Not really. Go over to the CT section and see those guys in action. They try to raise doubts about the authenticity of the Wannsee minutes, or claim that Hoess was tortured before his testimony at Nuremberg. Mention Eichmann's testimony, or the Höfle telegram, or Lukaszewiecz' 1946 report on human ashes at Treblinka and they try to change the subject. Just a couple of pieces of evidence right off the top of my head.
Yup. I'm not as knowledgeable about the holocaust denial theories as you are, but my guess is they pick up on relatively minor points in each of those sources. The point is that the preponderance of evidence points towards it happening, even with little curiosities or errors here and there in the sources.
Anyway, the OP of this thread contends that the NT writers wrote the truth and nothing but the truth. Which is obviously false, as the gospels are contradictory on many points. To take a recent topic of discussion: Luke 2 describes how Jesus was born during a Roman census instituted by governor Quirinius, whereas Matthew claims he was born during Herod the Great's reign. That's at least 10 years difference. Obviously, one of them (or both) is (are) wrong. The OP has then trotted out some "scholars" who claimed a very tortured translation of Luke 2:2 - without giving the details how that translation can even be a correct translation.
Naturally, the contention that they wrote nothing but the truth is false. The contention even that they were always primarily interested in historical accuracy is false.
With regards to Jesus' birth, that's an interesting point that I've talked about in this thread. The presence of wild contradiction doesn't actually mean that the stories can be dismissed. It makes the stories much more interesting.
If the two accounts conspired, they could have done a much better job of getting the stories to work, so it is reason to believe that, for this tale, they were independent.
But they both agree on a few points. One is that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. This is unsurprising as that was predicted in the old testament, so this could have been made up by two independent sources quite easily. Another is that Jesus was from Nazareth.
That is more interesting. Why would two independent sources make up stories that are wildly contradictory but make sure that Jesus comes from a small village that nobody had heard of? A good bet is that Jesus really was from Nazareth, and so the two authors couldn't claim he was from Bethlehem, and instead did some horrible fudging to make him be both. The two authors picked different solutions, and so we have the wild contradictions.
The gospels are obviously foremost theology. When you claim:
how can you distinguish this from just giving a historical background? Nowadays novelists who write historical novels tend to be good at providing a convincing historical background to their otherwise fictional story. Why not the gospel writers too?
This is an interesting point. Egyptian myths might include Pharaohs and Egyptian landmarks that really existed, when the story is actually fabricated. My argument in general would be that there is much more historical reporting than in myths. The writers frequently give us what day of the week something happened, or will mention an upcoming festival, to give us a frame of reference in time. It could still be historical background to a fictional story, but this becomes less likely.
The other point is the agreement among independent sources. If one author makes up that Jesus had 12 disciples, then how come the other authors all think so too? Not to mention paul thinking this was the case as well?
