Gospel Evidence: Eyewitness Testimony or Anonymous Tips?Christian Apologists are constantly referring to stories in the Canonical Gospels as "Eyewitness Testimony". They compile evidence and argue that Jesus rose from the dead (they just assume the gospel protagonist is an historical personage as a starting point) based on the "witnesses" provided in the Gospels.
But are these documents - assuming that they are even intended to be historical accounts and not merely literary allegories - really "eyewitness accounts"? Is the evidence they provide admissible?
No. In order for evidence to be admissible, the "witness" has to testify. Anonymous tips suggest areas to investigate, but they do not in and of themselves consist of evidence.
Nobody knows who wrote the gospels. They are truly anonymous. Some books of the New Testament are written pseudonymously (e.g. the Pastoral Epistles claim to be written by Paul but they are clearly not) but the Gospel writers did not even put a fake name on their literary creations. They are just unsigned. The traditional attributions were not assigned until the last quarter of the second century.
In fact, nobody seems to know about these narratives until at least the middle of the second century. Justin Martyr, writing in 150 CE cites, "memoirs of the apostles" but his quotes are not very close to the Canonical Gospels. He does not know that there are four; he does not attribute any specific authorship.
The first person to call out the four, and the first Christian writer who seems to have a copy, is Ireanaeus in about 180 CE. That's 150 years after the supposed events. In all those years no Christians seem to have any of the Gospels. Now Christians will tell you that they had them, but there is no literary evidence that they existed prior to the second half of the second century. And there is plenty of literary evidence from Christian writers before that - just none citing or knowing of the Gospels.
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excerpt from "Jesus Never Existed" website:Christian Apologetics - Fundamentally Flawedhttp://www.jesusneverexisted.com/circus.htmlThe supposed 'evidence' of Jesus's existence can fill many pages...
Believe it or not, in a jaw-dropping departure from logical thinking, the Apologists' prime source of 'proof' for the existence of their storybook hero is the
storybook itself. The Bible is given the special privilege of confirming its own truth. In the language of religious deceit, the Bible is held to be "unique" and "historically reliable".
It's true because it says it's true. Handy, that. (So handy, in fact, that Muhammad used the same "logic" in the Koran).
With the whole compendium of biblical half-truths, fantasy and garbled history defined as "historical evidence", vast numbers of "witnesses" to the Jesus superhero can be mustered.
Other characters in the fable give testimony for the existence of the holy carpenter. This is rather like 'proving' the existence of
Batman by quoting the words of
Robin the Boy Wonder.
The parade of flimflam and clownish knockabout would be a cause for merriment and laughter were it not for the sobering thought that this is as 'rational' as some Christians get. Heaven help us if they were ever to take over the government.
In the prelude to the Dark Ages the original Christian Apologists engaged in a similar pseudo-rational debate with the Greek philosophers, who at first ignored the Christians and subsequently lampooned them as fools. But within three generations the fanatics of Christ had taken over the Roman Empire and the laughing stopped...