The Gospel of Jesus is a patchwork of plagiarized material from non-Judeo-Christian sources

Thanks for this opportunity to shed some light on a topic like this and the chance to clear up any misconceptions on this site that their are no historical evidences for the Christian faith. Challenge by the pro: "What is original in the gospel story of Jesus, to make it worth even considering as a valid basis for the Christian faith?" I will answer two other more specific questions that I feel cover the basis of the pro's initial question. They are "how do we know that the new testament is historically reliable?" "How do we know that the gospel of Jesus Christ is not made up?" To answer these questions I will base my historical standards on the military historian, C. Sanders. Who in his "Introduction to Research in English Literary History" lists three basic principles of historiography; they are the bibliographical test, the internal evidence test and external evidence test.(1) To start I will explain the bibliographical test to make sure we are clear on what that is, the bibliographical test is an examination of the textual transmission by which documents reach us. Or in other words, since we do not have the original documents, how reliable can the copies we have today be, based on surviving manuscript copies(mss) and the time interval between the orginal documents and the manuscripts that are still preserved. There are 5,300 Greek mss of the New Testament there over 10,000 latin vulgate and at least 9,300 other early version mss that totals today 24,000 mss copies today.(2) With these mss we are able to compare our copies of the bible to the original mss and when we do that we are able to see that over time and even though the New testament has 20,000 lines it only has 40 lines or 400 words in doubt. This is a really small error and most of the changes are as small as different word choice, but the different words essentially have the same meaning. That's 24,000 copies that are all essentially the same except for 40 lines this is a very strong testament to the validity of the translated copies and the accuracy of the copies we have today.(3) So the New testament which accounts for the story of Christ has stayed the same and it passes the bibliographical test but how about the internal evidence test? On this test John Warwick Montgomery writes that literary critics still follow Aristotle's dictum that "the benefit of the doubt is to be given to the document itself, not arrogated by the critic to himself...One must listen to the claim's of the document under analysis, and not assume fraud or error unless the author disqualified himself by contradictions or known factual inaccuracies."(4) F.F. Bruce, Ryland's Professor of Biblical criticism and Exegesis at the University of Manchester, says, concerning the primary-source value of the NT records "The earliest preachers of the gospel knew the value of first-hand testimony, and appealed to it time and again. ‘We are witnesses of these things,' was their constant and confident assertion. And it can have been by no means so easy as some writers seem to think to invent words and deeds of Jesus in those early years, when so many of His disciples were about, who could remember what had and had not happened." See verses Luke 1:1-3, 2nd Peter1:16, 1 John 1:3, Acts 2:22, John 19:35, Luke 3:1, Acts 26:24-26 These are examples from scripture where the authors themselves make the same case as F.F. Bruce that they are not making up stories but reporting history. I would also like to point out that these are from four different authors and from five different books and they are all coming to the same conclusions and making the same reports and statements. "The New Testament must be regarded by scholars today as a competent primary source document from the first century."(4) *To conserve space I will only post liberal dating* Liberal dating (of the new testament books) Paul's Letters A.D 50-100 Matthew A.D 80-100 Mark A.D 70 Luke A.D 70-90 John A.D 90-100 (5) "Thanks to the Qumran discoveries, the New Testament proves to be in fact what it was formerly believed to be: the teaching of Christ and his immediate followers between 25 A.D and 80 A.D"(6) *Now for the part I imagine everyone is the most interested in The External Evidence Test What sources are there apart from the literature under analysis that substantiate its accuracy, reliability, and authenticity? Eusbebius, in his ecclesiastical History III. Preserves writings of Papias, the bishop of Heirapolis(130 A.D) Which Papias got from the Elder(apostles John): "The Elder used to say this also: 'Mark, having been the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately all that he (Peter) mentioned, whether sayings or doings of Christ, not, however, in order. For he was neither a hearer nor a companion of the Lord; but afterwards, as I said, he accompanied Peter, who adapted his teachings as necessity required, not as though he were making a compilation of the sayings of the Lord. So then Mark made no mistake, writing down in this way some things as he (Peter) mentioned them; for he paid attention to this one thing, not to omit anything that he had heard, not to include any false statement among them.'" Irenaeous, Bishop of Lyons (A.D 180), who was a student of Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna; martyred in 156 A.D., had been a Christian for 86 years, and was a disciple of John the Apostle He wrote: "So firm is the ground upon which these Gospels rest, that the very heretics themselves bear witness to them, and, starting from these. each one of them endeavors to establish his own particular doctrine" (Against Heresies III). Ignatius (A.D 70-156). He was Bishop of Antioch and was martyred for his faith in Christ. He knew all the apostles and was a disciple of Polycarp, who was a disciple of the apostle John. Igantius gave credence to the Scripture by the way he based his faith on the accuracy of the Bible. He had ample witnesses to discover scriptural trustworthiness.(7) Flavius Josephus- Jewish historian. The differences between Josephus' account of the baptism of John the Baptist and the of the Gospel is that Josephus says that John's baptism was not for the remission of sin, while the bible says it was; and that John was killed for political reasons and not for his denunciation of Herod's marriage to Herodias. The outline provided by Josephus' account confirms that of the Gospels. (8) In Ant. XVIII. 5.2, Josephus makes mention of John the Baptist. Because of the manner in which this passage is written, there is no ground for suspecting Christian interpolation. In this passage we read: "Now some of the Jews thought that Herod's army had been destroyed by God, and that it was a very just penalty to avenge John, surnamed the baptist. For Herod had killed him, though he was a good man, who bade the Jews practise virtue, be just one to another pious toward God, and come together in baptism...And when the others gathered around him, Herod feared that his persuasive power over men, being so great, might lead to a rising, as they seemed rady to follow his counsel in everything."(8) Well that's it for room there is more info. Thank you 1.Sanders, C. "Introduction in Research in English Literary History". New York: Macmillan Co.1952 2.Charles Leach Our Bible: How We Got It (1898) 3.Geisler, Norman L. and William E. Nix A General Introduction to the Bible. Chicago: Moody Press, 1968. 4.Montgomery, John W. "History and Christianity." Downers Grove, IL 60515: Inter-Varsity Press, 1971 5.Werner Georg Kummel's Introduction to the New Testament, translated by Howard Clark Kee, Abingdon Press,1973 6.Arndt, William F. and F. Wilbur Gingrich. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1952 7.Liplady, Thomas. The influence of the Bible. New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1924. 8.Bruce, F.F. The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? Downers Grove; IL 60515: Inter-Varsity Press, 1964.