It is my understanding that NT scholarship has revealed that most, maybe even all of those are copies of and/or inspired/embellishments of each other, and might plausibly all derive from the same original source. We simply don’t have good enough evidence to think they’re independent in a way they would need to be for your case.
Try these: Isaiah 7.14
14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you[a] a sign: The virgin[b] will conceive and give birth to a son, and[c] will call him Immanuel.[d]
Footnotes:
- Isaiah 7:14 The Hebrew is plural.
- Isaiah 7:14 Or young woman
- Isaiah 7:14 Masoretic Text; Dead Sea Scrolls son, and he or son, and they
- Isaiah 7:14 Immanuel means God with us.
Isaiah 9.6
For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Now listen to this popular Christmas song
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I prefer Handel’s version.
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And hear why.
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Here’s a Christianity Today article by Craig Keener (professor of Biblical Studies at Asbury Seminary) from May that seems pertinent:
Note that this article isn’t a defense of the Resurrection and is written from a Christian perspective. In any case, here are some interesting selections:
The antidote to false miracle claims is not to reject miracles altogether. We must take care when we hear of (or even experience) a miraculous event that we neither accept all miracles as true nor dismiss them all as fake. The reality is much more complex.
But how do we exercise the appropriate amount of caution? While no formula allows us to verify all miracle stories, I have noticed a pattern.
Fraudulent miracles tend to flourish where they profit their purveyors. […] Yes, some Christians downplay miracles too much, but others need to stop exalting them as the highest ministry or as a sign of divine approval, especially where leadership and teaching are concerned.
[…] credible dramatic signs are most frequent where the gospel is breaking fresh ground—as in the Gospels and Acts. In these situations, the miracles tend to advance the cause of faith, not the will or needs of a particular person or group. Miracles are a wonderful foretaste of the coming kingdom. Thus Jesus’ exorcisms revealed the kingdom’s nearness (Luke 11:20), and Jesus describes his healings in language that invokes Isaiah’s description of the ultimate restoration (Luke 7:22). Nevertheless, the kingdom’s fullness remains future. Even genuine gifts are limited: Paul says that we know in part, and we prophesy in part (1 Cor. 13:9).
…
Additional layers of evaluation help. For example, false teachers often exploit people for money (Jer. 6:13, Micah 3:11, 2 Pet. 2:3) and tell them whatever they want to hear (2 Tim. 4:3–4). Jesus warned us to discern prophets by their fruits, not by their gifts (Matt. 7:15–23). What is the outcome of a particular miracle? God’s gifts are good, but their main purpose is building up Christ’s body, not our reputations (note 1 Cor. 12–14). Most of Jesus’ miracles, such as healing sickness, expelling spirits, and stilling storms, demonstrated compassion as well as power.
…
Not every claim to a miraculous raising today is authentic. Everywhere in the world, most people who die stay dead. Even those resuscitated miraculously, such as Lazarus, die again; all healing in our mortal bodies is by definition temporary. Such miracles do, however, remind us that Jesus Christ, who raised the dead during his earthly ministry, is the risen and exalted Lord. Sometimes he continues to grant signs of the future, reminders of the resurrection hope that in him awaits us all.
I think this shows where Christians do not blindly believe every claim to the miraculous, and yet allow for the possibility that God may, at times in history and today, manipulate or even violate the normal operations of nature.
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That’s like saying you don’t believe every claim that someone saw a unicorn, but you still believe there are unicorns.
Evidence is still needed for the claim.
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And that is what was suggested in the article. That’s what I was trying to point out. Christians aren’t saying “evidence not needed”. They may accept less or different forms of evidence than what an atheist might, based on their other beliefs.
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I don’t disagree with your principle here, just the analogy. There’s already been a number of threads discussing this; Christians do believe that there is evidence for the Resurrection.
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And YEC’s believe there is evidence the earth is 6000 years old. Usually because they are Christians, as it happens. Just saying.
If there’s one certain fact about NT scholarship, it’s that opinions are all over the map. There is no single view.
Depends on who you read. J Warner Wallace was a homicide detective who concluded the evidence was compelling.
Yes, but they find evidence because they believe that Genesis says that. We all know a priori commitments to particular ideas color the way people see things.
You believe that miracles do not happen, and so automatically reject anything that purports to be evidence to the contrary. Is there anything that would convince you? If not, why pester people here?
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The life, death and resurrection of Jesus is described completely throughout the Old Testament, there is very little that is new in the New Testament (similarly there is very little that is minor with the Minor Prophets). The Old Testament is the test to determine if a Gospel is reliable.
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Yup. Also I was raised YEC, but left it because it failed on evidence. Later I left ID for the same reason. The Ressurection was different.
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If you have to cite a retired cop, then you are making @Rumraket’s point: Actual scholars are generally in agreement. Unqualified amateurs with fervent beliefs do not count.
That is false. I have no idea if miracles happen. For all we know, the natural state of affairs is for people to come back to life after they are dead, and all those times they stay dead are miracles.
Please do not ascribe to me positions I do not hold.
Sure. Good evidence, of the sort that we use to determine whether anything happened, miracle or not.
If you’d asked me 20 years ago whether it was possible for a human to run 100 metres in under 9.6 seconds, I would have said it was not. But now I know it is possible, because I have evidence that it was done.
So a professional detective examines the evidence and finds it convincing, and you wiggle out of it by calling him an amateur. Then you say you want “good evidence.”
Plenty of scholars find the evidence convincing, and you say there are no “actual scholars” who find it convincing.
It seems pretty clear that you’re just going to be contrary with whatever you’re given. That’s troll behavior, ya know.
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Three Edinburgh University scholars discussing the historical situation surrounding Jesus’s death and resurrection here.
To which I add Prof Hurtado’s review of a book by one of the most well-known (ie popularly read) skeptical scholars, Bart Ehrmann. Apart from dealing with ehrmann’s arguments from his own central area of expertise, one gets the sense of the “scholarly consensus” referred to in the posts above. You’ll note that consensus includes early belief in Jesus’s resurrection and divinity.
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But they all can be false. 
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My position is that the overwhelming consensus of experts in history is that the Gospels are not reliable firsthand historical accounts. This is trivially and obviously true.
That there may be a small fringe group who disagree does not refute this. They are the equivalent of the small fringe group who say Jesus was entirely mythical.
A police detective is not a historian or scholar of ancient manuscripts. I doubt he even knows a word of Koine Greek, does he? So he doesn’t even enter the discussion. I could just as easily say my plumber thinks Jesus was a myth, it’d be as relevant.
I accept that. I also accept that the early Muslims believed Muhammad spoke with God and flew up to heaven on a flying horse with the head of a woman, and that modern day Scientologists believe the story of Xenu and the Galactic Confederacy.
So what?
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Please cite your sources for this opinion. Convince me. Cuz I think your statement is trivially and obviously false.
You asked for evidence, I give you an expert in evidence, and now you move the goal posts and want someone who knows Greek. Do you know Greek? If not, then your opinion would be as worthless as you claim this detective’s is.
Comparing early belief in Jesus to Scientology and Xenu is trivially and obviously silly. No scholar would do so. You’re just trolling us, aren’t you?
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