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Johns gospel indeed has historical credibility

Wow. That is remarkable not just because it was the oldest, but because it dates to a time that John himself was still alive!

Would love to hear about the Mark manuscript.
 
This article argues that Josephus provides first century confirmation of the Road to Emmaus (Mark 16 and Luke 24)

http://www.josephus.org/GoldbergJosephusLuke1995.pdf

"By Josephus’ account, the Antiquities was completed in the thirteenth year of the Emperor Domitian, 93 or 94 C.E."

I favour Option 3, except I do not personally believe it depends on Mark's account having been "written" before Josephus wrote Antiquities:
"(3) The third possibility is that Meier is essentially correct, but has the causality reversed. The construction was originally written by a Christian, but of the first century, and it was incorporated into the Testimonium by Josephus himself."

According to my understanding of what the NT says of itself, the Gospels are inspired written accounts of inspired apostolic teachings from shortly after the crucifixion, and so could have been "heard" by Josephus at any time after that.

Of course, if it could be shown that Mark was before Josephus, that would be far better, but in any case. we still have the martyrs of the first century who witnessed not with bits of paper that happened to survive for 2000 years but with their lives that something particularly convincing had happened.
 
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