I am not claiming that eyewitness testimony PROVES something, but it is strong evidence.
It can be strong evidence, in some circumstances. Not always.
If there were enough eyewitnesses and you were not an atheist, I might. But nevertheless, I notice you did not disagree with the gist of my argument above and my point.
To be more explicit then, I do disagree with the claim that a biography from a friend or relative is generally more reliable than one from a stranger. The friend or relative will have access to more information, but will also generally have more bias.
There is evidence that the Jews did concede that fact.
You haven't offered any yet.
You're asking why it is possible that the women did not come to the empty tomb? Because it is possible that there never was an empty tomb as described in the Gospels, obviously.
No, the high priest is not going to just randomly kill people for no reason.
My apologies, I should have said "he just wanted
certain people dead," not "he just wanted some people dead"; I didn't mean to imply that he had a quota which could have been filled by any individuals, but that he had some grudge or some suspicions of some particular individuals, including James, and wanted to be rid of them. That seems the implication of the passage in Josephus, anyway.
But blasphemy is a rational extrapolation given what we know about the historical and religious context.
You're arguing as if it were the
only rational extrapolation, and it is not.
Maybe, but the evidence says otherwise.
What evidence says "the high priest wanted James dead because of his preaching about the resurrection of Jesus, and not for any other reason"?
Yes, But remember there is evidence he was a skeptic.
That is, there is testimony, written well after James's death, that he once was a skeptic. And there have also been countless people who have believed things they have not seen,
and were once skeptics about. The whole point of apologetics is to bring such skeptics to belief.
I dont deny it is my and other scholars rational deduction.
Then say, "in my judgment, and the judgment of other scholars, the most reasonable explanation for James's execution is that it was punishment for his belief in the resurrection." What you can't say is that "we have an independent source, Josephus, for the claim that James died for his belief in the resurrection." Because Josephus simply did not say that this was why James died.