sooda...what you posted is wrong, very wrong. The bible has 3 areas that scholars look at to verify the reliability of its ancient texts...they are
1.
The bibliographical test-(explained below)
2.
internal witness-do the authors claim to be the eyewitness, do the authors claim to be giving the account of eyewitness testimony
3.
external witness-are there sources dating close to the original authors that support the documents
The bibliographical test examines manuscript reliability, and for more than a generation Christian apologists have employed it to substantiate the transmissional reliability of the New Testament. The bibliographical test compares the closeness of the New Testament’s oldest extant manuscripts to the date of its autographs (the original handwritten documents) and the sheer number of the New Testament’s extant manuscripts with the number and earliness of extant manuscripts of other ancient documents such as Homer, Aristotle, and Herodotus.
Since the New Testament manuscripts outstrip every other ancient manuscript in sheer number and proximity to the autographs, the New Testament should be regarded as having been accurately transmitted. However, although apologists have stayed abreast of the dates of the earliest extant manuscripts and latest New Testament Greek manuscript counts, we haven’t kept up with the increasing numbers of manuscripts for other ancient authors that are recognized by classical scholars. For example, although apologists rightly claim that there are well over five thousand Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, they have reported the number of manuscripts for Homer’s
Iliad to be 643, but the real number of
Iliad manuscripts is actually 1,757.
https://www.equip.org/article/the-bibliographical-test-updated/
" Everybody who wants to study the beginning of Christianity usually has the same motivation that I had. It was totally typical: if we go back to the beginning, we’ll find what really happened, the original, the perfect, golden nugget. We’ll find the words of Jesus.
What we actually find when we go back there is that the earliest evidence is very diverse. That’s not the story we were told as Christians, because the Christian church chose to simplify it and give us a single version of the story and cut out, therefore, the kind of diversity that we can now see."
What you're saying simply isn't true in the PhD historicity field.
This panel of experts including a Pastor goes over ALL biblical and extra-biblical evidence.
Everything.
What can atheists know about Jesus panel
conclusion, historical reliability cannot be established.
Wiki:
The
historicity of Jesus
"There is widespread disagreement among scholars on the historicity of specific episodes described in the biblical accounts of Jesus,
[65] the details of the life of Jesus mentioned in the gospel narratives, and on the meaning of his teachings.
[5] Many scholars have questioned the
authenticity and
reliability of these sources, and few events mentioned in the gospels are universally accepted.
[65]"
All gospels are believed to have been copied from Mark and each author added their own stories. We know this because there are pages and pages of verbatim Greek.
Wiki - The historical reliability of the Gospels
"The
gospels of
Matthew,
Mark, and
Luke are referred to as the Synoptic Gospels because of a similar sequence and wording. ....he majority of Mark and roughly half of Matthew and Luke coincide in content, in much the same sequence, often nearly verbatim."
Also there were about ~40 original gospels, in the 1st century around 50% were what we now call Gnostic gospels (see Elaine Pagels - The Lost Gospels) and the first Christian canon - the Marcionite canon is unknown to us what it actually said.
All information that apologists just completely ignore.
-Elaine Pagels, is an American religious historian who writes on the Gnostic Gospels. She is the Harrington Spear Paine Professor of Religion at Princeton University. Pagels has conducted extensive research into Early Christianity and Gnosticism.
Q: How are the Gnostic Gospels different from the Synoptic Gospels?
A: We use the word “synoptic” to talk about Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and it really means “seeing together,” because they all have a similar perspective. Matthew and Luke — whoever wrote those Gospels — used Mark as a focus and as a basic story. So all of them have a lot in common.
What we call the Gnostic Gospels are a range of other Gospels, some of them recently discovered and previously unknown but probably very ancient. We simply had never known them. They weren’t part of the New Testament. What’s different about the Gospel of Thomas is that, instead of focusing entirely on who Jesus is and the wonderful works of Jesus, it focuses on how you and I can find the kingdom of God, or life in the presence of God.
Q: What is the argument between the Gospel of John and the Gospel of Thomas?
A: The Gospel of John speaks of Jesus as the “light of the world,” the divine one who comes into the world to rescue the human race from sin and darkness, and says if you believe in him, you can be saved; you can have everlasting life. If you don’t believe in him, you go to everlasting death.
The Gospel of Thomas, on the other hand, speaks of Jesus as the divine light that comes from heaven, but says “and you, too, have access to that divine source within yourself,” even apart from Jesus.
What we now realize — and more clearly than ever because of the newly discovered Gospels — is that, instead of one tradition about Jesus, there were in the early Christian movement ranges of traditions about Jesus, several traditions, and they were associated with different disciples. So you would have the gospel according to Matthew, who taught some of the teachings of Jesus, and the gospel according to John, which taught others, [and] the gospel according to Thomas.
When we look at Thomas and John together, we see that they have a lot in common. They used the same kind of language. But I can now see that John was written to say, “Well, yes, Thomas almost gets it right but misses the main point,” which for John is that you must believe in Jesus in order to be saved and that he alone offers the only access.
Q: What is the historical background on this?
A: Everybody who wants to study the beginning of Christianity usually has the same motivation that I had. It was totally typical: if we go back to the beginning, we’ll find what really happened, the original, the perfect, golden nugget. We’ll find the words of Jesus.
What we actually find when we go back there is that the earliest evidence is very diverse. That’s not the story we were told as Christians, because the Christian church chose to simplify it and give us a single version of the story and cut out, therefore, the kind of diversity that we can now see.
Q: Was it political?
A: It was certainly political. It was also religious. Those were not separate.
Q: Was Thomas’s talking about each of us being seekers of God a difficult concept to organize an orthodox institution around?
A: Yes. If you’re going to have a church that says, as one of the primary church leaders, Irenaeus, did, “Outside the church there is no salvation,” there are certain things you might not want Jesus to have said, if he said them. For example: “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you.” That might suggest you don’t need a church, or a priest, or an institution.
October 10, 2003 ~ Elaine Pagels Extended Interview | October 10, 2003 | Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly | PBS
