The historicity of Jesus Christ

TacitusAgain, my opponent has picked his own most beneficial translation to make his argument. So instead of just repeating what I have said, I'll quote from the following verses:"Hence, even for criminals who deservedextreme and exemplary punishment, there arose a feeling of compassion; for it was not, as it seemed, for the public good, but to glut one man'scruelty, that they were being destroyed." "Nero tried to disparage the fame of his poems and, with the foolish vanity of a rival"Tacitus eventually asks "who would pity Nero as the victim of a crime"? Clearly, this man allows bias against Emporers to cloud his judgement. This follows with my next point. The bias which he presents could his judgement on many issues. Now, my opponent can cite scholars which agrees with him, and I can cite scholars which agree with me - this is the pitfall of the secondary source argument, and the reason why I back scientific history. Inundating us with people who agree with my opponent is not an argument, but an argument ad verecundiam. Also, I apologise with the lack of reference source on the point of Tacitus on the speeches. However, this can be found by googling the statement to find my source[1]. Further, the speech[2] contrasts with Tacitus' Annals 11.23-24. Though presented as a direct quotation, in actual fact it is an offhand recount, of which Tacitus must have spent more time writing than he needed to, because his aim, again, was not to truly document the past, but to criticise the Emporers. As such, again, if the aim was to criticise and not be historically accurate, we cannot treat this as much more historically accurate than The Republic or Aenid. It certainly cannot pertain to be a powerful piece of evidence in itself. My opponent then criticises my scholars as weak. Of course, I could simply quote how scholars agree "unofficial stories [like this one] were full of bias and...were blatantly spun", or how "older scholarship battles over...the degree of bias or sense of personal injurity that colors his historiography"[3], but, again, such secondary source quote mining is meaningless. As I have done, one can find a quote from a secondary scholar to back up any argument. It seems my opponent is reduced to such mining and insults to derive his results.Moreover, I want to bring up the (dropped) point that Tacitus most likely got his evidence from unreliable sources. His source was most likely Christians in the area believing on faith rather than evidence, or people hearing that such an event occurred. As such, this evidence itself has no solid basing in reliability. The "sixty-eight instances" of his quoting[4] is more reasonably explained by the fact that quoting others on minor points of fact was a way of one-upmanship. This makes more sense and corroborates with the historical nature of the time, as previously stated. Moreover, my opponent does not touch upon the point that such an aside comment like the one on Christ is usually paired with a source to gain such one-upmanship. The lack of such a source implies that Tacitus could not find one of reliability, and instead devolved to common rumour, which agrees with the other independent arguments I posed. As such, the evidence by Tacitus is inconclusive at best, dismissable in its entirety at worst.The TalmudThe Talmud's inability to get facts right tells us it is unreliable. Moreover, the claim that "they must not lie" is comical: the Talmud says that Jesus did not resurrect, did not do any of his miracles, and was a pagan believing in many gods and was a bad preacher[5]. The Jesus referred to clearly is not the Biblical one, but an attempt to insult Christianity, which would make more sense when considering the source.Moreover, my opponent has dropped the point this source was written around the 5th century AD, making it way too late to be classified even slightly as good evidence.JosephusMy opponent cites France EvJ (no idea what kind of last name that is) and then a terrible translation of λεγόμενος or legómenos, the greek word for "to be called". The translation of alleged is ισχυρίστηκε or ischyrísti̱ke. Clearly, this scholar doesn't know his Greek. With this in mind, there is no problem. Moreover, my opponent claims I committed an ad hominem in my last round. I'd reply to this, but I have no idea what my opponent refers to. I attack historians making the claim, because, as world-renown historian E.H.Carr states: "study the historian before the history". The goals of the historian is incredibly important - for example, a major criticism Carr had of religious historical study was that the majority of those who study them go into their own religion and look for proof of their religion rather than make history around the proof. The second passage, at risk of repeating myself, is that it proves nothing. All it shows is that the idea of Jesus was with a (either literal or metaphorical) brother. The passage holds no proof the existence of Christ. This is also true when the interpolations are removed from the section on the larger paragraph by Josephus. LucianMy opponent's argument is pretty much a satire is better if it is true. This obviously is correct when true means true-to-life, but being factual would make it dull. If spitting image was the real people speaking in Parliament, it wouldn't be funny. Similarly, satirists make up people, and continue myths, in order to make things funny. My opponent's misunderstanding is this: he has taken a book by Lucian, and said it is an attempt to be factual. The Passing of Peregrinus is not a historical study. It is a satire. One wouldn't cite Romeo and Juliet to prove that the events in the story happened (I hope) because it is fiction. The same goes for this. If my opponent wishes to cite a quotation in Lucian's The Way to Write History, or an actual historical treatise by Lucian instead of a bias, I would take it more seriously.Scientific HistoryI'll simply build on what I said before. In the last round, I concluded history from secondary sources is able to be quickly dismissed. Primary sources are most important in a debate. This is not unreasonable: massive swathes of our knowledge come from primary sources. The definition of a primary source is debated hotly among scholars: some take it to include eye witness testimony being recalled years (or less) later, while some don't. As such, I always hold primary evidence as the standard to be met.However, in the case of Jesus Christ, we have none of these. In fact, in the events around Jesus Christ, we have practically nothing.The major events of the life of Christ starts with the infanticide by Herod. This was a major event in the Christian story, and is an incredibly important part of the theology. Indeed, if the story of Christ is not true, then the Jesus we are debating simply does not exist. Yet there is no evidence of this event - not primary, not secondary - of any scholarly worth. Such an act would have been recorded by the vast swathes of scholars like Josephus in the area, yet somehow it went onnoted. Between the explanation of such an event not happening and all scholars becoming oblivious to the event, it seems self-evident the former is most likely. As this is so, this makes the Jesus that we know inexistent.The argument works similarly for other events. The Sermon on the Mount, or any of the other miracles would attract attention to be noted, yet they barely have been at all. Stripping away all the miracles, we still have an undocumented preacher with national (even international) appeal, yet still so lightly documented by comparison to his peers that it is dubious whether he even existed, on these grounds. Certainly, the Jesus which is the subject of this debate, in light of this evidence, does not exist. Thank you for reading, and I look forward to the final round.