for the story to exclude the death of Paul. We know that if you are writing a historical book about the “Acts” of the church you would write it up to the most current point or at least at a logical stopping point. The only logical conclusion is that the author chose this stopping point due to the fact it was up to current events. The only other natural and logical stopping point would be through the Life of the Apostles who headed the Church as the book clearly follows their lives and ministries rather than some unnamed concept my opponent merely speculates at. Fall of Jerusalem: My opponent again asserts that the Fall of Jerusalem was outside of the historical narrative intended for the book of “acts”. He again fails to give the metrics we could possibly use to ascertain that. It is only logical that you would include major events within a historical narrative. I cannot think of a reason that someone documenting the early church would ignore such a powerful event. My opponent failed to give any metric, much less a viable one, that this event should be excluded. Jerusalem was a major factor, part of Jesus’ life, the ministry of all of the Apostles and even of the prophecy of the cities fall recorded in the previous document written by Luke. The fall of the city should have been included. This places Luke well before 70 A. D. My opponent was unable to refute any of the early citations: As my opponent was unable to refute any citations of the early church fathers that place these Gospels within the lifetime of the of the Apostles this evidence stands. I have no idea why my opponent would suggest the Gospels to be written around 100 A. D. when a Father quoted the Gospels in 115 A. D. Is he suggesting that within 15 years this written Gospel became scripture and no one questioned its authenticity? This is mere speculation. It is far more likely that his teacher taught from this Gospel and was handed to him. This is far more likely. Simply put the evidence is overwhelming for eyewitness accounts. To assert anything else only comes from a deep desire for it not to be true. My opponent’s claims are merely minority speculations with no corroborating evidence.100 A. D. (which my opponent stated he agrees with) still places the timeframe of the Gospels well within the second generation. The resolution is clearly false. My opponents 1st Positive argument:Again, I have shown that this line of speculative reasoning is false and not good evidence to support the resolution. This is a false dilemma fallacy clear and simple. I have proven with the Book of Romans that scribes were used the Empire over. Even if my opponent's speculative claim of illiterate apostles that only spoke Aramaic was true- ANY illiterate bumpkin could have dictated anything to a scribe and produced a document in any language. Such a system would explain grammatical errors, mulitple authorship etc. Concerning my opponent’s Point 3 - Miracles Summary:My opponent attempts a different layout for his argument- He precedes to layout the following:1) It is a pattern of history that miracles are demonstrably far more likely to be present in myths instead of eyewitness accounts.2) The gospels contain accounts of miracles.3) Therefore, the gospels are far more likely to be myths. This is an arbitrary point of comparison that has no point of reference:Let me show you: 1) The pattern of history shows that miracles are demonstrably far more likely to be present in eyewitness accounts. (Examples, Tanach, New Testament, Quran)2) Works believed to be myths contain miracles3) Therefore, works believed to be myths are eyewitness accounts. This so obviously does not work in the opposite. Why? - Miracles alone are not a justifiable method to reclassify a myth into an eyewitness account. - Miracles alone are also not a justifiable method to reclassify an eyewitness account into a myth. Let us look below, I will merely take my opponents exact formula and swap out the word Miracles for the word Love:1) The pattern of history shows that Love is demonstrably far more likely to be present in myths instead of eyewitness accounts.2) Gospels contain accounts of Love.3) Therefore the Gospels are far more likely to be myths. Why does this not work? Doesn’t everyone know that nearly every work of fiction and myth contains love? When few eye witness accounts even discuss Love? It does not work because:- The purpose of every eyewitness account is not necessarily an accounting of Love (same as not every eye witness account is meant to log miraculous happenings). - The reason nearly every myth contains love is due to its nature as “special” for a host of reasons. - Miracles are in nearly every myth for the same reason. They are “special” for a host of reasons. You are just presuming that miracles are not real for this to work and you are asserting two differing types of narratives should be called the same thing due to a really bad method of reclassification. This shows you a PhD does not mean smart. Concerning my opponent’s Point 4 – Q DocumentYour response was not even a valid argument from the majority of authority. You just cited two people with PhD’s. I can do that with Alien conspiracies. Your problem again is that your scholar is pointing to one or two possible interpretations by ignoring the mountain of evidence for the mainstream scholars conclusions. Again such a document is proven not to exist by all of the Dissimilarities. If they were copying they did it badly. Yet every manuscript copy after that was nearly ”spot on” with few variances? Cheers to shoddy guesswork.