Unless Hengels evidence is stronger than the evidence of the contrary scholars.
You aren't offering that evidence, though; you're only offering the name, "Hengel."
Most scholars believe it probably is the gospel.
IOW most scholars believe that the quotation from a 3rd century church father, in which Papias says a couple of sentences about Matthew, is probably an accurate account of what Papias probably wrote in the early 2nd century, and that Papias probably was expressing belief that the disciple Matthew wrote the gospel. On this rock you will build your church?
No, we have the most important early Christian documents, almost all of which were written around 70 AD or earlier.
No, we have the most important early Christian documents
that have survived. (In fact we have
all the early Christian documents that have survived, both the important ones and the unimportant ones.) But you don't know what documents have been lost, and neither does anybody else. Given that fact, you can't possibly know what was known, assumed or guessed at about the disciple Matthew.
Matthew was one of the more obscure disciples, not even as well known as Phillip or James. It is much more likely that if they were just making up an author they would have attached one of their names to it.
There is no historical law to the effect that people only attach celebrated names to pseudonymous texts. I offered you one possible reason why they might have used Matthew's name, which you don't address. And -- again -- we don't know what other possible reasons could have existed, because we know very little about who was saying what about which disciple in that time frame.
No, Paul claims he saw Jesus in the flesh in I Corinthians 15 and he was referring to this incident.
No he doesn't. He says Christ "appeared to me." He absolutely does not say "in the flesh." In the same chapter he goes on at length about how the resurrected body will
not be "a natural body" but "a spiritual body." (1 Cor 15:44)
And since visions are subjective, the men with him would not have heard his voice, but they did, confirming this was not a vision but an actual bodily appearance.
Yes, if everything in the Bible is true, then everything in the Bible is true.
No, scholars recognize that the language is very different from Pauls and uses older terms, thereby confirming that Paul didn't write it.
ME: Paul says that somebody said that he appeared to those others.
YOU: No, in fact Paul gives a quote in which somebody said that he appeared to those others.
If Paul is accurately quoting an older creed, he's still quoting what somebody said. It's still correct to say that "Paul says that somebody said that Jesus appeared to those others." It's still hearsay. It's still not strong evidence.
Actually I basically agree with your link, it says basically what I am saying. If scholars can plainly recognize that a text that is much older and written very differently from the writer who quoted it, then it plainly is an independent source.
That link says, very explicitly, that if Person A is getting his account from Person B, then these are
not two independent sources. You can call the anonymous author(s) of the older creed the source for the story of Christ's appearance to the 500, or you can call Paul the source. You simply cannot call them
both "independent sources."
But it is an obvious earlier source even before Paul converted.
All you are doing is restating something I've already stipulated to: there were Christians, soon after the crucifixion, who believed Christ had appeared to his followers.
And James is not anonymous
"The Epistle of James has been traditionally attributed to James the Just since 253, but, according to Dan McCartney, it is now common for scholars to disagree on its authorship." (
Wikipedia)
and his existence and death for belief in the resurrection has been confirmed by extrabiblical sources.
What are you referring to? Josephus doesn't say he was killed for belief in the resurrection, he only says James was accused (maliciously) of "breaking the law." But let's say it's true that James died because he was an unrepentant believer in the resurrection. Therefore...?
You keep claiming there's a powerful case for the resurrection, but so far, all it seems to consist of is "there were people who believed in the resurrection."
Two were probably eyewitnesses
This, of course, is vigorously disputed.
and all four constitute independent sources
Matthew and Luke are not independent of Mark.
written relatively near the events that occurred.
Within a human lifetime, OK. And there are many, many things that have been written within
days of the events that occurred which are still full of gross and palpable lies. You see this particularly often in war, but really in any endeavor in which partisan passions run high. "Written relatively near the events" obviously does not imply "credible."
Not as hostile as Paul but he was a skeptic. If known skeptics become convinced of an event, that is strong evidence for that event. . . . It would take a great deal of evidence to convince a hostile and highly skeptical person like Paul. It would be similar to Richard Dawkins converting.
There have been people who were at first hostile to and highly skeptical of QAnon who became convinced that Hillary Clinton eats babies. People change and convert for many, many reasons besides the existence of strong evidence.
And Historians have trusted events with much less evidence than there is for the resurrection.
Then perhaps historians were being too trusting about accounts of those events. Seriously, if you say "Player A got into the Hall of Fame with a poorer record than Player B," the conclusion might be "Player B should be in the HOF,"
or it could be "Player A never should have gotten in." This is indisputable, isn't it?
No, there is evidence that they did believe in the bodily resurrected Christ.
There are accounts saying that they believed that. We know essentially nothing about most of them as individuals; they survive as mere names. We can't hope to know the process by which they came to their faith, so you simply can't conclude "the only reason they would have died for their faith is if they saw the bodily resurrected Christ."