now you term josephus' account as a 'very significant
record'. in a previous email you wrote:

"the passing mention
[in Josephus] is not at all what we would expect if the
gospels were true"

which is it? a 'passing mention' or 'very
significant'?

Both. There is only a passing mention of Jesus in Josephus, and yet this account is by far the most complete and authoritative history of 1st-century Palestine.

 i would not normally consider a 'passing
mention' enough to be considered worthy of use in
corroborating (or invalidating) the gospels.

It's absolutely crucial in corroborating the historicity of Jesus.  It's also incredibly important in invalidating the gospels' claims about the miracles and successes of Jesus' ministry.

i think the direction i'm leaning with this discussion
is that your interpretations of what is written in the
bible are no more logical/fact based than mine. i
believe that what you believe about the text in the
bible is just that; a belief.  most atheists argue
incessantly that it is wrong to attribute their
conclusions to a belief, but i argue that that is
exactly what they are doing. you believe what you want
about the bible, because there is no earthly way to
prove one or the other.

This is a rationalization commonly adopted by Christians who cannot defend their beliefs: "you and I don't agree here, and we both think of ourselves as reasonable people, therefore the arguments for each side must be roughly equal in strength". This is simply wishful thinking.

you choose what you feel is
more likely based on supposed logical stances, but
it's all simply conjecture based on essentially one
account.  there is no possible way to gather different
angles, or do investigative reporting on events that
happened (or may not have happened) so many years ago.

False. We have two somewhat independent accounts (Mark and John), two accounts (Luke/Acts and Matthew) that depend heavily on Mark, the mostly independent account of Paul, and a completely independent account by Josephus. We have more than enough evidence to decide the issue here. (And if we didn't, then the default would be to reject the extraordinary claims of the "one account".)

> I don't find it reasonable at all to think that an
> omnipotent omniscient god
> would include in his perfect revelation a pair of
> genealogies that are so
> prima-facie contradictory that they appear to be the
> mistakes of fallible
> mortals. It makes no sense that such a god would try
> to fool us that way.

I cut out some of your response, but you did not in
any way respond to the arguments in the article.

I argued that your article's argument is irrelevant.  You did not respond to my argument.

i think we cannot get to the point of proper discussion
until we really do find the root/starting point.  my
impression from your responses is that at the very
heart of your stance, you question the idea of a supernatural,omniscient,omnipotent being.

I question the evidence for such a being, not the idea. By contrast, I've never known a Christian open-minded enough to engage the idea of a nonbenevolent supernatural explanation for the relevant evidence.

you often make 'comments' remarking how such an idea is preposterous with the information we know now.  so i suppose we should back up the discussion further. atheist/theist perspective, which is more reasonable?

This strikes me as simply an excuse to avoid defending the weakness of Christianity's historical record, and the morality of a deity who would intentionally leave behind such a record.

i believe that in a discussion that is 100% free of
bias, the answer is neither.  it's really a personal
question that people have to answer for themselves.

Again the standard rationalization that the arguments here are in some kind of magically perfect balance and are overwhelmed by "personal" issues of "bias" or "perspective".

i feel however, that atheists hide their beliefs behind
so-called 'science'.

What matters in this debate is not science, but philosophy. Any atheist whose atheism is based on science instead of philosophy is simply confused.

i feel that much of science is
just as circularly reasoned (if not more-so) than the
'circular reasoning' i use to support my belief in the
gospels. (examples of 'circularly reasoned science'
might have to wait for a future response)

I disagree, and am to a certain extent willing to correct your misunderstanding here. However, except for bringing to my attention the alleged Talmud reference to Heli/Eli being a parent of Mary, you really haven't engaged the arguments that I've pointed you at, and you've all too quickly retreated to the position that debating the evidence is essentially pointless. Therefore, I'm going to give our discussion a rather low priority, and probably won't respond again until sometime next month.