re: I've flipped. I'm Pro-Abortion af nowadays

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I'm always honest and I always engage in good faith.

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That is a lie.

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You're the deceiver.

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Another lie.

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That's not the test

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Yes, it is.

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The canonical gospels were written when there were eye-witnesses around.

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Not according to the evidence and not according to the consensus of experts.

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Luke wrote the gospel by that name and the book of the Acts of the Apostles,

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The author of “Luke” adapted the gospel of the Lord which had been published by Markion of Sinope and edited and appended to it into the version we have today.

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both of which he claims were based on eye-witness accounts

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We call that hearsay. The telephone game. The author of canonical Luke wrote that he had compiled what “really” happened because none of the other gospels before his got it “right”. Canonical Luke is a compilation of a collection of stories - bottom line.

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In his account, Paul saw Jesus, not just had a dream.

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I got a book that records that a very small chicken witnessed the sky was falling. It doesn’t make it historical or true, even though such a book does align with biblical cosmology of a hard dome of sapphire comprising the top of the sky.

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Paul then goes on to affirm that account by saying Jesus appeared to him, in addition to many other witnesses.

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Not Paul then. Paul wrote before the gospels. The gospel of Luke and Acts is fan fiction based on Paul.

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Yeah, I know you think everything that is troubling to your own view is "forged".

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It’s the consensus of secular biblical and historical and textual scholars. I didn’t figure it out.

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1 Peter also claims to be an eye-witness.

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In the same sense the modern Arian cult Jehovah’s Witnesses are witnesses. A witness in the biblical sense comes from the Greek “martyrs” but of course you know that - you’re just being dishonest. It simply means one who gives testimony. In English, and it’s the same sense of 1 Peter and of Jehovah’s Witnesses, the word “witness” is one who testifies to a belief while a “martyr” is simply a witness who died defending their belief.

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And, what's important is not that these were just one-off eye-witnesses, but that they testified to a public ministry of Jesus.

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1 Peter makes no mention of a Jesus on planet earth or of his “public ministry”.

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So no, not the same. Mormonism is supported by a few claimed eye-witnesses in a personal vision while Christianity is supported by many witnesses, including hostile ones, in a public ministry.

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It’s a shame you are this stupid. If God existed and was just, he’d have made you smarter.

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I don't deny that there could be Christian embellishments to the core text.

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Be honest for once. Josephus ain’t writing that Jesus was more than a man and was the christ and rose from the dead, idiot. Just come out and embrace it. Christians edited Josephus’ work and forged it. It’s what Christians did - make shite up.

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The point is that even non-Christian historians see an authentic core about Jesus in Josephus' writing.

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There isn’t a consensus. I don’t get the ones who claim there’s a kernel, like Bart Ehrman. He’s like “none of this shite ever happened and none of it is remotely reliable, but there still must’ve been a dude named Jesus that it’s based on.” It’s an assertion, a belief, and nothing more. Maybe he’s right, but there’s no way to know if he was right, and there is plenty of doubt, and there is plenty of evidence Christians were worshipping Jesus when he was just a heavenly figure before the gospel stories were invented.

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Josephus' mention of Jesus and His brother, James, are overwhelmingly viewed as authentic, even by your boy, Richard Carrier, if I'm not mistaken.

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You’re mistaken if you aren’t being deceptive.

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Well that's nothing but specular on your part. Tacitus was a Roman official who wrote with open contempt against Christianity. He had no reason to just repeat what he heard, but had access to administrative records

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He also had access to Christian tradition. By the time Tacitus wrote in about 120CE, early versions of the gospels probably existed or at least the oral tradition of a historical Jesus had developed and was widely known. Tacitus isn’t a contemporary independent source for the historical Jesus.

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Not according to the evidence and not according to the consensus of experts.

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You know, you can't just ignore evidence that doesn't support your narrative and then claim that "the evidence" supports your narrative. That's deception, like I said. You are a deceiver.

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The author of “Luke” adapted the gospel of the Lord which had been published by Markion of Sinope and edited and appended to it into the version we have today.

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no... you, again, take the minority position because it best suits your anti-Christian beliefs.

Early patristic writers, Irenaeus and especially Tertullian, say that Marcion butchered the existing text, as he did in other places, including leaving out the entire Old Testament because Marcion didn't like the OT God compared to the NT God. It's more consistent to see Marcion pruning the text than someone else adding to it.

The supposed "additions" follow the same style as the rest of the book (and Acts), which also lends itself to a rejection of them being additions compared to Marcion subtractions.

Luke and Acts form a literary unit, and most scholars already date Acts prior to Marcion due to things like the absence of Paul's death or the fall of Jerusalem.

So again, there is plenty of evidence that Luke predates Marcion, but you would rather go with the theory that discredits the Bible. Shocker.

