Dan,
I?ve been quite busy lately, but I?ve been mulling over some of your points.
Regarding the Muslim scholars, I don't really understand what Muslim scholars you refer to. The Quran was written by Muhammad and it states that Jesus was not crucified. It also states that Allah took Jesus up to heaven, but earlier it talks of the day of Jesus' death. It doesn?t seem to have a coherent view.
You said, 'Always trust the independent news source more than the one with a vested interest.'
The whole of Islam relies upon the idea that Jesus was not God's final revelation, but that Muhammad is. This doesn't seem very independent. I would think that Muhammad, writing 600 years later, is much less to be trusted than Paul, who wrote Galatians only twelve years after Jesus' death. Now as someone who had tried to stamp out Christianity by assisting the stoning of Christians, Paul must have undergone something significant to end up by being willing to die for his belief in Christ.
So if I'm going to trust anyone it would be Paul who was near the epicentre and not Muhammad, who pointed to no evidence for his assertion.
You also said that 'The writers of the Talmud didn't write about Jesus Christ.?
Now the writers of the Talmud were no friend to the Christians but:
?Raising the issue is an article by Steven Bayme, the American Jewish Committee's national director of Contemporary Jewish Life, which declares that Jews must face up to the fact that the Talmudic narrative "does clearly demonstrate ... fourth century rabbinic willingness to take responsibility for the execution of Jesus."
"Jewish apologetics that 'we could not have done it' because of Roman sovereignty ring hollow when one examines the Talmudic account," Bayme said. He contends that Jewish interfaith representatives are not being honest in dialogue if they ignore the explicit Talmudic references to Jesus.?
Of the three sources you mentioned: the Islamic scholars, the Jewish writers and the Christians, there is only one that denies Christ?s crucifixion, and that is the one you want to accept. To me it seems to be the most distant and least trustworthy.
Blacknad.
