Jesus was a Historical Figure

I apologize for my misspelling of the Jewish Text, I was typing fast and not paying attention. Now, let's continue. 1. I will also draw upon the Pauline Letters, which are dated 15-20 years after the death of Jesus. Paul knew Jesus was real for a fact. He was in touch with James (Brother of Jesus) and Peter (One of His followers). Now, these are clear "first hand" eyewitnesses to Jesus and His life who Paul came in constant contact with, they weren't made up characters, they are historically verified individuals. However, if Jesus wasn't a real person who else was Paul speaking of throughout a good quarter of the New Testament? This isn't about the supposed encounter that Paul had, or anything supernatural. But simply of Jesus himself. Who was Paul speaking of Con? If none other than a person who He believed to be real because of the information He got from multiple sources and a so called "First Hand Encounter". 2. To better understand Con I would like to know how He came to his conclusion that Jesus never existed. I would also like Con's explanation on how the Christian movement started, along with how multiple sources have written of the same man from the Middle East whose death resulted in a new movement. 3. I would also like to give quotes from various scholars and academics who support my supposition. Jesus" death by crucifixion under Pontius Pilate is as sure as anything historical can ever be. For if no follower of Jesus had written anything for one hundred years after his crucifixion we would still know about him from two authors not among his supporters. Their names are Flavius Josephus and Cornelius Tacitus." " John Dominic Crossan, Co-founder of The Jesus Seminar Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, pg 145 "Jesus death as a consequence of crucifixion is indisputable."- Atheist Gerd Ludemann-The Resurrection of Christ, Pg 50. E.P. Sanders: The Historical Figure of Jesus. New York: Penguin Books, 1993, says: "That Jesus" followers (and later Paul) had resurrection experiences is, in my judgment, a fact. What the reality was that gave rise to the experiences I do not know" pgs 279-280. "I do not regard deliberate fraud as a worthwhile explanation. Many of the people in these lists were to spend the rest of their lives proclaiming that they had seen the risen Lord, and several of them would die for their cause. Moreover, a calculated deception should have produced great unanimity. Instead, there seem to have been competitors: "I saw him first!" "No! I did." Paul"s tradition that 500 people saw Jesus at the same time has led some people to suggest that Jesus" followers suffered mass hysteria. But mass hysteria does not explain the other traditions." Pgs. 279-280. "Finally we know that after his death his followers experienced what they described as the "resurrection": the appearance of a living but transformed person who had actually died. They believed this, they lived it, and they died for it." Pg 280. Marcus Borg (The Jesus Seminar) "An examination of the claims for and against the historicity of Jesus thus reveals that the difficulties faced by those undertaking to prove that he is not historical, in the fields both of the history of religion and the history of doctrine, and not least in the interpretation of the earliest tradition are far more numerous and profound than those which face their opponents. Seen in their totality, they must be considered as having no possible solution. Added to this, all hypotheses which have so far been put forward to the effect that Jesus never lived are in the strangest opposition to each other, both in their method of working and their interpretation of the Gospel reports, and thus merely cancel each other out. Hence we must conclude that the supposition that Jesus did exist is exceedingly likely, whereas its converse is exceedingly unlikely. This does not mean that the latter will not be proposed again from time to time, just as the romantic view of the life of Jesus is also destined for immortality. It is even able to dress itself up with certain scholarly technique, and with a little skillful manipulation can have much influence on the mass of people. But as soon as it does more than engage in noisy polemics with "theology" and hazards an attempt to produce real evidence, it immediately reveals itself to be an implausible hypothesis""Marcus Borg and N. T. Wright "A Vision of the Christian Life", The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions, San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2007), 236 Robert J. Miller (The Jesus Seminar) "We can be certain that Jesus really existed (despite a few highly motivated skeptics who refuse to be convinced), that he was a Jewish teacher in Galilee, and that he was crucified by the Roman government around 30 CE""Robert J. Miller, The Jesus Seminar and Its Critics, Santa Rosa: Polebridge, 1999, p. 38 Michael Martin: Atheist "Some skeptics have maintained that the best account of the biblical and historical evidence is the theory that Jesus never existed; that is, that Jesus" existence is a myth (Well 1999). Such a view is controversial and not widely held even by anti-Christian thinkers." "Michael Martin, "Skeptical Perspectives on Jesus" Resurrection", in Delbert Burkett"s The Blackwell Companion to Jesus, Oxford: Blackwell, 2011), 285 Bart Ehrman quote: "It is a historical fact that some of Jesus" followers came to believe that he had been raised from the dead soon after his execution. We know some of these believers by name; one of them, the apostle Paul, claims quite plainly to have seen Jesus alive after his death. Thus, for the historian, Christianity begins after the death of Jesus, not with the resurrection itself, but with the belief in the resurrection" The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings. Third Edition. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.276). More quotes about the existence of Jesus: "What about those writers like Acharya S (The Christ Conspiracy) and Timothy Freke & Peter Gandy (The Jesus Mysteries), who say that Jesus never existed, and that Christianity was an invented religion, the Jewish equivalent of the Greek mystery religions? This is an old argument, even though it shows up every 10 years or so. This current craze that Christianity was a mystery religion like these other mystery religions-the people who are saying this are almost always people who know nothing about the mystery religions; they"ve read a few popular books, but they"re not scholars of mystery religions. The reality is, we know very little about mystery religions-the whole point of mystery religions is that they"re secret! So I think it"s crazy to build on ignorance in order to make a claim like this. I think the evidence is just so overwhelming that Jesus existed, that it"s silly to talk about him not existing. I don"t know anyone who is a responsible historian, who is actually trained in the historical method, or anybody who is a biblical scholar who does this for a living, who gives any credence at all to any of this." Bart Ehrman, interview with David V. Barrett, "The Gospel According to Bart", Fortean Times (221), 2007 Robert E. Van Voorst, Professor of New Testament Studies at Western Theological Seminary, in his discussion on the historical evidence of Jesus outside of the New Testament states: "The theory of Jesus" nonexistence is now effectively dead as a scholarly question." " Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence. Pg 14. Mark Allan Powell, a professor of NT and chairman for Historical Jesus at the Society of Biblical Literature puts it harsh stating: "Anyone who says that today [i.e. that Jesus didn"t exist]"in the academic world at least"gets grouped with the skinheads who say there was no Holocaust and the scientific holdouts who want to believe the world is flat." -Mark A Powell, Jesus As a Figure in History: How Modern Historians View the Man from Galilee. 168. The late F.F. Bruce in his popular The