I do require evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. The bible demands that we test and prove everything.
Then where is this evidence? Will you please stop wasting time and get to this main point already?
I trust in God and the general reliability of the Bible as an historical document based on evidence and logic and common sense.
But somehow I think this is all we can expect to get from you as far as "proof beyond a reasonable doubt" goes.
1)... the evidence is the Resurrection of Jesus... and this thread was started by Admin 1 for this very purpose. To discuss whether it can be reasonably ascertained that Jesus' Resurrection occurred, thereby furnishing good evidence that God exists since only God can raise the dead.
2)...Tell me why you you dispute the general reliability of the NT as historical documents... ESPECIALLY in light of how other ancient documents are ascertained to be general reliable?
For No 2 I have this to say.
Scholars have argued for years over the historicalness or other wise of the NT nd with datings as late as maybe 90CE for John, it looks tricky. Paul especially never really has anything to do with and earthly Jesus and thus early eye witness evidence is missing. It is also clear that some stories match a later time than Jesus such as the Christians being thrown out of the Synagogues which took place in the late 70s and the knocking down of the temple by the Romans in 70 CE. of course, if we doubt the eyewitness things we may also doubt the other things in the text too.
Enter Richard Bauckham a now retired professor from St Andrews In Scotland. His book "Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospel As Eyewitness Testimony (Eerdmans, 2006)" tries to link the named people in the Gospels with those who gave their stories to the Gospel writers. It is not perfect and does not cover everything though the Birth narratives are usually accepted as being later and not eyewitness. Now if Bauckham is right, we have a set of eyewitness accounts - well 2 anyway - for the death and Resurrection of Jesus. There are some problems though.
Bauckham claims that as these documents were written in the lifetimes of those who witnesses the events, anything in error would be commented on and the text would be disgraced. I sort of went along with that until I came across the book "The Daughter of Time" by Josephine Tey. Written in 1951 it referrer to the Riot of Tonypandy that the welsh, at that time, considered was an attach by the army on striking miners in 1910. The point made in the book is that the real event involved only polic offices without any weapons yet no one then or later corrected the legend of the army attaching. This takes away my belief that Bauckham has that people would have argued with a text that did not match the events.
Thus I consider whilst there may have been a Jesus crucified, (the Romans quite like crucifixion - a general Crassus had 350 miles of crosses of defeated people made on his way back to Rome!) that does not make the story of the rising on the third day also true. In fact a lot of 'gods' had been dead for three days before rising in the past so would provide valuable story lines for imaginative writers.
So, that's why I am not happy to accept the idea of using just the Gospels to prove the resurrection. Of course, such a major vent like that, (they don't happen every day) might have been expected to evince more writings from other but none not connected with the new sect ever have appeared and the Roman historians have nothing to do with it. I can't wait to see a proof.