Jesus probably didn't exist

Thanks Larz (Pro) for the debate. I hope many will learn a great deal from the debate. The field of historiography is just like science. The scholars and historian’s work is to sift the most reliable and compelling historical facts from the available sources. In such debate of historicity of a person like Jesus, we should rather take a look at the contemporary historians to know what the established facts are concerning him. Just as we’d search the conclusions of the majority of contemporary scientists on scientific matters, to know what is the current best attested theory. If a common man wishes to argue on science without any science background whatsoever, will end up being as much irrational on many areas as someone who believes modern myths & misconceptions without confirming contemporary scholarship on them. Today virtually no historian holds this radical belief that Jesus did not exist. However there has been couple of “scholars” who have argued for such a contention. Few exist among historians, just as some radical skeptics exist among philosophers who seriously doubt the existence of objective reality & external world, holding solipsism; or some scientists who openly go against all established scientific theories. For example if you know a scholar, Bart Ehrman, you’d know that it is like his mission of life to disprove Christianity. His whole life is dedicated completely on work of radical skepticism; debating top Christian scholars and all. Ehrman himself has published a book Did Jesus Exist? this year, refuting the modern Mythicists who have quite propagated their conspiracies against historical facts. Especially the makers of Zeitgeist movie, Acharya S. etc who are no scholars but their myths have been quite popularized on the internet. It is wrong if you assume there are none or minute pieces of archaeological evidence for Jesus; refer to Craig Evan’s “Jesus and his World”. So presence of such evidences makes Pro’s case nearly impossible to be held by a rational man. Pro says that not all ancient literature present Jesus as human. The Gnostic writings that started developing in second century considered that Jesus was too divine to die and suffer. They didn’t accept his humanity; hence invented their fables showing him as omnipresent divine person who cannot be a human. They believed all matter is evil and impure that God would wish to come in flesh. So these Gnostic writings that are from 2nd century have been rejected by historians as later fables; hence they cannot be used to support the doubt of Jesus’ existence at any stretch of imagination, at the most you can only use them for what has been already established about them. He asserts that Mark is fictional nature as opposed to historical. Midrash is actually interpretation of the Jewish scriptures, it’s not fables. His argument (based on Robert Price’s link) seems that the Gospels heavily quote and allude to the Jewish scripture, hence they are not historical in nature. I doubt if Price himself argued that; but if that’s the objection, it’s just false for the Gospels claim to be fulfillment of whole Prophets and the Law of Judaism, they alluded and appealed to the Jewish scripture only to present the harmony with them. Gary Habermas said in a 2009 Ankerberg video, "If we start with the cross approximately 30 AD and call that ground zero, 1 Corinthians 15 checks in at about 55 AD whatever the writer, conservative or not conservative, we have 25 years. In ancient historiography this is incredible in a time when the best known biography of Alexander the Great is that of Plutarch almost 400 years after Plutarch. When we learn about the early Caesars from Tacitus to Suetonius a 'good gap' is 100 years; 25 is incredible [for Jesus]. Paul says, 'I am passing onto you as first importance that which I also received' (1 Cor. 15.3)." Paul said, "I make known to you brethren the gospel which I preached to you" (1 Cor. 15.1). Gary says, "This earlier preaching may have taken place 51 AD about 21 years after the cross." But point of fact, Jesus died not in 30 AD, but 33 AD on April Fool's Day, Friday, April 1 (Gregorian) which I am sure of just +18 years after the cross. Also see about the 12 facts about Jesus compiled by Habermas by collecting 22000 sources of historians http://www3.telus.net... Pro knows that many non-biblical secular sources have recorded about Jesus, who lived in second century- for example Tacitus, Josephus, Pliny the younger, Babylonian Talmud. All he did is to picked a couple and criticized them. A contemporary of Tacitus, Caius Suetonius Tranquillus (ca. 69-140), overseer of Rome's libraries and court official to several emperors, writes that the emperor Claudius "banished the Jews from Rome, who were continually making disturbances, Chrestus [Christ] being their leader" ( Lives of the First Twelve Caesars: Life of Claudius, quoted by Grant Jeffrey, Jesus: The Great Debate, 1999, p163). This banishment of Jews from Rome is mentioned in Acts 18:2. So Suetonius was referring to the same Jesus Christ of Nazareth, the historians do recognize this explicit fact and the fact that only Jesus was made popular as the Messiah or Christ in Israel 1st century since the context of their writings approve him. Pro objected to the authenticity of a passage of Josephus, but actually Josephus mentioned him in other chapters of Antiquity as well. He noted the martyrdom of James and John the Baptist mentioning also about Jesus (Antiquities, 20:9:1 and 18:5:2) these chapters are not questioned by scholars. Pro’s says that Romans and others knew little about Christians and their faith is easily refuted in light of vast historical recording of them, that even the killing of disciples were recorded, since the faith grew like wild fire within few years. I didn’t even get his objection on Tacitus, where he said we don’t have access to his writings? But you can see Annals, 15:44 online easily. When he addressed NT, he said epistles are not eyewitness accounts. This is no criterion for historiography at all. Secondly it’s false, only Paul did not meet Jesus in his earthly life. James was Jesus’ half brother and Peter, John were his very disciples who lived with him. He made another error by saying Origen questioned the authorship of book of revelation. One extreme error was asserting that NONE of the epistle presents Jesus as human. How can Pro make such blunder when repeatedly they mentioned of the sacrifice and death of Jesus, and his bodily resurrection? The books of NT were consistent in proclaiming the true nature of Jesus Christ, as true human to die and suffer and resurrect and truly divine to be God and the author of life. (Heb 2:14-18; 12:1-2, Peter 1:18-19, Rom 5:15) Paralleling Pagan myths with Christianity The arguments were mainly invented and made famous by pseudo scholars, rather internet Mythicists wrote some books and a movie namely Zeitgeist. You can see the scholar’s views on those modern myths as Christians have written articles and books refuting them with help of true historians. So I’d not even like to specifically refute those annoying internet myths. Please see here:http://tinyurl.com... http://www.philvaz.com... (and #Dionysos) Even if the Gospels consist minor peripheral errors, the general reliability of them cannot be questioned based on such minor errors. Those minor points are so irrelevant to the general historical reliability of the NT. Such as Gnostic Gospels are not historically reliable at all but they do have some true specific facts for example existence of Jesus and apostles. Read my debate# 25508 for the textual reliability of the NT, It is easily demonstrable by evidence that the transmission line of the NT as well as the oral tradition that began by apostles were no way like a single line of Chinese whispers as he says rather many independent lines. Hope he concedes.