You wrote, The most recent scholarship has not only further confirmed the accuracy of the New Testament texts, but it has also uncovered additional documentation to support the existence of Jesus Christ in the first century.

The book you imply as “most recent scholarship” is Jesus as a Figure in History. which was published in 1998. This constitutes “most recent scholarship”?

In truth, recent scholarship has vastly undermined the accuracy of the NT texts, and even of Jesus’s historicity. Books by Robert M. Price are especially compelling.

You wrote, There are multiple sources that point to the validity of the Jesus of history, both before and after his resurrection.

I would be curious to know of any sources to the validity of the Jesus of history before his alleged resurrection.

You wrote, “Can we trust the text of the Bible?”, I suggest the following: Why not? Christianity was built upon Judaism, which maintained an enormous oral tradition for a thousand years. They had the skills to maintain the accuracy of their traditions and they knew how to preserve their scripture.

Why not? Because sciences like archeology and geology have essentially refuted major elements of the Bible, like the exodus and a global flood. Ability to preserve scripture doesn’t mean what’s been preserved was accurate.

You wrote, “But what about the conflicting accounts in the gospels?… I offer the following: The Gospels are not a transcript, but they are an account that eye witnesses wrote down as witnesses.

This claim is untrue. The Gospels are certainly NOT an eyewitness account, and are not even written as such.

You wrote, Each gospel will obviously have a perspective to them. Does this make them inaccurate? No, it just means that they were viewed through a certain lens.

The “perspective” does no good in attempting to reconcile the conflicting claims of Jesus’s lineage or the date of his birth, to give just a couple examples.

You wrote, As religious scholars agree, the canon that we recognize today as the New Testament was complete and circulating together as a “package” by the end of the first century.

Perhaps religious scholars agree, but historical scholars would laugh at this assertion.

You wrote, And finally, people suggest that the New Testament didn’t contain the earliest sources or that the church mixed and matched scripture in order to meet their own “agenda”. Nothing could be farther from the truth here.

Scholars cannot pinpoint firm or exact dates when the early Christian writings were made; instead, they posit a range of dates.

It is not true that texts were excluded because they were “late”. Many writings were not included, even though they’re dated around the same time as the canonical texts.

You wrote, The content and structure didn’t match with the other books in the New Testament.

The Gospel of John does not match the other Gospels, but was included anyway, so obviously this criterion was not used either.

You wrote, Josephus, a Jewish historian of the first century, mentioned Jesus. You failed to note that many consider these mentions to be interpolations by later Christians, in whole or in part.

I thank God for his saving grace dail!

Jim