mountainman

When there is no evidence the argument is called conjecture.

When we have no evidence, the result should be self-evident.
But there is a great deal of emotional baggage at stake.

The Zero evidence in our possession suggests the HJ is false. But Biblical "historians" like Stark et al see wonderful demographics in the state of Zero evidence by means of conjecture. The common conjecture that "we have evidence" is false. To be quite explicit we do not have one iota of independent archaeological evidence corroborating the Eusebian document tradition. Not one iota! Surely we have been through this, and at the end of the day we have things like:

* the "darkroom" shroud of Turin
* the cross and nails of Helena
* the Dura house-church of Yale
* the ossuary of Oded Galan
* and a host of other manifest forgeries.

But at the end of the day no evidence.
This immediately suggests a fabrication of the early christians.
Horror of horrors says the emotional baggage to the intellect!
How can this be? Surely we believe in the emotional baggage first?
And so it goes on to the state of conjecture.
Apologetic conjecture.
Very apologetic conjecture.
This sort of stuff is highly regarded.
Its more or less conjecturalising about the "shared emotional baggage".
The hard line follows the carbon dating.
Why should it not follow the C14?

spamandham

...and also great creativity in regards to the entire field of "Biblical History", which IMHO, is a bunch of speculative horse crap.

bacht

The other side of this coin is that Paul may have wanted recognition as an apostle of equal status to the Jerusalem "pillars", and agreed to facilitate a collection for "the poor" in Judaea. Some interpret this as Paul buying the title, or bribing the Judeans.