I’ll be speaking as well. Kudos to Tim Waugh, pastor of Faith Community United Methodist Church, who wants to be a light for the truth of Christ in his community and among United Methodists!
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Thinking Christian
Christian apologetics has a big problem. Probably the weakest link in the Christian argument for the historicity of the Resurrection is this: The view that the Gospels were written by eyewitnesses or by their close associates. This view is a minority position in modern New Testament scholarship. In reality, only evangelical and fundamentalist Protestant scholars hold this position. Even most Roman Catholic scholars, who very much believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus, the supernatural, and miracles, reject the eyewitness/associate of eyewitness authorship of the Gospels. See this link:
https://lutherwasnotbornagaincom.wordpress.com/2016/11/08/majority-of-scholars-agree-the-gospels-were-not-written-by-eyewitnesses/
Imagine a defense attorney appearing in court, presenting a case using minority expert opinion as a defense. The prosecution would rip his case to shreds when they demonstrate to the court that the defense attorney’s “experts” are considered to be outliers…fringe
Oh, I could imagine it easily enough. I can see the other attorney questioning those experts on potential causes for bias. More to the point, I could see his closing statement: “Men and women of the jury, we have presented evidence for our claims. Our opponent has paraded a lot of people to sat that a lot of people think our view of the evidence is wrong. You now have to decide which side you are going to believe. Expert testimony is not to be discounted, but neither is the possibility of bias; and as you also know, large groups of experts have often been found to be wrong. Meanwhile you have actual evidence you can assess, evidence presented by us and by our opponents. It is your responsibility to do so. I think you’ll find there’s more than enough there for you to draw your own conclusions.”