Jesus Probably existed

My thanks for your acceptance of the debate. I would just like to mention that debates regarding the historicity of Christ are few simply because He has already been proven. The only people that still argue are those misinformed who have not heard the 2000 year old news. In fact, most renowned atheists attack the Divinity of Christ and not his existence, Dan Barker for example. He is an atheist who has more knowledge about Christianity than arguably any other atheist in the world. One of the most prestigious atheists, he has never once argued against the existence of Christ in Public, obviously to avoid humiliation and discrediting. Moving on, my arguments that I will be presenting this round is evidence for Jesus secular to the bible. Next round I will be using the Bible as my main base of arguments. 1) Evidence for Jesus is presented by Roman Historians. 2) Evidence for Jesus is presented by Jewish Rabbi. 3) Evidence for Jesus is presented by Josephus. 4) Evidence for Jesus is presented by Pliny the Younger. 5) Evidence for Jesus is presented by Lucian 1) Tacitus was a Roman Historian and Senator[1]. He is considered the father of historical texts by modern day historians. After the fire of Rome, he documented the following record: 'Nero fabricated Scapegoats, and punished with every refinement, the notoriously depraved Christians (as they were popularly called). Their originator, Christ, had been executed in Tiberius' reign by the governor of Judea, Pontius Pilatus. But in spite of this setback, the deadly superstition had broken out afresh, not only in Judea (where the mischief had started) but also in Rome.' [2] Looking at the text, it can be concluded that Tacitus shared a disdain for Eastern religions along with Nero. Nero especially disliked the new religion of Christianity which can -to an extent- be associated with Tacitus. 2) Writings from the Talmud dating from 70 AD to about 200 AD depict in accurate detail, occurrences regarding Christ. 'On the eve of the Passover, Yeshu(Hebrew spelling of Jesus) was hanged. For forty days before the execution took place, a herald went forth and cried, "He is going forth to be stoned because he has practiced sorcery and has enticed Israel to apostasy. Anyone who can say anything in his favour, let him come forward and plead on his behalf." But since nothing was brought forth in his favour, he was hanged on the eve of the Passover.'[3] This passage can refer to 3 possible people who were hanged on Passover. A thief, another thief and Jesus. The thieves were not accused of sorcery or enticing an entire nation to apostasy, so it must have been Jesus. The other Obvious hint is that it says it was Jesus. Yeshu is the Hebrew spelling of Jesus. [4] Also note the Authors of this text, the Jewish Rabbi. The Rabbi, Pharisees and Sadducee's of the Jewish nation were all enemies of Jesus. He had undermined their teachings multiple times and made direct accusations at their integrity. There is absolutely no chance what-so-ever that these religious leaders were in a plot with the disciples of Christ to 'conjure' his existence. What they documented was text after text about Jesus that painted him in a very bad light. 3) Josephus was a Romano-Jewish historian,[5,6] who wrote hefty amounts of passage concerning Jesus.[7,8] He also fought in the war against the Romans, a war which he recorded in several Volumes after his capture. The Roman who captured him later became the emperor, and exulted him to a position of elevated status among the Roman historians. Josephus is noteworthy in this debate because in his book, the antiquities of the Jews, he makes the following statement: 'Ananus brought before the Sanhedrin "a man named James, the brother of Jesus who was called the Christ, and certain others. he accused them of having transgressed the law, and condemned them to be stoned to death."' [9] Note, Josephus was not a Christian. He was not interested in Christianity, and he showed complete impartiality to the new religion. In fact, Josephus talks very little about Christianity and instead focuses on Judeo-Roman history. But the references to this 'Jesus' who was called Christ are very present and do not fit the descriptions of any of the other 60 self-proclaiming Messiahs. James, who is the highlight of Josephus's writings here is recorded as being the brother of Jesus in Mark 6:3. Also note: The document records Jesus as being called 'The Christ,' even though the text is not about Jesus. So why would Josephus write that Jesus was called Christ? Its because he was documenting the existence and identity of a notable historical figure. Another famous passage about Jesus is found in source 10.[10] I will not include it in the debate due to the word count. 4) Pliny is known for his hundreds of surviving letters, which are an invaluable historical source for the time period.[11,12,13,14] In a letter he wrote around the year AD 112, Pliny stated: 'They [The Christians] were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, where they sang in alternate verses a hymn to Christ, as to a god, and bound themselves by an solemn oath, not to do any wicked deeds...' [15] Pliny was affronted by a dilemma, that was, he was killing Christians and he didn't want to. He had changed his mindset so that he reasoned they were not deserving of death simply because they had done nothing wrong. Being an open-minded person, he decided to write to emperor Trajan for assistance in the matter. The above exert is from one of his letters. Throughout the entire letter, he uses the term 'Christian(s) 7 times, and Christ 3 times. [15] Note how he writes about Christ assuming his audience knows he exists and is aware of some details about him. 5) Lucian was a fanatical enemy of Christianity, he used whatever opportunities available to Criticise and degrade the religion. In his book,the death of peregrin he writes: 'The Christians, as you know, worship a man to this day- the distinguished personage who introduced their novel rites, and was crucified on that account... You see, these misguided creatures start with the general conviction that they are immortal for all time, which explains the contempt of death and self-devotion which are so common among them; and then it was impressed on them by their original lawgiver that they are all brothers, from the moment they are converted, and deny the gods of Greece, and worship the crucified sage, and live after his laws.' [16] Note where this enemy of Christ says: 'the distinguished personage,'was crucified,'original lawgiver,'crucified sage.' He knew very well about Christ and the Christians and he said all sorts of bad things about them. If you could ask these prominent historical figures the simple question 'was there a Jesus called Christ?' All of them, be it an enemy or neutral third party, would say, yes. Jesus existed. No questions asked. I look forward to hearing from my opponent. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org... [2] Annals 15:44 [3] The Babylonian Talmud. Volume 4 Seherdrin, 43a pg 281. [4] http://en.wikipedia.org... [5] http://en.wikipedia.org... [6] http://www.josephus.org... [7] http://www.biblestudytools.com... [8] http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com... [9] Antiquities of the Jews 20:9:1 [10] Antiquities of the Jews 18:3:3. [11] http://en.wikipedia.org... [12] http://www.volcanolive.com... [13] http://www.earlychristianwritings.com... [14] http://www.earlychristianwritings.com... [15] Pliny Letters, translated by William Melmoth rev by W.M.L Hutchingson (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1935) Vol 2, X:96. [16] Lucian,the death of Peregrin pp. 11-13 In the works of Lucian of Samosta translated by H.W Fowler 1949 volume 1.