Hope,
bh, as usual you refer to the situation of oral re-telling from within the context of a high-literacy context. As I have pointed out before, that is far too simplistic an approach to the situation that would have existed in 1st century Palestine.
And as usual you have no evidence of any kind to suggest that the people involved were any less prone to recall error than are modern people. It's an intriguing notion to speculate that games of Chinese whispers couldn't have worked because everyone then had perfect memories, but unless you can point to some change over the last 2,000 years in the physiological way memory actually works then all you have is wishful thinking.
And besides, as I've explained to Vlad several times (but he's just ignored) even if by some unknown process they did have perfect recall, still all they'd have is, "Fred
thinks he saw a miracle" - which of course says nothing to whether Fred actually did see a miracle.
The problem here is that documentary material began to appear fall sooner than 'decades' after the events involved. We know that Paul's first epistle - to the Galatians - dates from as early as 45AD, and even the most sceptical of Biblical scholars seem to posit the existence of a written record that was independent of Paul, and which the Gospel writers drew upon.
Furthermore, since the events of Easter and Pentecost occurred only weeks apart, it is likely that any Jews from the diaspora woud have stayed for both events, thus acting - unwittingly perhaps - as eye-witnesses in addition to the 11 disciples and the other 60-odd followers of Jesus.
That's not the problem at all. However many times you repeat, "Fred thinks he saw a miracle" still all you'd have is a story that Fred
thinks he saw a miracle. The real problem is that, if Fred himself had no way (or possibly inclination either) to test his hypothesis, then those who had only his version of events repeated to them would have had no way to do it either.
Before one can "begin to realise the hopelessness of one's position" one has to be presented with viable altewrnatives that don't rely on misrepresentation of a number of scientifically-proven and -provable aspectsd of the situation.
Flat wrong. History is naturalistic in character - it has no tools to assess the veracity or otherwise of miracle stories, whether yours or anyone else's. That's why claiming historical evidence for miracles is
ipso facto hopeless.
Things that can equally be applied to your position, by the way.
No, because
arguments stand or fall on their merits. "Hopes and fears" and the like on the other hand offer nothing for others to consider and critique.
Again, a criticism that can be equally be applied to the many alternative scenarios that have been posited by a variety of posters and debaters over the years/decades.
You're missing it. The supposedly philosophical arguments for god(s), from Aquinas to Lane Craig, can be undone by more rational argument. The "alternative scenarios" to which you refer are plausible, real world explanations that require fewer assumptions than supernatural ones (not least the existence of the supernatural in the first place) and so Occam's razor applies.
It's simple enough.
