theJeff wrote:
First, I challenge you to find me an ancient historical account that is corroborated better than the biography of Jesus.
Second, the gospels are, by definition, biographies. The fact that they are in the Bible tells you that they are biased; it tells me that they are authentic enough to be included in something as important as the Bible.
Third, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Plenty of biblical stories have historical/scientific evidence (sea fossils in the mountains, or Moses prescribing quarantine millennia before the invention of the microscope and any concept of communicable disease , for example); others don't... yet.
The biography of Jesus isn't corroborated by anyone. Not even the gospels corroborate each other.
Call them what you want, but they're not contemporary or eyewitness accounts. John wasn't even written by someone that was even alive when Jesus was alive!
So not sure what your challenge actually entails.
Sea fossils in the mountains occur because of tectonic activity, not because the globe was flooded. It is a scientific impossibility for the world to flood and such a myth defies over a dozen different branches of science. That's not an absence of evidence, that's direct evidence to the contrary.
I'm not so sure that Moses prescribing quarantine makes the point you want it to make. Leviticus says to essentially quarantine women on their period, too. I mean, you touch anything, her, her bed, anything she touches, all unclean and you become unclean too. For seven days. Even worse if she gives birth to a girl. So, yeah, they were big on being sanitary and all, I'll give you that.
Doesn't really address any of my points about the scientific impossibility of people coming from dirt, living with dinosaurs, living on an Earth that doesn't have rain or the water cycle, etc., etc.