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We call that hearsay. The telephone game. The author of canonical Luke wrote that he had compiled what “really” happened because none of the other gospels before his got it “right”. Canonical Luke is a compilation of a collection of stories - bottom line.

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When you interview eye-witnesses and then write down their collective testimony, that isn't the telephone game.

Luke's gospel also doesn't read like a correction, but a confirmation. He states that eyewitnesses were already teaching these things, and that Luke wanted to write an "orderly account" of them. That tells us that the narratives were already there, but in order to due them justice as a historical account, Luke wrote them down to support the claims of the eyewitnesses, since Luke wrote as a historian. It doesn't give any hint that he was correcting false narratives at all.

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I got a book that records that a very small chicken witnessed the sky was falling. It doesn’t make it historical or true, even though such a book does align with biblical cosmology of a hard dome of sapphire comprising the top of the sky.

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Now you're pivoting.

Christians don't claim every book that makes a truth claim must be accepted as true. Christians had good reason to accept Paul's claims.

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Not Paul then. Paul wrote before the gospels. The gospel of Luke and Acts is fan fiction based on Paul.

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Paul wrote before the 4 gospels were written, yes, but as Luke said, many others had undertaken to write down what had happened before, so there were likely accounts circulating even before the gospels writings were. Until that point, the stories were mostly oral in nature, which is why they were eventually written down. It's also why both Paul and Luke (and John) appeal to eyewitnesses of public ministries to support their writings.

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It’s the consensus of secular biblical and historical and textual scholars. I didn’t figure it out.

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Whatever the consensus of critical scholarship thinks of 2 Peter, you consistently find ways to reject biblical writings. Either they are fraudulent (as you claim for 2 Peter, in spite of critical review of it by the early church before accepting it), or they are edited copies from other writings, or they are just made up "fan fiction".

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In the same sense the modern Arian cult Jehovah’s Witnesses are witnesses. A witness in the biblical sense comes from the Greek “martyrs” but of course you know that - you’re just being dishonest. It simply means one who gives testimony. In English, and it’s the same sense of 1 Peter and of Jehovah’s Witnesses, the word “witness” is one who testifies to a belief while a “martyr” is simply a witness who died defending their belief.

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What you just said is absolutely irrelevant to whether or not Peter claims to be an eyewitness of the actual events, such as 1 Peter 5:11, and 2 Peter 1:16–18. He's speaking of witnessing (past tense) the things he's speaking of.

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1 Peter makes no mention of a Jesus on planet earth or of his “public ministry”.

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1 Peter 5:1. He witnessed the sufferings of Christ. 1 Peter 2 describes events tied to the earthly trial and crucifixion narrative accounted in the gospel writings. 1 Peter 3 mentioned Jesus' resurrection and ascent into heaven (not the 7th heaven, mind you).

For you to think 1 Peter makes no mention of Jesus on planet earth is to assume that ridiculous view that you think the AoI teaches.

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Be honest for once. Josephus ain’t writing that Jesus was more than a man and was the christ and rose from the dead, idiot. Just come out and embrace it. Christians edited Josephus’ work and forged it. It’s what Christians did - make shite up.

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I admit that the specific line you referenced may have been edited later, but the mentions of Jesus by Josephus are not really disputed. You are taking a potential later emendation and applying it to his entire writing about Jesus, which is two separate passages. His mention about Jesus being the brother of James is not disputed much at all. You are the one who isn't being honest when you reject the entirety of Josephus.

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There isn’t a consensus. I don’t get the ones who claim there’s a kernel, like Bart Ehrman. He’s like “none of this shite ever happened and none of it is remotely reliable, but there still must’ve been a dude named Jesus that it’s based on.” It’s an assertion, a belief, and nothing more. Maybe he’s right, but there’s no way to know if he was right, and there is plenty of doubt, and there is plenty of evidence Christians were worshipping Jesus when he was just a heavenly figure before the gospel stories were invented.

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Thank you for your opinion on the matter

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You’re mistaken if you aren’t being deceptive.

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Show it, then.

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He also had access to Christian tradition. By the time Tacitus wrote in about 120CE, early versions of the gospels probably existed or at least the oral tradition of a historical Jesus had developed and was widely known. Tacitus isn’t a contemporary independent source for the historical Jesus.

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You're wrong about this. The reason scholars like Tacitus as an independent source is precisely because he is speaking factual about the account of the crucifixion. He expresses personal disdain for Christian superstition, but then goes on to provide a factual account of what seems to be based on Roman records.

No, he wasn't a contemporary of Jesus, but he was writing within living memory of it, based on official records, not some rumors or beliefs. His document wasn't intending to give accounts of minority religious beliefs, which is why most scholars agree that he is an authentic, independent, and historically reliable source.