To be fair, my original dismissal of the bible as evidence (not in a post to you, but to Jacques) was pointing out that I don't see how the bible can be used as evidence to prove the existence of god. But as to your statements about the first hand accounts, that was not my understanding, but I will certainly look into it further (I also want to read Bart Ehrmann account you mentioned earlier).

However, I remain sceptical of the bible per se, because I am also concerned about the fact that when it was first put together, some time after the fact, the church only used certain accounts and left others out completely - now they say it was because there was a lot of duplication, but they would, wouldn't they? Where are those other accounts today, for us to see that this was the case? I believe any powerful enterprise that requires people to commit time and money to it should be questioned when half the documents relating to its founding are not put into the company handbook, so to speak!