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What exactly are these documents you have personally poured over?

Thank you for the interest in my personal studies. But I am hardly a giant of either biblical scholorship or related history. Although I do share your interest in them. You might try the works of Josephus (the guy who bought the tomb for Jesus to be buried).

I usualy only pour over some of the better translations of the Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Using both the NIV study bible, backed up with Zondervan's NIV Bible Commentary for historical perspective. It was the commentaries that made me aware of some of the collaboration of other historical evidence beyond the bible. I must admit that I tend to take the research presented at face value, and have not double checked the references.

And did you study them in their original language?

Hardly. Although I have picked up a few of hebrew and greek words and some historical and cultural contexts from those who are more learned.

Also the book of Daniel and the surrounding controversy about when it was written has been a fascinating discovery for me. Of particular interest to me is Daniel 9, 24-27. To understand what the heck it meant required quite a bit of research, and was the beginning of my belief that Christianity could actually be proved intellectually (although not scientifically).

Essentially, secularist scholars insist Daniel must be a fraud, written around 165 B.C. The reasoning is that the prophecies were too accurate to have been written before they happened (Daniel's time was about 530 B.C.). On the other side of the debate are the Christian scholars who maintain that it was indeed written by Daniel himself. They point to linguistic evidence, particularly that many words in Daniel were already so obsolete they were translated incorrectly in the Septuagint (the old testament translated into Greek translated in the third century B.C., long before the secularist's date for Daniel).

Thank you for responding with the sources you rely on for verification of Christ. I have looked into the writings attributed to Josephus, but do not find it as supportive on the subject of Jesus as you seem to. The lone reference in his writings that makes direct mention to Jesus of Nazareth appears to be juxtaposed between two unrelated paragraphs. To make it even more doubtful, the passage in question only showed up in Josephus' writings during a recopying of his texts many decades after his death. Almost like a zealous scribe 'planted' evidence that would support his cause.

As for the Bible, I find that the New Testament has a very powerful political spin to it that, without independent corroboration from other writings of the day, makes me very skeptical to accept it as a true and factual historical record. Many of the books attributed to authors contemporary with the time of Christ were actually written after the fact decades later. Further, many of the events, such as the census leading up to Christ's birth in Bethlehem for example, are directly contradicted by Roman governmental records and practices (the Romans never held a census that required everyone to return to the city of their birth).

Granted, most of the works attributed to Paul are indeed likely to have been authored by him, but even they are mainly composed of political letters and communications to colleagues discussing strategy on how to spin Christianity in order to increase its acceptance.

All in all, whereas the Old Testament has a lot of historical verification of at least the general existence and movements of the peoples discussed, the New Testament is much more spurious. It certainly shows signs that it was created after the fact in an effort to vouch for events that the creators of this invented record wanted others to believe really happened.