Hello Joseph, thanks for taking the time to respond.
You said:
"Kyles, aside from the fact you have not examined the historical record and dating of the Gospels"
My friend, I've studied it in depth. I have an entire series of articles here on Medium delving into the historical evidence about the dating of the Gospels.
Here's the first, about Matthew: https://medium.com/hope-youre-curious/apostle-or-impostor-the-surprising-authorship-of-the-gospel-of-matthew-67c30c5293aa
You said:
"your hypothesis is fatally flawed. Myths can spread and develop over time."
Myths don't spread while eye-witnesses are present to correct them.
That's what we see all throughout history, in every case. The literacy of the population doesn't alter this.
You said:
"The presence of eyewitnesses is irrelevant when very few of the eyewitnesses were literate and/or could write. They would have had no genuine influence on what was written."
Not in Israel!
The Jewish people are the People of the Book.
Everything about their culture centered around the Scriptures. From the age of five, children were taught to memorize the Torah. Every week, they gather to read the Scriptures, study them, and apply them.
On average, every village with ten families had a synagogue with a copy of the Torah and a scribe to teach them.
This people was governed by the written word, my friend.
Further, literacy is irrelevant to being an eye-witness. You know what you saw.
If Jesus never healed the sick in Capernaum as the Gospels record, you could go to Capernaum and check. People have good memories. Oral societies tend to have better memories than those depending on the written word. Dr. Kenneth Bailey has done some remarkable work proving this with modern oral societies.
You said:
"People were told what to think, believe, and interpret what they could not understand. The elders and scribes, who were few, wrote it all."
This might work if Jesus was a figure few people ever met. People could ask about Him, because they'd never seen Him, and the elders could tell them what to think.
But that's not the situation with Jesus.
He traveled Israel extensively, traveling to every village deliberately. In the first two years of His ministry, Jesus canvased the entire Israeli countryside, every city and village, to proclaim the Kingdom of God and heal the sick.
All of the major events of Jesus' life happened publicly in well-known areas, often the centers of life and culture.
That's not a situation where the elders can tell the people "you didn't see what you just saw." The people know what they saw.
You said:
"Have you ever heard the idea the victors write the history?"
Of course. It's a junk idea in this case.
Why? Because the Christians weren't the victors.
Jesus was murdered publicly.
The early Church was persecuted and kicked out of Jerusalem.
All of Jesus' disciples were martyred (save John, who they tried to kill, but he survived).
Rome turned against Christianity and engaged in multiple rounds of direct persecution, imprisonment, and worse.
It took 300-400 years before Christians ever held a position of power over the area. By the time, centuries of history had been recorded, both in the official documents and in all the other ways history comes down to us through archaeology.
In all of that, there's no trace that the Christians tried to alter history or change the narrative.
You said:
"I'd like to read something from you that shows some actual research rather than a made-up theory which appears to be nonsense."
My friend, this is how we tend to silo ourselves.
I've done plenty of research. Beginning nearly 20 years ago, I've dug deep into these matters. Seminary equipped me well, teaching me to read Greek and Hebrew, acquainting me with all the major theories and players (they did not focus only on the ones they themselves believed, but rather trained us to be cognizant of the entire field of scholarship on these issues).
From that launching point, I've been researching and studying these matters in depth.
This current article isn't a "made-up theory." It's a standard take on how long it takes mythology to develop around a historical figure. Charlemagne provides a wonderful example because of the amount of evidence surrounding him.
If you want to examine the historical evidence on the authorship of the Gospels, click on the links in the middle of the article. You'll find plenty of historical evidence on the side of their authenticity.
My friend, I have no need to hide from the historical research. The more you dig into it, the more you'll find it supporting the Scriptures.
