[TBP]

theology credentials mean nothing to me.

IOW, you know more about it than people who have devoted their lives to studying it? There is no credible evidence to support your position. It is simply a statement of blind faith. We know for a fact that there have been significant alterations, as well as scribal errors. We also know factually and conclusively that much of what was written is pseudepigraphic. The history of it is questionable, at best. But it isn't a work of history -- it's a work of inspiration, moral philosophy, and theology. It's more poetry than history. Nothing wrong with that. Your theologians are simply ignoring this evidence.

[Sopater]

There is no credible evidence to support your position. It is simply a statement of blind faith.

Evidently, I share my "blind faith" in the absense of credible evidence with many true biblical scholars such as:

• Luke Timothy Johnson, the Robert W. Woodruff Professor of New Testament and Christian Origins at Candler School of Theology and a Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University
• William Lane Craig, who said that Of the 74 [scholars] listed in their publication The Five Gospels, only 14 would be leading figures in the field of New Testament studies. More than half are basically unknowns, who have published only two or three articles. Eighteen of the fellows have published nothing at all in New Testament studies. Most have relatively undistinguished academic positions, for example, teaching at a community college.
• Gregory A. "Greg" Boyd, one of the 20 most influential Christian scholars of 2010, said that "The Jesus Seminar represents an extremely small number of radical-fringe scholars who are on the far, far left wing of New Testament thinking. It does not represent mainstream scholarship."
• Dale Allison, American New Testament scholar, historian of Early Christianity, and Christian theologian who currently serves as Errett M. Grable Professor of New Testament Exegesis and Early Christianity at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. Recently appointed the Richard J. Dearborn Professor of New Testament Studies at Princeton Theological Seminary.
• John Ankerberg and John Weldon also comment on the Jesus Seminar:
  • "...it is the conservative view of Scripture that 'passes the rigorous tests of the rule of evidence' - not their historical distortions." bullet "The JS distortions are being disseminated everywhere."
  • "...the JS does not represent a consensus of New Testament (NT) or biblical scholarship..."
  • "...the biases of members of the JS are clearly present in their writings."
  • "...it fails to recognize the serious or fatal philosophical and methodological flaws that undermine its own conclusions."
• Robert J. Hutchison commented: "...the scholarship that undergirds the Jesus Seminar and similar enterprises is based on wild speculation and miniscule evidence."

There are also countless books written by conservative Christians that outline the massive amounts of evidence for the authority of the gospels inculding the link I provided to the Fundamentals of the Christian Faith that thoroughly dismantles "higher criticism"... so to call my adherance to the authority of the gospels "blind faith" is a straw-man argument that is only intended to influence the uninformed... a typical liberal strategy that fails to work on those who have done some homework.