[squirt]

this test asks the question, were others present who would have contradicted or corrected the gospels if they had been distorted or false? in other words, do we see examples of contemporaries of Jesus complaining that the gospels were just plain wrong? many people had reasons for wanting to discredit this movement and would have done so if they could have simply told history better, yet look at what his opponents did say, in later Jewish writings Jesus is called a sorcerer who led Israel astray - which acknowledges that he really did work marvelous wonders, although the writers dispute the source of his power, this would've been a perfect opportunity to say something like, "the Christians will tell you he worked miracles, but we're here to tell you he didn't." yet that's the one thing we never see his opponents saying, instead they implicitly acknowledge that what the gospels wrote - that Jesus performed miracles - is true, could this Christian movement have taken root right there in Jerusalem - in the very area where Jesus had done much of his ministry, had been crucified, buried and resurrected - if people who knew him were aware that the disciples were exaggerating or distorting the things that he did? we have a picture of what was initially a very vulnerable and fragile movement that was being subjected to persecution, if critics could have attacked it on the basis that it was full of falsehoods or distortions, they would have, but that's exactly what we don't see