Originally posted by Sparko
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It is patently clear that you cannot answer the question I have put to you because to do so would require you to acknowledge that the respective narrative details found in the various gospel accounts of the trial are entirely contradictory and therefore these texts cannot be consideredhandwaving awaybelieved to have either been personally acquainted with some of the disciples or to have been influenced by them. The earliest ante-Nicene Father, Justin Martyr was born around 100 CE, which is over six decades after the death of Jesus of Nazareth. We are therefore not precisely back 2000 years.
The earliest critical examination of a specific biblical text [the book of Daniel] is by Porphyry of Tyre writing in the late third century. However, his Against the Christians [Κατὰ Χριστιανῶν] which consisted of fifteen books were all burned in the mid fifth century on the orders of Theodosius II. His work is therefore only known [as with Celsus] through the refutations made by various Christian apologists.
That notwithstanding the modern critical historical New Testament scholarship as it is now undertaken did not commence until David Strauss published his Das Leben Jesu, kritisch bearbeitet in 1835.
In the early modern period Baruch Spinoza offered his systematic critique of Judaism, when in 1670, his treatise Tractatus Theologico-Politicus was published anonymously.
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