You are wrong. Eyewitness testimony is less reliable than evidence that does not require us to determine the honesty, and human accuracy of eyewitness testimony.
Ok, lets go with your premise and this is just the tip of the iceburg. Its gets even better from here
From that uneducated idiot as one poster here discribed him, F F Bruce, In his book, 'The New Testament Documents Are They Reliable', he states,
Here, in the pages of Josephus, we meet many figures who are well known to us from the New
Testament: the colourful family of the Herods; the Roman emperors Augustus, Tiberius, Claudius, and
Nero; Quirinius, the governor of Syria; Pilate, Felix, and Festus, the procurators of Judaea, the high
priestly families-Annas, Caiaphas, Ananias, and the rest; the Pharisees and Sadducees; and so on. against
the background which Josephus provides we can read the New Testament with greater understanding and
interest.
When Gamaliel, in Acts v. 37, speaks of Judas the Galilean who led a rising in the days of the taxing, we
turn to the pages of Josephus, and find the story of this rising both in his War (ii. 8) and in the Antiquities
(xviii. 1). Josephus also tells of an impostor named Theudas (Ant. xx. 5.1) who appeared shortly after
AD, 44, but the Theudas mentioned by Gamaliel flourished before Judas the Galilean an (AD 6), and in
any case Gamaliel's speech was made between 30 and 33. It is unnecessary to think that Luke perpetrated
an anachronism through misreading Josephus (the weight of evidence is against Luke's having read
Josephus); Josephus himself tells us that about the time of the death of Herod the Great (4 BC) there
were ever so many such troubles in Judaea, and the activity of Gamaliel's Theudas (which was not an
uncommon name) may belong to this period.
The famine in the days of Claudius (Acts xi. 28) is also referred to by Josephus; if Luke tells us how the
Christians in Antioch sent help to the Jerusalem church on this occasion, Josephus tells us how Helena,
the Jewish queenmother of Adiabene, which lay northeast of Mesopotamia, had corn bought in
Alexandria and figs in Cyprus to relieve the hunger of the Jerusalem populace on the same occasion.'
The sudden death of Herod Agrippa I, narrated by Luke in Acts xii. 19-23, is recorded also by Josephus
(Ant. xix. 8. 2) in a form agreeing with Luke's general Outline, though the two accounts are quite
independent of each other. This is the story as told by Josephus:
'When Agrippa had reigned three full years over all Judaea, he came to the city of Caesarea, which was
formerly called Strato's Tower. There he exhibited shows in honour of Caesar, inaugurating this as a
festival for the emperor's welfare. And there came together to it a multitude of the provincial officials and
of those who had been promoted to a distinguished position. On the second day of the shows he put on a
robe all made of diver, of altogether wonderful weaving, and arrived in the theatre at break of day. Then
the silver shone as the sun's first rays fell upon it and glittered wonderfully, its resplendence inspiring a
sort of fear and trembling in those who gazed upon it. Immediately his flatterers called out from various
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http://www.worldinvisible.com/...bruce/ntdocrli/ntdocc09.htmquarters, in words which in truth were not for his good, addressing him as a god, and invoking him with
the cry, "Be propitious! if hitherto we have revered thee as a human being, yet henceforth we confess
thee to be superior to mortal nature."
'The king did not rebuke them, nor did he repudiate their impious flattery. But looking up soon
afterwards he saw the owl sitting on a rope above his head, and immediately recognized it as a messenger
of evil as it had formerly been a messenger of good,' and a pang of grief pierced his heart. There came
also a severe pain in his belly, beginning with a violent attack.... So he was carried quickly into the
palace, and the news sped abroad among all that he would certainly die before long.... And when he had
suffered continuously for five days from the pain in his belly, he departed this life in the fifty fourth year
of his age and the seventh of his reign.'
The parallels between the two accounts are obvious, as is also the absence of collusion between them.
Luke describes the king's sudden stroke by saying, in biblical language, that 'the angel of the Lord smote
him'; it is unnecessary to think that there is any significance in the fact that the Greek word for 'angel' in
Luke's account (angelos) is the same as the word for 'messenger' applied to the owl by Josephus, though
some early Christian Fathers seem to have thought so. The Tyrians may well have taken advantage of
this festival to be publicly reconciled to the king.
In general, we may sum up the comparison of the two accounts in the words of an unbiased historian,
Eduard Meyer: 'In outline, in data, and in the general conception, both accounts are in full agreement. By
its very interesting details, which are by no means to be explained as due to a "tendency" or a popular
tradition, Luke's account affords a guarantee that it is at least just as reliable as that of Josephus."
More important still, Josephus makes mention of John the Baptist and of James the brother of our Lord,
recording the death of each in a manner manifestly independent of the New Testament, so that there is no
ground for suspecting Christian interpolation in either passage; In Ant. xviii. 5. 2 we read how Herod
Antipas, the tetrarch of Galilee, was defeated in battle by Aretas, king of the Nabataean an Arabs, the
father of Herod's first wife, whom he deserted for Herodias. Josephus goes on:
'Now some of the Jews thought that Herod's army had been destroyed by God, and that it was a very just
penalty to avenge John, surnamed the Baptist. For Herod had killed him, though he was a good man, who
bade the Jews practice virtue, be just one to another and pious toward God, and come together in
baptism.' He taught that baptism was acceptable to God provided that they underwent it not to procure
remission of certain sins, but for the purification of the body, if the soul had already been purified by
righteousness. And when the others gathered round him (for they were greatly moved when they heard
his words), Herod feared that his persuasive power over men, being so great, might lead to a rising, as
they seemed ready to follow his counsel in everything. So he thought it much better to seize him and kill
him before he caused any tumult, than to have to repent of falling into such trouble later on, after a revolt
had taken place. Because of this suspicion of Herod, John was sent in chains to Machaerus, the fortress
which we mentioned above, and there put to death. The Jews believed that it was to avenge him that the
disaster fell upon the army, God wishing to bring evil upon Herod.'
If we are speaking concerning reliability, you really should read the book. Its not even a contest to oppose its reliabity in confidence of evidental accuracy. But in your disbelief try and find some objectivity
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