“Do the cannonical Gospels represent historical fact?” Conclusion (against)

My conclusion to the debate. I finally managed to stay within the word limit:

Prior to beginning this debate, my opponent and I agreed on the topic of debate "Do the canonical gospels represent historical fact". My opponent took the positive case and freely accepted that the burden of proof was his, and that it was up to him to demonstrate the truth of the statement, not my responsibility to demonstrate it's falsehood.

In his opening statement my opponent wrote “It is on these evidences I stake the claim that the Gospels are in fact completely historically reliable. And until valid evidence is made known that disputes this they shall remain such.” From this we see an attempt to shift the burden of proof from justifying his claim to me falsifying his bare assertion. This seemed to lay the foundation for the rest of my opponents debate, which consisted of an assumption of the truth of the case unless shown otherwise.

Starting from a position of scepticism of my opponents positive claim, what should have expected to have been demonstrated for him to have successfully justified his position as true or at least more likely to be so than not?

My opponent needed to have shown that the authors of these accounts were reliable as historians. That to think that they may have included fictional, fantastical or mythical elements would be unreasonable and irrational. My opponent was unable to establish who the authors were, relying on an appeal to a tradition which was shown to be fallible when it came to other documents of the NT, specifically the pastoral epistles. So, being unable to say with any certainty who the authors of the gospels were, we cannot speak of their character, motivations or intentions, nor whether they were likely to fabricate their stories.

My opponent should also have shown that the methods used by the authors to gather the information were reliable. John and Matthew are claimed to be eyewitness accounts, yet as noted above, we cannot say who wrote them. Simply the two gospels claimed to be written by eyewitnesses do not read as if written by eyewitnesses, nor is this stated within the works. As there are no indications of eyewitness evidence or testimony, and lacking a definite author, we should not accept these accounts as being those of an eyewitness.

The gospel called Mark is supposed to have been relayed to the author by Peter the disciple of Jesus, yet no where within the work is there a hint of this. The gospel does not say "All this was related to me Mark, by Peter the disciple of the Lord" or anything of the sort. All we have, again, is a reliance upon a faulty tradition.

Luke, claimed to be an historical document, still does not read like a historical account. Nowhere does Luke inform us of his methods and sources. Nowhere within Luke is there discussion of these methods, and the introduction, often used as supporting thorough investigation, only supports a relaying of the (implied oral) traditions which had come to the author. We have good reason to believe that the author of Luke used the works of Jospehus in his account, yet again there is no recognition of this, as we'd expect from an historian of the period, and my opponent gave no justification for it's absence. Again, no support for accurate history is found within Luke.

My opponent should also have shown that the gospels are separate accounts of the same events. Given the synoptic problem which my opponent did not resolve, we're left with 2 accounts (Mark & John, with Luke and Matthew being reliant upon Mark and the lost sayings gospel 'Q'), and knowing that John also relies upon the synoptics (and not so much on a shared knowledge of events) my opponent was left with a single account for the events described in the gospels. So there is no justification to claim that the gospels corroborate each other as separate testimony.

My opponent also needed to corroborate the events in the gospels with other sources, such as the works of Jospehus. While we both agreed that there are many points of agreement, it was the events which were the most fantastic, and which would require the most corroborative evidence, such as Jesus' miracles, which are uncorroborated in external works. Many of the corroborated events would have been public knowledge, such as the death of John the Baptist, or the callousness of Herod the Great. My opponent was unable to justify his acceptance of the uncorroborated events on the basis of the corroboration of other, mundane events.

My opponent needed to show that the details of each of the gospels was consistent with the others. He did not need to show that they were exactly the same, as we would not expect this from different accounts of the same events. A single example which I produced - the date of the nativity in Luke and Matthew, which my opponent was unable to resolve, is enough to show that the gospel accounts are indeed not consistent.

My opponent also needed to demonstrate that archaeological evidence supports the gospel accounts. He was unable to show that the town of Nazareth existed, nor was he able to refute the evidence presented which showed the town did not exist at the time of Jesus. Nor was he able to provide any other archaeological evidence to support the events of the gospel accounts.

My opponent should have demonstrated that the supposed "fulfilled prophecies" in the NT were just that. He was unable to do this, and I convincingly showed them as being allegorical references to the OT, to support the claims of the gospel author, as more likely scenario, as there are many other instances of this sort of writing from the period.

Looking back we find that, not only did my opponent in this debate not support his claim of complete historical accuracy of the canonical gospels was more likely than not, he was also unable to refute the various claims of inaccuracy put forward by myself.

Given that my opponent did not dispense his burden of proof, and more than that, attempted from the outset to shift it from him to myself, when it was he who was making the claim, I think it is safe to say that my opponent is not justified in asserting his claim that the canonical gospels are completely historical accurate. In fact, given the poor job which was done in support of his claim, as apposed to the work done to undermine my counter claims, I find it difficult that my opponent justifies calling the gospels historical documents at all.

In the end, my opponents claims of historical accuracy have not been supported by his arguments, and it seems they are based upon blind faith rather than evidence. Given the content of the debate, my opponent should accept that the gospels may not be completely accurate as he initially claimed, and at the very least become agnostic on the issue. That he does not is in spite of, not supported by the substance and evidence of this debate.