Jesus of Nazareth was a historical figure.

I"m afraid my opponent has misunderstood me and has jumped to a few conclusions too soon. I think it might come from a misreading, or perhaps no reading at all, of my discussion of the writings in Acts and those by Paul; points 2 and 3. In my discussion of Acts, I made no mention of Paul. Paul is definitely not the author of Acts; I have never heard a serious discussion on this subject. A quick skim through Acts brought me to Acts 21:18, which says: "On the following day Paul went in with us to James, and all the elders were present." How is it possible for Paul to use the first person plural "us" (and "we" in the surrounding verses) and then list himself as an addition to the group? It would be as if I said "Brian and I went to visit the elders." It doesn"t make sense, unless the author is someone other than Paul. In my discussion of Acts, my primary point was that Peter was preaching about Jesus only two months after his death and only a week and a half after his resurrection. Peter was indeed a person who had seen the risen Jesus, and who had walked with him during his three years of ministry as one of his closest disciples. My opponent did not address this topic, but was instead distracted by issues of authorship and the nature of Paul"s vision, which were not discussed by me in point 2. In point 3, my opponent appears to identify my support for the existence of Jesus to come from the fact that Paul used to be a Jew. This is not my main point in this section. By saying Paul was a Jew, I was simply giving some historical background. My main point was that Paul wrote the creed in 1 Corinthians and elsewhere, indicating that he and other Christians had developed a statement of faith about the facts of Christianity. My opponent does not discuss this topic, but instead argues that someone changing his or her mind is not valid evidence for the existence of some other figure. I agree. That"s why I didn"t use it as such. If I may go back to point one, my opponent discusses the fact that Herod, Pilate, the poor, the rich, great priests, rulers, and scribes knew about Jesus. Since they knew about him, they should"ve written about him. Why? Herod and Pilate didn"t write about anything; why should we expect them to write about Jesus? They were rulers, not writers, and Jesus was nothing more than a hiccup in the system to them. Why should the priests write about him? Again, they were not writers, and if they were, why would they be interested in preserving the life and teachings of their opponent? Rulers were not writers either. And which scribes were supposed to write about him? Why? I discuss Philo below, and why it doesn"t make sense to conclude that he should"ve written about Jesus. Which other scribes should"ve done so? I believe that the only "scribe" who had any interest in such figures as Jesus is Josephus, and he mentions Jesus twice. Also, my opponent discusses the "contemporary" Talmud as a source that can be used to prove Jesus" existence. I agree that the source must not be used to do this, not only because of the references to a figure other than Jesus, like my opponent said, but also because it is not a contemporary source. The Talmud was written before Jesus was born. I don"t understand why this is in the conversation. Also, the issue of Philo Judaeus, a "historian" from "the area of Jerusalem" is misleading. Philo was not a historian; he was a philosopher. I found no support for the idea that Philo was a historian. Also, Philo was from Alexandria, not, the area of Jerusalem, whatever that means. It is doubtful that someone from a city as distant as Alexandria would"ve heard about Jesus during his lifetime. He was not known far and wide; he was known throughout Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria, and even then to only several hundred people. Jesus was not known far and wide until the ministry of the apostles and disciples several years after Jesus" death, and even more so during the time of Paul. However, Paul didn"t travel or write until about 20 years after Jesus" death, meaning that Philo probably would"ve died before hearing about Jesus, especially since Paul never went to Alexandria. To my knowledge, the earliest reference to Alexandria in the book of Acts is in chapter 18, which mentions a Jew from Alexandria named Apollos. However, he turns up when Paul is in Corinth, which is again around AD 50. We must be careful when making statements like "Philo should have written about this." The argument from silence is rarely convincing. Precisely why should he have written about it? Let me divert from responding to my opponent to bring up a point that I believe is important here. Even though we can argue (unconvincingly) that the gospels were written by non-witnesses (during a time when many eyewitnesses were surely still alive), that Acts is mostly hearsay (even though the author uses the first person plural, especially toward the end of the book, indicating that he was indeed there), and that the outside sources are "awful" (even though the opponent agrees that they do in fact mention Jesus within the first century), we are still left with the fact that each of these sources mention Jesus, and from them we have a very clear picture of who Jesus was, and the fact that he actually existed. What is the alternative to all this information? This is a question I hope my opponent will soon answer. Why are people writing about Jesus during the first one hundred years after his death? Why do so many sources say he was crucified? Why are Paul"s, Peter"s, James", and other writings so harmonious about the fact that Jesus lived, died, was buried and rose again? If Jesus never existed, why do all these sources say he did?