Archaeology of the New Testament

[Into the Night]

Yes they are.

Nope. Theories are not knowledge. They are explanatory arguments.

The theory of general relativity is a type of knowledge.

Nope. It is an explanatory argument.

The theory of plate tectonics is a type of knowledge.

Nope. It is an explanatory argument.

Knowledge doesn't have to be true.

Knowledge has not True or False. It simply is.

It just has to be justified by evidence or logic. Knowledge for the most part is always provisional.

Knowledge is not provisional. It simply is. It does not have to be justified by anything.

Evidence is not a proof. It is only evidence. ALL observations are subject to the problems of phenomenology.
Logic is not evidence. Logic is a closed functional system like mathematics.

 

[Into the Night]

There are no surviving eyewitness accounts of Alexander the Great, the Persian Emperor Xerxes, or Chandragupta founder of the Mauryan Empire.

The reports we have of them were written long after these dudes were dead.

But there are eyewitnesses.

 

[IBDaMann]

The first century Roman historian Tacitus mentions the execution of Jesus by the Roman governor Pontius Pilate in his Annals - History of the Roman Empire.

Correction: The 2nd century Roman historian Tacitus wrote of the legend of the execution of Jesus, more than a century after the supposed event.

The late first century/early second century bishops Iraneus and Pappias reported that the apostles John and Matthew authored gospels about Jesus.

Correction: Iraneus and Papias wrote how they "knew a guy who knew a guy" ... who knew the apostles or of their work. The inescapable problem is that these are the closest anyone can get to documentation of the life of Jesus, and all of it is an admission to being second-hand accounts of second-hand accounts, as well as being made a century too late.

There are no 'first-hand accounts' of Alexander the Great either.

You are chanting. There are first-hand accounts, and I listed several of them for you.

 

[IBDaMann]

Redefinition fallacy. A hypothesis is not a guess. They stem from a theory, not the other way around. Theory is not a 'status'.

Well put. An hypothesis is derived from a theory, and the null hypothesis is effectively the theory or model itself.

 

[IBDaMann]

But there are eyewitnesses.

You have to include the "if the events actually happened as I believe ...". Of course, if the events happened then every signle witness was a witness.
Now, for those events to be history, they have to be documented by the eye witnesses, otherwise they remain folklore, verbal tradition, rumor, legend, [the list of potential candidate terms is extensive].

Allow me to point out that "history" does not mean "events that happened in the past". History means documented events, scrutinized by rigor. All events that occurred prior to the first documentation are "prehistory" and are "prehistoric".