“Do the cannonical Gospels represent historical fact?” Opening statement (for)

I've gotten myself into a debate with "sweetswede" from the In His Steps blog.
I've reproduced his opening statement below:

"Are the events recorded in the Gospels of Jesus Christ (as found in the New Testament) representative of historical fact? It is in intriguing question, the answer to which could have a profound impact on the world. It is my belief that the New Testament Gospels are completely historically factual.

To start I must propose some evidence to verify my position. The Gospels record Christ’s birth during the time of Herod (Matthew 2:1, Luke 3:1). Upon reading Josephus’ “Antiquities of the Jews” we find that Herod was indeed in power at this time. Not only that, but Josephus says Herod was a man “of great barbarity towards all men” (The Complete Works of Josephus, 366). We would expect this as Herod is recorded as attempting to eliminate Jesus by murdering all the babies under 2 years of age in Bethlehem (Matthew 2:16). I think this provides one solid example of the Gospels writers recording events accurately.

The Gospel writers also record Jesus being delivered to Pontius Pilate for His trial (Matthew 27:2, Mark 15:1, Luke 23:1, John 18:29). This aligns with Josephus’ recording of this event:
“Now, there was about this time, Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works,--a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to Him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.” (The Complete Works of Josephus, 379).

Here I’ve marked the disputed lines in this passage (they are believed to have possibly been added after Josephus wrote this). But in any case we still have Jesus as a great teacher, condemned to the Cross, fulfilling the Old Testament prophecies (Josephus had been a Pharisee, remember), and His followers proclaiming Him up to the time of Josephus writing this (A.D. 93). All of this aligns with the events recorded in the Gospels. These are just a few examples of the corroboration we have for the Gospel accounts.

While it would be possible to continue along this line, I think I’ve made the point that the people, events, and details recorded in the Gospels are rather well established and verified by other sources.

Now I think it will be beneficial to examine the reliability of the Gospels themselves in comparison to other established and trusted historical texts. As I’m sure we all agree the Gospels are meant to record the life, works, and teachings of Jesus Christ. The question arises then, who wrote the Gospels and when did they write them?

The traditional authors of the Gospels are believed to be Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. However, the Gospels aren’t “hand signed” so to speak. Regarding Matthew, Mark, and Luke there was no dispute among the early Church who the writers were. There is essentially uniform testimony that Matthew (called Levi, the tax collector) wrote the Gospel bearing his name; John Mark, a companion of Peter, wrote the Gospel bearing his name; and Luke, the physician companion of Paul, wrote the Gospel bearing his name (Blomberg qtd. In Strobel, 23). The only dispute regards the Gospel of John, it is believed John wrote it, but there is one passage by Papias that refers to John the Apostle and John the Elder. Whether they are two different John’s or one John in two roles is the disputed topic. However, all other evidence indicates it is John the son of Zebedee (Blomberg qtd. In Strobel, 23).

Thus all the authors of the Gospels were in some way authorities on Christ. John Mark probably based his account on Peter’s testimony, Matthew and John saw the events for themselves, and Luke the companion of Paul who spent a few years in Jerusalem investigating the life of Jesus. Thus, in terms of eyewitness testimony there is not any significant reason to question the authorship of the Gospels and their authority on what they wrote. All the Gospels are believed to have been written between 60-95 A.D., thus placing them 30-65 years after Christ’s death. When one considers Alexander the Great’s first biography wasn’t written until some 600 years after his death, and is still accepted as historically accurate, we have no reason to question the time of the Gospels writings or to assume there was some type of distortion caused by time.

Therefore the eyewitness testimony and the corroborating evidence speak for themselves. To say the Gospels aren’t historically factual, in light of the various evidences (only a few of which I’ve discussed so far) requires valid historical contradictions of the Gospels. There must be some evidence, better and more reliable then the Gospels, which disprove them in order for them to fail in regards to historical merit.

One example that has recently been used for this purpose is the so called lost tomb of Jesus. If we found Jesus in a tomb he couldn’t very well have resurrected (physically anyway) and that would be a big dispute of the Gospels claims. However the lost tomb of Jesus has numerous loop holes. Jesus family was relatively poor and from Nazareth, how could they have afforded such a tomb and why would it be in Jerusalem? If the members of the tomb are from one family, and thus died around the same time why are there three different languages on the various tombs? While we are talking about that why is it they translated Mariamene e Mara as Aramaic when the lettering was Greek (this phrase was translated “Mary the master”)? I could go on and on about the problems with the lost tomb of Jesus, but as my opponent hasn’t proposed it and it’s just an example of some of the poor attempts to discredit the Gospels I’ll let that rest.

The evidence supporting and verifying the Gospels is overwhelming. Such stringent demands for the acceptance of a document as historically factual are never applied to other documents. If one is to deny the historically factuality of the Gospels one must reasonably deny the majority of what is presently accepted as historical fact. In terms of manuscripts the Gospels are unrivaled. In terms of the time of their writing they are all within one generation of Christ, leaving no time for distortion. In terms of corroborating evidence I’ve proposed some very specific examples that demonstrate, in part, the Gospel writers’ great care in detailing events. The only thing the Gospels lack is valid historical evidence that disputes their factuality.

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."