Who would assume that the N.T. authors were not the original Apostles and disciples?
People who actually read it. All of it. Without discarding the 'difficult' parts.
If I had to guess, logic says Atheists and evolutionists. I would bet that Legend is one or both which explains the evidence denying assumption.
Whether I'm an atheist or 'evolutionist' (sic) is totally irrelevant to the authenticity of the bible authors. If you're so keen to apply logic why don't you start with Matt 21:5-8. Does logic tell you that Jesus really entered Jerusalem riding on an ass and a colt , like a circus act?!
Again, we have an assumption that the before and after nature of each Apostle, as conveyed in the textual evidence, and in other historical evidence, is false.
Care to provide this 'other historical evidence' that attests to the changed nature of the Apostles ?
The sources do not allow anything but a lie or truth option because the claims are so far fetched they are either true or a huge conspiratorial lie.
what sources? show me the sources.
The evidence in total shows cataclysmic change for each Apostle.
where's this evidence outside the Bible then ?
This is why the only options are truth or conspiratorial lie. Since the N.T. is the most revered and time tested piece of literature ever written, whose authors are respected by hundreds of millions of persons, who testify to the truth written therein, and since 2000 years of scholarship has ratified the veracity of these scriptures,.....
how many more fallacies can you cram in one sentence! "the NT revered"? maybe, so what?! so is the Quran and the Book of Mormon. "Time-tested"? certainly and it's failed the test of time. "Millions of persons, who testify to the truth written therein"? so what?! the same can be claimed of the Quran, amongst others. "2000 years of scholarship has ratified the veracity of these scripture"? oh, come off it. Any genuine scholarship on the Bible has shown it to be but a mish-mash of myths, folklore, third-hand accounts and foreign influences. It doesn't even take a scholar to see the contradictions, factual errors, historical improbabilities, failed prophecies, et al within the Bible.
Your position about the gospels as absolute truth or lie is but a false dichotomy.
"We must respect the law, not let it blind us away from the basic principles of fairness, justice and freedom"
™ Version 4.2
