Truth is nobody can tell what Plato thought because he had been dead for 1,000 years before it was written, by author unknown, in Constantinople, who said that is what Plato said. There are seven copies of unknown's work.
Aristotle? Same thing. His works were put together about 1,400 years after He died. We have 49 of those copies. The old et tu Brute? 1,000 years after that was supposed to have happened. Of that chronicle of Julius Caesar there are 10 copies that have survived.
Many historians readily accept the writings of Plato, Aristotle, Thucydides, and Caesar. Have you ever doubted the authenticity of
any of them if you have had the opportunity to read what has been attributed to them?
The New Testament, on the other hand, was written between 40-100 AD and our earliest copies of the New Testament manuscripts are from the 130s
(less than 100 years) and we have 5,000 Greek copies, 10,000 Latin copies and 9,300 copies in other languages. Even by your chart, that puts most of the originals well with in eye witness range.
Within 100 years of the life and death of Christ, the NT survives with
the same context, 5,000 copies, 10,000 copies, and 9,300 copies of what people living in that time saw and heard.
Here is what that means. You have 24,000. documents and a variety of originals, and the Dead Sea Scrolls for you to verify what you read in your King James is as authentic as when it came out of the eyewitness who experienced it.
Go back farther in history if you like. Read Ezekiel from the paper it is written on and then go read the same thing on the stones he carved it into and was buried with. No tampering.
I can give you historical accounts of the events that took place during and after the crucifixion from Jews, or Secular. With 0 to gain and much to lose.
If your questions are not more about taunting and less about inquiry, we can start verifying stories.
You know the one where Amos was talking to God, and God said that on that day, well here:
Amos 8:9 “And on that day,” declares the Lord GOD, “I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight.
Amos died about 800 years before it happened. His work was documented and read long prior to the fulfillment of this prophesy.
That it happened isn't refuted. 52 years later, the explanation for the phenomenon was still being debated. Which explanation would you like? The Jew's, the Roman's, philosophers, Gentile's, historians?
What man could have known that 800 years from then the sun would lose it's light? At noon? Because of the death of the Lord, no less......... How often does that happen, at noon.
War?
