"There are no writings from eyewitnesses of Jesus in the bible"

As I was riding the skytrain today I overheard people behind me laughing at christians and discussing how silly the bible is especially since there are no writings in the Bible by eyewitnesses of Jesus.  I instantly remembered watching Bill Maher's "Religulous" movie.  Where he says more than once that the writers of the New Testament were not eyewitnesses.  He actually says "gospel writers never met Jesus"  "No one who wrote about Jesus ever met him"  I was amazed that this statement actually made it into the movie.  He could have gone to any Bible college, or seminary or contacted any biblical scholar and asked this question, but he didnt.  He went to a truck stop chapel.  Im pretty sure if I was making some kind of documentary against science and went to a grade 8 classroom or interviewed first year biology students, everyone would say that I was choosing the path of least resistence.  I will review religulous some other time, but for now I would say all Christians should watch this movie, so you can learn what the objections to Christianity are.  Then learn the answers to the objections.

So there I am on the skytrain, and I had limited time to talk.  After joining in on the conversation I asked how they came to understand that there were no eyewitnesses to Jesus among the biblical writers.  One guy said "well everyone knows that"

Among the eyewitness to Jesus in the Bible are Matthew, John, Peter, James, Paul. Mark the gospel writer was a close companion of Peter and Luke was examining the evidence, and interviewed eyewitnesses.  Luke is considered to be a reliable historian.

Accoring to Sir William Ramsay who is one of the greatest archaeologists ever said that "Luke is a historian of the first rank ... this author should be placed along with the very greatest of historians"

In 2 Peter 1:16 peter says: "We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty."

So I shared what I could in the short time, and they said they would look into it further so I suggested a couple sources.

This issue opens up into a larger one such as were the witnesses credible, and are the documents in the New Testament reliable.  I will blog about those another day.  But for now, the answer to the objection is yes there are writings from eyewitnesses of Jesus in the bible.