Jesus of Nazareth never existed

"That's one man's opinions. Specifically, it was Erhman's opinions. Many more agree with Matthew's authorship." Is history then a matter of democracy? History is filled with stories of one opinion, standing in opposition to the majorities, which is ultimately deemed correct. Perhaps Erhman's thorough scholarship is correct, but many refuse it on the basis that his conclusion is undesirable. The majority explanation for this authorship is based on "belief", as the Wikipedia article phrases it, when Erhman's is not. "Furthermore, what evidence is used to back the datings that are supposedly correct?" Mark is dated around 70CE because of his mention of the destruction of the Temple. Mark makes a prophecy of the Temple's destruction. It doesn't really matter if he wrote the document before or after that event; regardless, it was around 70CE. John was written definitively anywhere in between 90CE and 140CE. That upper limited was settled by the discovery of a 6 cm by 9 cm papyrus fragment in Egypt. The fragment contains two verses of the gospel on one side (John 18:37-38) and three verses on the other side (John 18:31-33). The handwriting style on the fragment point to a date of around 110-140 CE(1). The lower limit is set at 90CE because of John 9:19-22 in which he talks about the banishment of Christians from synagogue worship, which points to a time around 90CE(1). "And why is it likely the case?" I refer you back to (2) which says, "How can we explain these very close parallels between the synoptic Gospels, especially considering that the Gospels were likely written in different places at different times?" I cannot possibly go over the minute differences between the documents in their language that suggest a difference in setting, but the source does. "John could have been bad at math…" I will entertain excuses for this inconsistency, but as I said, this is only an example. A list of twelve inconsistencies, including that one, between John and the Synoptic Gospels is available at (3) for your enjoyment. "Your source for the Greek argument fails. The link is broken." I apologize, it was cut off. No worries, I found a better source. "John was written for the Greek Christians of the beginning of the second century. These recent converts were more educated, wealthy, and despised the Diaspora Jews who resided in their cities and who enjoyed the respect of Rome. John removes the offensive references to Jesus as a Jewish Messiah that are particular to the earlier gospels, in order to present the Logos in more palatable form. In so doing, John creates a simulacrum that is barely human. The earlier Synoptic traditions are emphatic in presenting Jesus as the Jewish Messiah, descendent of David, and eschatological messenger of the end of the world where God collects his Chosen People. John removes the unpleasantness of Jewish geneaology as well as all references to Palestinian and Davidic descent".(4) "This is not a court of law. This is a debate." We are trying to reach a level of certainty that is akin to the raising or erasure of doubt from consideration. The same fallacies that we recognize in a court of law ought to rightfully be disallowed in such a debate as this. "For one thing, it didn't have to be Romans… All it takes is one man's decisions to remove it." Firstly, what would be the motivation of these alleged "anti-Jesus radicals"? Protecting the institutions of the Jewish leaders? Wouldn't they in that sense be reactionary conservatives to destroy a radical Jesus? And as I said, the scriptural evidence for Jesus' wide fame make it extremely doubtful (in the absence of some exaggeration in the Bible) that any one man or group could single-handedly succeed in erasing first-hand accounts of Jesus Christ. This effort would have to censor both Jewish and Roman texts. Instead of apologizing for this extreme lack of evidence by making up excuses, conspiracy theories, and uncorroborated claims about secret societies that destroy documents and records, isn't it just more rational to say these documents never existed in the first place because there was no Jesus? "But it is hardly probable that Philo had heard enough of Christ and His followers to give an historical foundation to the foregoing legends." Probably because there was no Christ and there were no followers to give an account for. "The earliest non-Christian writer who refers Christ is the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus…'" Virtually all claims about Jesus from outside Christian writings come from authors who born after the alleged life of Jesus, which dogs them with original problem that I raised: they cannot serve as eyewitness accounts of a living Jesus. In other words, they are hearsay. Josephus gave the earliest non-Christian account of Jesus. While many think that his short stories of Jesus (in his Antiquities) emerged as interpolation from a later Church father (http://www.mtio.com...), his birth in 37 CE, years after the execution, puts him outside of a first-hand account. In addition, Antiquities was written in 93 CE, which was after the Synoptic gospels were most certainly already written. Consequently, even if these accounts of Jesus emerged from his pen, these accounts could only serve as hearsay. "Vote PRO if you…" We should not have to apologize and make excuses for a lack of evidence. Instead, we should immediately dismiss any claim supposedly supported by the evidence which is clearly absent, as is the case here. For any belief, we reserve the right to ask "why" a person believes this. In this case, there is no reason, especially considering the documents with unknown authors and complete lack of eyewitness accounts. --- (1) = http://www.geocities.com... (2) = http://www.crivoice.org... (3) = http://www.bible.org... (4) = http://www.infidels.org...