The Evidence Shows Jesus Historically Existed

I'm not sure why Pro felt such an urgent need to point out that Ehrman believes in a historical Jesus, and tried so hard to imply I was misrepresenting the man. I quite clearly acknowledged this when I referred to him as "one of the leading advocates of the idea of a historical Jesus." I could have quoted any number of deniers of the hitorical Jesus on the points Ehrman raised, but my point is that even an advocate of the Jesus of history idea cannot deny the absence of concrete evidence. Now, back to the subject of Jesus's family, which Pro makes so much of, and which he claims is the one overriding factor that causes Ehrman to ignore all the missing evidence of every other sort. The actual words of the disputed text are as follows: "But other of the apostles saw I none, save James the Lord's brother." - Galatians 1:19 KJV. The problem with this is that there are only two apostles named James - one is the sone of Zebidee, and the other is the son of Alphaeus [1]. Clearly there isn't room for one to be the literal brother of Jesus. Pro appears to be unaware that is that the word "brother" is used very loosely in the New Testament. In some cases it simply means in a spiriitual sense, and in others it means kinship - as in a male relative. Calvin [2] and Clarke [3] both take the James of Galatians to be the Son of Alphaeus. Gill [4] and Barnes [5] offer other possible explanations of who this might be, but neither take it to be Jesus's literal brother. Since it seems to offend my opponent so much when I quote his favourite source (and also because it leads in to a very important point in this discussion), I'll refer yet again to Ehrman [6], speaking about Biblical documents: Not only do we not have the originals, we don't have the first copies of the originals. We don't even have copies of the copies of the originals, or copies of the copies of the copies of the originals. What we have are copies made later"much later. In most instances, they are copies made many centuries later. And these copies all differ from one another, in many thousands of places. As we will see later in this book, these copies differ from one another in so many places that we don't even know how many differences there are. Possibly it is easiest to put it in comparative terms: there are more differences among our manuscripts than there are words in the New Testament. There couldn't be a better summary of how unreliable the New Testament documents are. And this is why the earliest version of a manuscript matters. Pro has tried to create a straw man by suggesting that I attempted to tie the earliest extant version of a manuscript in with the date the original was written - I did no such thing. The reason the earliest available version is important is that it gives us some clue as to how many centuries of copying, recopying, tampering, merging, etc may have gone on before the version we know appeared, and thus at least a dim possibility as to whether we can take anything the manuscript contains seriously. Clearly Pro didn't bother to read my reference regarding Josephus, which dicusses the subject in great depth, including identifying the "brother of Jesus" phrase as a forgery [2]. Concerning Tacitus, rather than claiming my assertion is "ridiculous", and brushing it aside, perhaps Pro could have consulted the reference provided. Along with a useful discussion of the issues, it gives a link to an article where the alteration of the document is discussed at length, with photographic evidence [3]. Furthermore, although Wikipedia may not live up to my opponent's rigorous academic requirements, it does contain an article [4] which references many authors who question the document's value for various reasons, such as: Hochart - regards it as a "pious fraud" Carrier - Christian interpolation Martin - fraud Guiginbert (and many others) have pointed out that since Tactitus was born 25 years after Jesus's death, it is only repeating claims of Christians, and is therefore of little value. So, world-class historian or not, it would appear that Rives (and therefore Pro) is mistaken. Concerning Clement, firstly I would like to point out that although I'm not a fan of appeals to authority, I find the reverse (denying someone's opinion because they aren't "worthy") equally as unacceptable. Pro dismisses the validity of the reference I provide on the grounds that the author is not a "credible historian". Laurence Welborn is Professor of Ancient History at Macquarie University and Professor of Early Christianity at Fordham University in New York City. He was educated at Yale (M.A.), Vanderbilt (Ph.D). T"bingen (Germany) and Chicago University. He has written many published books on Biblical history[5]. So, my question to Pro is: if these are not good enough credentials to qualify as a credible historian, what do you require? As far as Matthew is concerned, I've already provided references that show it is widely believed that none of the gospels (which, without exception, bear no authorship information) were written by the apostles of the same name, and none of the writers had personally met Jesus. Furthermore, none of the earliest church fathers, including Clement, Barnabas, Hermas, Ignatius or Polycarp contain any references to any of the four gospels. Justin Martyr quotes more than 300 times from the old testament and 100 times from the Apocrypha, but not once from any of the four gospels [6]. One final point before I move on to some new material. Pro claims that the reference to "many people" being resurrected at the time of Jesus's crucifixion [7] doesn't mean it was a common thing in 1st century Palestine. I'm not sure why he tries to make this point, but in case that isn't evidence enough, here are a few more: Jesus raises a widow's son at Nain [8] Jesus raises Jairus's daughter from the dead [9] Lazarus raised from the dead by Jesus [10] Peter raises Tabitha [11] Eutychus resurrected by Paul [12] I'd say that's relatively common. How many people does Pro know who have been resurrected? Speaking of such stories, let's consider Hercules: A mortal and upright woman (Alcmene), is impregnated by a God (Zeus). Just as Herod wanted to kill Jesus, Hera wanted to kill Hercules. Hercules traveled the earth as a mortal helping mankind and performing miraculous deeds. After enduring appalling suffering, Hercules died, rose to Mt. Olympus and became a god. Ancient Greeks and Romans actually believed that Hercules lived, they told stories about him, worshiped him, and built temples dedicated to him. Sound familiar? The evidence for the existence of Hercules is quite impressive. Just as Jesus's life is described in the Gospels, Hercules's life is described in The Iliad (the chief difference being we know who wrote the Iliad). Josephus's writings contain more references to Hercules than to Jesus (even disregarding the fact that the ones to Jesus aren't genuine), and Tacitus, who has at most one (disputed) reference to Jesus makes many references to Hercules. Other writers like Hesiod and Plato also write about Hercules [14]. Almost nobody today spends any time considering the idea that Hercules might be an actual historical figure. Why should we regard Jesus as such when the "evidence" is no better? Ancient mythology is full of stories like Hercules and Jesus, and many of them share a lot of core concepts. The difference is that once a religion dies out, nobody feels a need to tie in the myth with fact any more. One thing which the gospels claim is that Jesus's fame spread far and wide, even during his lifetime. Consider the following: Large crowds from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea and the region across the Jordan followed him. [15] and this: Meanwhile, when a crowd of many thousands had gathered, so that they were trampling on one another, Jesus began to speak first to his disciples, saying: "Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy." [16] Massive popularity, and notoriety. And yet how is it that there is not one single reference to Jesus written by anyone - friend or foe - during his lifetime? Not one of his thousands of followers thought to write a word, nor historians of the time, nor any other figures. As Walker [14] points out, Philo of Alexander was born in 20 B.C. and died 50 A.D. He was the greatest philosopher and historian of the time and lived in the area of Jerusalem during the alleged life of Jesus. He wrote detailed accounts of the events that occurred in the surrounding area. Yet not once, in all of his volumes of writings, do we read a single account of a Jesus* "the Christ."' Seneca (4? B.C. - 65 A.D. ) says not a word about Jesus, nor does Pliny the Elder (23? - 79 A.D.). Pro can try to dismiss this as "appeal to silence" - but it is a perfectly valid question, and requires answering. It is as if not a word had been written by anyone about John Lennon until decades after his death - unthinkable. References: [1]Matt 10:2-4 [2]http://www.truthbeknown.com... [3]http://www.textexcavation.com... [4]https://en.wikipedia.org... [5]http://www.abc.net.au... [6]https://thechurchoftruth.org... [7]Matt 27:51-53 [8]Matt 10:7-8 [9]Luke 7:13-15 [10]Matt 9:25 [11]John 11:43-44 [12]Acts 9:36-42 [13]Acts 20:9-12 [14]http://www.nobeliefs.com... [15]Matthew 4:25 [16]Luke 12:1