Quote Originally Posted by elbonator View Post
Almost all of your assertions are based on accepting the views of a particular group or groups of scholars. There are very good, and some would even assert, much better reasons to discard much of what these scholars hold with regards to the meaning and accuracy of the gospel accounts. But you can't say any of it is proven.
My favorite, if you could call it that, author/scholar on the scriptures is Bart D Ehrman, the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

His latest of many books on the topic is "Jesus Interrupted" here . The blurb on Amazon is;
Product Description

"Picking up where Bible expert Bart Ehrman's New York Times bestseller Misquoting Jesus left off, Jesus, Interrupted addresses the larger issue of what the New Testament actually teaches—and it's not what most people think. Here Ehrman reveals what scholars have unearthed:

  • The authors of the New Testament have diverging views about who Jesus was and how salvation works
  • The New Testament contains books that were forged in the names of the apostles by Christian writers who lived decades later
  • Jesus, Paul, Matthew, and John all represented fundamentally different religions
  • Established Christian doctrines—such as the suffering messiah, the divinity of Jesus, and the trinity—were the inventions of still later theologians

These are not idiosyncratic perspectives of just one modern scholar. As Ehrman skillfully demonstrates, they have been the standard and widespread views of critical scholars across a full spectrum of denominations and traditions. Why is it most people have never heard such things? This is the book that pastors, educators, and anyone interested in the Bible have been waiting for—a clear and compelling account of the central challenges we face when attempting to reconstruct the life and message of Jesus. "

I don't know about anyone else but reading about the investigations into the accuracy and the veracity of scripture rather than accepting what they say because I wish it were true is how I prefer to draw my conclusions. YMMV.