Jesus Christ Existed As A Historical Figure

Contemporary Evidence: Your objection to both Josephus and Tacitus had to rely on external sources, but I doubt you would apply this standard of evidence to other historical events. By this standard of evidence, every history book you've ever read has to be thrown out; after all, the author(s) relied on external sources. Quite ironically, every single source you cited is from Wikipedia, which is (like it or not) a secondary (and external) source. We have no contemporary evidence for Socrates, would you deny the existence of Socrates? Or consider Alexander the Great, we hear nothing of him for hundreds of years after his death, how skeptical are you of his existence, there are some miraculous accounts of Alexander the Great after all. Josephus: "There is no evidence at all that any sources he relied on were drawn from any official (or otherwise trustworthy) documentation. Rather, it seems rather probable that he is simply describing the claims put forward by a sect who believe in the existence of Jesus in the first place. " Had Josephus sourced a Christian sect, we would expect that Josephus mention more of the alleged miracles of Jesus, did you realized that you refuted this argument only a few paragraphs later when you point out that Josephus makes no reference to Paul, Peter, the 12, the virgin birth, incarnation, or atonement? "There is nothing special about a historian describing a legend." Pontius Pilate is a historical figure; it's extremely unlikely that Josephus would record a mythological figure being killed by a historical one. Josephus also doesn't indicate that he's describing a legend. "But the problem goes further. There is no consensus amongst scholars as to the authenticity of the works ascribed to Josephus. Many parts are, to various degrees, hotly contested." Judging from how you only cited Wikipedia, you wouldn't be familiar with any scholarly work on Josephus, I however, am. According to Louis Feldman (Feldman, Josephus, pp. 684-91) "[out of 52 scholars] 4 scholars regard the larger passage as completely genuine, 6 more as mostly genuine; 20 accept it with some interpolations, 9 with several interpolations; 13 regard it as being totally an interpolation." The consensus seems to be that the passage of Josephus is partially authentic, 0% report is as a forgery. On a side note, would you mind listing the parts of Josephus writings that are "hotly contested"? " It is notable that he makes no reference to "St. Paul, St.Peter or any the Twelve Apostles, nor does he refer to basic Christian doctrines, such as the Virgin Birth, the Incarnation or the Atonement, which has led some to suggest that Josephus may have been an Ebionite Christian"" Josephus was not a Christian, why would Josephus mention basic Christian doctrines, St Paul, Peter, or the 12? Your argument basically says "if Jesus existed, even non Christians would have believed in his divinity!", though this is a contradiction in terms. Josephus wasn't giving a history of Christianity, "Antiquities of the Jews" is about Jewish culture, had Josephus been a Christian, he wouldn't have referred to Jesus as the "so-called Christ" and denied the divinity of Jesus (Antiquities 20.9.1). Also, as I've already stated in my opening argument, every Christian reference to Jesus in the 1st and 2nd century names Jesus as "Jesus Christ" or "Christ Jesus", had Josephus been a Christian, he would've named Jesus as such. "Firstly, we don't know who wrote the passages in question and which parts (if any) are authentic and which parts (if any) are fraud committed subsequently by Christian translators. Secondly, and even more importantly, the passages (even if authentic) take the matters no further in any event because there is no evidence at all that they themselves are based on anything more than a legend." Have you completely ignored everything I've written in my opening argument? I cited 14 examples from the writings of Josephus demonstrating his linguistic style, and how in his reference to Jesus, it's consistent with his linguistic style. Tacitus: Scholars are very skeptical of the accuracy the Annals because "[they] are based in part on secondary sources of unknown reliability, and there are some obvious mistakes, for instance the confusion of the two daughters of Mark Antony and Octavia Minor, both named Antonia" So Tacitus must be wrong that Jesus was crucified because he confused 2 people's daughters? Tacitus has to be infallible for his claim that a man was crucified to be true? Interesting. "It seems, with respect, that my opponent's contention that Tacitus claimed to source his information from non-Christian sources is pure speculation, as is his contention that Tacitus most likely sourced the information from a government official." Have you even read the Annals of Tacitus? He lists where he got his information from; reports and memoirs (15.16), personal testimony (11.73), physical evidence (15.42), first hand sources (15.41), and written evidence (12.67, 13.17). "There is a further problem with my opponent's argument. He says that Tacitus' anti-Christian tone would indicate that he could not source his information from Christians. That suggestion in itself is an attack (ironically, by my opponent!) on Tacitus' credibility and integrity." I never said this; you made this up out of thin air. My argument was that if Tacitus had been forged or sourced by a Christian his passage wouldn't contain an anti-Christian tone. "Now, let's assume that the sources of Tacitus' report were indeed not Christians. So what? By the time of his writing (50+ years after Christ's alleged death), the legend was there; there's no disputing this." This is the same objection you made in regard to the issue of contemporary evidence. Actually your "the legend was already there" argument can be dismissed by a reading of Josephus. Had Josephus been citing the Jesus "legend", it wouldn't explain how Josephus had knowledge about the early church NOT mentioned in the New Testament (such as the death of James). "All we can really be sure of is that a legend existed. But we already know that. The legend did exist and it continues to exist today." Why didn't Josephus and Tacitus point out that the existence of Jesus was a legend but instead mention Jesus being crucified by a historical figure (Pilate)? Please understand this, believing that Jesus existed doesn't mean that you have to believe he's divine, Josephus and Tacitus would gladly agree with me. Sources: Habermas, Gary. The Historical Jesus: Ancient Evidence For the Life of Christ. Missouri: College Press, 2008. Licona, Michael. "The Christ Conspiracy". Bethinking. April 10th 2010 <http://bethinking.org...;. Holding, J.P.. Shattering the Christ Myth. Xulon, 2008. Josephus, Flavius. The Works of Flavius Josephus. Translated by WilliamWhiston. Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1974. Strobel, Lee. The Case for Christ. Michigan: Zondervan, 1998. Cornelius, Tacitus. Complete Works of Tacitus. New York: Random House, 1942.