The Gospel of Jesus is a patchwork of plagiarized material from non-Judeo-Christian sources

WARNING: Zombie monster tale within! My opponent has decided to stick to arguing for the gospel story of Jesus as historical, of a real person, instead of dissecting the many unoriginal elements of the story. “I say it is original not because it is a story but because the events described actually took place. I say that the New Testament provides a primary source first hand testimony of the story of Jesus Christ. The evidence's above show's [sic] that.” (CON) Very well then. My opponent states: “Ok so the pro has provided other myth's and stories that are similar to events that had taken place in the first four books of the New Testament. Wait a minute here. The book of Isaiah also talked about events that took place in the life of Christ. How old is the book of isaiah? [sic]” (CON) The only relevant point here is that Isaiah was written long before the gospel. Fine. All that means is that to fulfill the prophecies of Isaiah the gospel writers had to simply incorporate the prophecies into their fictional story and abracadabra-- the prophecies are fulfilled! My opponent states: “It does not disqualify the New Testament if events taken place in the first four books have been written down before it, in fact it just proves that they were truely [sic] prophecied [sic] events. Which makes them miracles and shows proof of divine intervention.” (CON) Only if the gospel story events actually took place would the prophesied events of Isaiah “prove that [the gospel story events] were truly prophesied events.” My opponent states: “Oh, one more thing you may want to look into the first geneaology [sic] in Genesis predicts the birth and death of Jesus Christ to you should look into that it's cool and Genesis is old. It's hard to make up geneaology [sic]...” (CON) It is easy to fulfill such the genealogy if all you are doing is making up a fictional story that comes after the prophecy. The Gospel, and Jesus, as Fiction No ancient historians of Jesus' time ever witnessed and then wrote about Jesus; there were some 40 historians of the biblical regions who wrote during the first and second centuries including Plutarch and Philo. None of them wrote about Jesus. Here are some ancient writers who wrote at or within a century of the alleged Jesus, yet none of them ever mentions Jesus in any of their writings: Arrian, Petronius, Seneca, Dion Pruseus, Pliny the Elder, Appian, Juvenal, Theon of Smyrna, Martial, Plutarch, Apollonius, Pausanias, Valerius Flaccus, Florus Lucius, Quintilian, Favorinus, Lucanus, Damis, Silius Italicus, Aulus Gellius, Statius, Columella, Ptolemy, Dio Chrysostom, Hermogeones, Lysias, and Valerius Maximus. Philo and Justus of Tiberias were Jewish historians that lived at the same time Jesus allegedly lived (Justus even lived in Capernaum where Jesus supposedly often stayed), and yet neither mentions anything about Jesus in their many historical records of the events of the time. None wrote of the sky darkening during the crucifixion. None of the historians of the time mentions the many zombies coming out of their graves and walking around in town, as told in the gospel story. Odd? Scary? You decide. Christians generally rely on the following ‘evidence’ for a ‘historical’ Jesus: ●The Gospels. The problem with using the gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) as evidence of Jesus' existence as a real person is that that involves circular reasoning. To say a character in a story is true because the story says it is so is circular logic and thus without merit. Was Alice historical because the story Alice in Wonderland says she existed? No. ●Early Church writers. Unfortunately this involves a rather biased group of writers, who neither met nor witnessed Jesus in the flesh. Such writers simply believed in a Jesus story. ●Martyrs. All religions have had martyrs. A person can sincerely believe in something, even if it is false, and even die for that belief. History has shown this repeatedly. ●Josephus Flavius, Jewish historian (circa 37-95CE): A passage in his historical writings mentions Jesus, but this passage is considered a forgery by even many Christian apologists. The passage mentioning Jesus is believed to have been added to Josephus' writings by the early Church Bishop Eusebius. Josephus was alive when Jesus supposedly lived, and yet nothing is mentioned about Jesus Christ by Josephus except for perhaps one forged passage (the original passage does not exist, and no Christian writers prior to Eusebius ever quote the alleged Josephus Flavius passage mentioning Jesus). At most we have a controversial passage by one of many historians living at the time of Jesus, which may or may not be a forgery; certainly an almighty god could have kept the original passage about his Son intact so that mere mortals would not have to rely on forged copies. ●Pliny the Younger (circa 62-113CE): An alleged letter by the Roman historian Pliny to Trajan once mentions "Christians". The word Christians may have been changed from the word Essenes during the many revisions and copies of the letter. At most, there is a secondhand reference to Christians, only showing that a group of people called Christians existed that were following the christian belief system. No mention of Jesus Christ is in the letter. The existence of Christians is not disputed, only the object of their worship. ●Tacitus (circa 55-120CE): The historian Tacitus lived two decades after the alleged death of Christ, so anything Tacitus wrote of Christ was secondhand and very postdated. Tacitus mentions Christians being persecuted under Nero; but this passage is considered by many to be a forgery, since it was never mentioned by the zealous defender of Christianity Bishop Eusebius, and no other christian writer mentions it prior to the fifteenth century. Tacitus writes about the great fire of Rome in 64 CE, in which he recounts how the roman emperor Nero blamed the Christians and that "Their originator, Christ, had been executed in Tiberius' reign by the procurator of Judea, Pontius Pilate." Tacitus called Pilate the "procurator" of Judea when in fact Pilate was the "prefect", so clearly Tacitus is stating hearsay information, not the information of Roman records; the Romans kept copious records of their legal proceedings, yet nothing is to be found in them of any such Christ being executed in Judea by Pontius Pilate. ●Suetonius (circa 69-140CE): A single passage from the Roman historian Suetonius mentions someone named "Chrestus" or "Chrestos" at Rome. Jesus Christ was never at Rome, so it is highly unlikely Suetonius refers to Christ. The title "Chrestus" or "Chrestos" was also a common title used by freed slaves and various pagan gods. Suetonius' mention of a Chrestos is hardly evidence of the existence of Jesus Christ. ●The Jewish Talmud (circa 200CE): Written long after the supposed gospel story, the Jewish Talmud does mention a "Yeshu the Nazarene". But Yeshu is short for "Yehoshua" or "Joshua" which is Greek becomes "Jesus", a very common name (like Brad or Robert today); Jesus was a common name of the time. As my opponent will get the last response, I will say it has been both a pleasure and an opportunity to present what I hope is thought provoking evidence and intellectual discourse to let readers reconsider the nature of the gospel ‘story’ as one of many savior myths. Thank you to readers of this debate for bearing with me. This is my first debate on debate.org