What are these obscure manuscripts you refer to that are in the thousands?
Near to a thousand, I said. The Qumran Scrolls. Odd that a great scholar like yourself hasn`t heard of them? :-p
Because the details of His younger life aren't important to His message. He was asked by His mother to change water to wine, indicating that everyone was aware that there was something special about Jesus, but He went on to say that it was not yet His time to reveal Himself as the Moshiac. He had one purpose and that was to be the Moshiac. He revealed Himself at the time when Halacha states that its lawful for one to become a Rabbi. Everything Jesus did was according to the Law.
Jesus is regarded as having lived approximately 33 years. Apart from the infancy tales and three years preaching the message, we know next to nothing of the missing 30 years. No information of the teachers who taught him, no news of how he earned a crust, hell, we don`t even know whether his father deserted the family. He arrives full-blown, fully equipped for battle and his followers never asked a question?
The water/wine, like the seven signs, may be peshers for all we know. Oh, I forgot, you don`t know anything about the Scrolls.
The giants, I assume, you are speaking about Nephilim or the Annakim? There is mention of it in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Aside from that, it really doesn't mean much to our salvation. Its just an historical accounting. As for Peter and Paul's deaths, why should it surprise you that their deaths aren't recorded Biblically? It obviously means that their epistles were written by them and that their deaths occured after their writings took place. So, how is it that they could write of their own death? That's just asinine. As for speculation of their deaths, there are lots of different versions. Paul was reputedly assassinated in Rome and Peter was said to have been crucified upside down on a cross next to his wife.
Nothing to do with the Nephilim. The heads of the faith, Peter to the Jews, and Paul to the Gentiles were supposedly the ones anointed by Jesus to lead the missions. Their deaths don`t have to make Acts. Surely followers were literate enough to describe the ends of their leaders. Where are the histories? No one said they wrote of their own deaths. Even if Moses is claimed to have done it. Christians were writing of less outstanding events soon after, but nothing of the end of their leaders, except wild unsubstantiated rumours? Even James gets a small mention.
The Flavian references have long been recognised as Christian interpolations, not surfacing until the time of Eusebius, 300 years later. Y`know Eusebius, who said it was o.k. to lie for his church.
Lucian of Samosata (c.120-180) was not a contempory of Jesus or the early church.
Tacitus was not a contempory of Jesus or the early church. His Annals are dated c.115.
The only descriptions we have on that period are hearsay/secondhand by writers who never met the real Jesus, but related stories which contradict each other.
The oddest thing I find about Paul`s writings, apart from the denigration of the Jerusalem elders, is the failure to give a description of Jesus. I can understand new converts in Jerusalem not asking the question as they MAY have seen Him preaching, but Gentiles in all of Paul`s journeys never pop the question 'What did He look like?'
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