The historical Jesus Christ was a doomsday cult leader

Too many arguments againI don't hold it against Con for introducing too many arguments into the debate, but I feel sore that I am accused of dropping arguments. I defended myself under the heading in Round 2, "Too many arguments." To explain further, such a debating approach is known in evolution debate circles as the "Gish Gallop," which RationalWiki.org defines as "a debating technique that involves drowning the opponent in such a torrent of [...] arguments that the opponent cannot possibly answer every falsehood that has been raised."Though it is likely Con has honesty intended, his latest entry seems likewise a Gish Gallop (i.e. three YouTube videos). I cannot possibly rebut the points with the same efficiency as Con presents them. Since Con complained against my "drop" of one of the arguments of Round 2, that is where I will focus my attention in this round, and as before I will procee in the order that Con presented his points.Round 2's "apocalyptic asceticism"Con (and JD Crossan) believe that Jesus of the gospels strongly contrast with the ascetism of John the Baptist. If Jesus did not share in John's asceticism, then perhaps neither did Jesus share in John's apocalypticism (or so the argument goes). However, the evidence for the ascetism of the gospel's portrait of Jesus is diverse. Jesus of the gospels promoted the poor and demoted the rich, which is expected of an ascetic. Most importantly, Jesus was not reputedly married in any of the early sources, which would be expected of nobody but an ascetic in that social environment. On the other hand, there are other passages such as Luke 5:33 where Luke rhetorically defends the disciples of Jesus (not Jesus himself) from the accusation of diverging from the ascetic custom of John.As a solution to this problem, Con proposes that the gospel authors changed the character of Jesus to be like John the Baptist, including the apocalyptic beliefs of John.This solution is more problematic than the problem for the following reasons. (1) This solution presumes that asceticism and apocalypticism are intimately bound, and you may not have one without the other. There is little reason to expect that apocalypticists are strongly expected to be ascetists, so one could compromise the asceticism without losing the apocalypticism.(2) This solution presumes it is improbable that Jesus lived a life that was not as ascetic as John. In fact, the social phenomenon of ascetism is far from dichotomous--ascetism instead exists on a spectrum. There is no reason we would not expect Jesus to have adopted some but not all of the ascetic lifestyle of John the Baptist. As a modern example, the Trappist monks of Belgium live sexless lives, but they brew (and drink) the best beers in the world. (3) This solution is probable only by supposing that two sharp revolutions in religious tradition are more probable than a continuous evolution in religious tradition. Crossan proposes that John the Baptist was apocalyptic asceticist, his disciple Jesus did a 180 and was not apocalyptic asceticist, and the disciples of Jesus did another 180 and became apocalyptic asceticist again. Why not instead propose that Jesus and his disciples were apocalyptic asceticics though not as ascetic as John?Bart Ehrman makes the point that, if it is agreed that both the predecessor and successors of Jesus were apocalypticists, then it is highly likely that Jesus himself was apocalypticist, joining two links on either side of one uniform chain. We don't even need to read between the lines to reach this conclusion--it is the explicit belief multiply attested by all of the earliest texts, and we have no early textual evidence to the contrary. Jesus was apocalypticist.King Arthur and CornwellCon disputed my claim that his source lacks evidence for the point that King Arthur was a mythical amalgamation of many characters (a point that would lend plausibility to a similar claim about Jesus). Con now claims that he gained the knowledge from Bernard Cornwell. I don't know why Con did not cite Bernard Cornwell when he made the claim in Round 2, but once again I ask for Con's assistance in specifically locating the claim in this new source (http://www.ibooksonline.com...). I have read the entire page, and I can not find the claim that Arthur "was an amalgamation of many different kings and warlords," nor any similar claim. The closest to this claim by the source I can find is: "Nen­nius was sure­ly draw­ing on an­cient folk­tales, which were a fer­tile source feed­ing the in­creas­ing­ly fre­quent retellings of the Arthur sto­ry that reached their zenith in the twelfth cen­tu­ry when two writ­ers in sep­arate coun­tries made Arthur in­to a hero for all times." Presumably, though, the "ancient folktales" would be yet more tales about the evolving character of Arthur, not about entirely-different characters. I ask that Con please provide the specific quote. It is not that I challenge Con's citation, but it is difficult to analyze an argument when the evidence is hidden within long documents.Copycat Pagan godsCon claims that the Jesus myth was an amalgamation of similar Pagan gods, including Tammuz, Osiris, Attis, Dionysus, Mithra and Horus. Con claims that these gods share with Jesus traits such as "lamb of God," crucifixion, 3-day death, walking on water, etc. These claims are found everywhere on the web where debates about the historical Jesus take place. All three of the embedded YouTube videos repeat the claims. And, NEVER are specific ancient documents cited to substantiate the claims about the ancient myths. That is because the myths are purely modern, not ancient. On the Internet, the myths are typically sourced from the author Acharya S, who in turn cites authors of the 17th-20th centuries, including Kersey Graves of 1875, who wrote a book titled, The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors found online. Unfortunately, the trails stop at authors such as Graves, because they do not cite specific ancient documents, nor are the claims seemingly substantiated in the small handful of ancient documents pertaining to such myths. If Con does not believe me, then I challenge Con, and I also challenge readers sympathetic to Con's position, to find quotes and specific citations to the ancient documents that substantiate the claims (which Con should hae done already), such as the claim that any ancient god such as Horus was crucified, or the claim that any other ancient character was known as "Lamb of God." Such evidence would strongly favor Con's position, because it is otherwise strongly expected that the crucifixion of a reputed god and the title of "Lamb of God" are unique to the character of Jesus.Three KingsThis is one of many reasons the quality of sources are important--it strongly correlates with the quality of the claims. If Con had relied on high-quality sources instead of a lay YouTube video, he wouldn't have presented the claim that the three kings of the gospel birth narratives correspond to the three stars of Orion's belt that were supposedly known as three kings by the ancients. There are no three kings in the gospel birth narratives. There are an unspecified number of "magi" (Zoroastrian priests) who had three gifts (Matthew 2:7-12). "Three Kings" are found only in modern Christmas carols and those YouTube videos. And, there are no ancient documents that call those three stars "Three Kings." Everything about the myth is modern.ConclusionThere are, of course, problems with relying on ancient unprovenanced sources littered with falsehoods in order to make conclusion about history. But, some explanations for the sources are far more probable than all competing explanations. I repeat: it is not about trusting the evidence, but it is about explaining the evidence best. I suggest that the take-away point of this debate should be that the analysis of dubious ancient myths need not be complicated with the integration of dubious modern myths.