Don is making stuff up again (see recent comments) and passing it off as fact. I’m not going to respond to all of his nonsense – I have a life to live – but here are some basic refutations:
Don: ‘Did Jesus rise from the dead? The whole reason for the church, which exists to this day and which can trace its history back to the early 1st century, rests on that. It is the consequence that confirms the real history of the event.’
No. He didn’t. If he had done, all the things he and Paul promised would happen as a result would have happened, and two thousand years ago at that. https://rejectingjesus.com/2022/08/09/if-the-resurrection-had-really-happened/
This is irrefutable evidence he did not rise from the dead. It also puts the lie to those other supposedly fulfilled prophesies you reference. But we’ve been down this road before, Don. I suggest you go back and read the refutations of your claims that others provided then. https://rejectingjesus.com/2022/07/24/more-on-prophecy/
Don: ‘It is possible that Mark and Luke met in Rome; they were there at approx. the same time.’
And it is more likely they did not. In any case ‘possible’ is not ‘probable’, and absolutely not ‘certain’. This is all invented conjecture on your part.
Don: ‘Luke may have been the proofreader for Mark’s manuscript, who knows.’
Certainly not you. This is more fantasy. There is no evidence of it happening. In my thirty years of reading round this kind of thing this is the first time I’ve encountered the suggestion. That’s because you made it up. Next you’ll be telling us they were drinking buddies who invented the printing press together.
Don: ‘Most significant, at best Mark/Peter only supplied a small portion of Luke.’
According to Bible.org about 88% of Mark is in Luke. That’s hardly ‘a small portion.’
Don: ‘You will find few pericopes that are word for word the same.’
According to the same a source, much of the plagiarised material is verbatim.
https://bible.org/article/synoptic-problem
Don: ‘In any case all the Gospels call Jesus the Son of God.’
These are faith statements, not historical facts. They’re evidence that that is how the writers of the gospels – who were not eyewitnesses – and early converts saw him. Significantly, the synoptic gospels don’t make Jesus claim the title for himself. In any case, and as you know, the world back then was awash with sons of God. It didn’t mean every claimant was the real progeny of a deity. However much you want him to be, your man is no exception.
None of what you write, Don, is evidence of God, which is supposedly what you’re providing. That some in the first century claimed someone they never met was divine in some way is not evidence that God exists. Believe in him all you like but don’t think that that belief and the spiritual experiences it gives rise to in your own head are evidence. They are not.