But the apostles’ “great cause” had died on the cross. The manuscipts (attested to my good bibliographical evidence) describes how they acted like frightened rabbits, one of them so scared he denied his own Master three times. That’s the whole point of the Resurrection of Christ. Christianity puts itself on the objective chopping block, as it were. The ethics of other religions can stand alone as a philosophical approach to a way of life. Buddha taugaht the Golden Rule long before Christ lived, but Buddha is still in his grave. Is Christ? There’s the rub. If Christ was not risen, then people like me are idiots, misled fools, what Paul called, “..of all men the most miserable.” Christian ethics becomes a joke if its formulator was a madman traveling around, forgiving peoples’ sins, allowing men to worship him, claming things only a god (or amadman claiming deity) would say.
No, IF the Bible manuscripts are substantially accurate (and that’s an entirely different set of arguments), then honest thinkers will have reason to consider the claims of Chist. This type of argument convinced General Lew Wallace (author of Ben-Hur) and law Professor Simon Greenleaf, who went on to write a book about how his law students challenged his agnosticsm. His wound up being titled The Testimony of the Evangelists as Examined by the Rules of Evidence (or some title to that effect—I can’t remember exactly). Saul of Tarsus hated Christians vehemently, but wound up being the foremost Christian missionary of all time (his name was changed to Paul).
Yet many other skeptics, even if they hear all of this, demur and continue in their skeptical mindset. The evidence is sufficient for those willing to believe, but not so overwhelming that it will overcome the natural stubbonness of the human heart. I think John 6:44,65 (and the context) about says it.
“The evidence is sufficient for those willing to believe, but not so overwhelming that it will overcome the natural stubbonness of the human heart.” ... And in these latter days, hearts are becoming so hardened that even overwhelming evidence will be spun as a lie. The scriptures tell of this as the last days when we see this. Our redemption draweth nigh ...
Allow me:
"This type of argument convinced General Lew Wallace (author of Ben-Hur) and law Professor Simon Greenleaf, who went on to write a book about how his law students challenged his agnosticsm. His wound up being titled The Testimony of the Evangelists as Examined by the Rules of Evidence (or some title to that effect—I can’t remember exactly)."
I heard recently that good evidence for the veracity of the New Testament writers was the fact that in a 1st century setting, they made women look better than themselves and they, themselves portrayed, as weaklings. Certainly if they were trying to fool anyone they went about it in a very peculiar way.