Jesus of Nazareth was a historical figure.

I will like to quickly clear up a few things: Philo Judaeus did in fact live in Alexandria, I've checked my sources and I misquoted, I do apologize. This doesn't negate the fact that Alexandria traded goods with Jerusalem, and inhabitants of Jerusalem traveled to Alexandria, so the news of Jesus would have easily been recorded by Philo of seeing that he was very interested in Jewish culture and religion. Now I would like to clear up Acts is a mesh of several authors, not just one, but Paul is believed by scholars to be one of the ones who wrote parts of the middle and later chapters of the book. Again, Paul never saw Jesus in person but only was told by others. Also, the writings that he did record were only focused on his death and resurrection, not valid pieces of evidence to suggest a historical person. As my opponent stated, sources made references to Jesus of the first century which indicates that his existence was valid. This is a fallacy because as an example let's take Josephus a keen historian that Christian apologists use in order to defend Jesus as being an actual historical person. He makes mention of Hercules in his writings, speak of him as being a real historical person, are we to believe that Hercules the demi-god son of Zeus existed? That the supernatural fetes that he accomplished actually happened? Josephus in these instances clearly shows he only wrote about these incidents because they are hearsay and took them as supposed facts. The other ancient historians that did make mention of a Jesus did so years after the supposed death of Jesus, usually referencing to those that called themselves "Christians". Recording acts of groups that follow a "god" doesn't serve as proof that such a deity, demi-god, superman even existed at all. Also, just as Tacitus mentions a Christus, so does he also mention Hercules many times in his Annals. I will like to elaborate further on this regarding Hercules (commentaters used Spiderman but this might be better). Examine the evidence for Hercules of Greek mythology and you will find it parallels the "historicity" of Jesus to such an amazing degree that for Christian apologists to deny Hercules as a historical person belies and contradicts the very same methodology used for a historical Jesus. Note that Herculean myth resembles Jesus in many areas. The mortal and chaste Alcmene, the mother of Hercules, gave birth to him from a union with God (Zeus). Similar to Herod who wanted to kill Jesus, Hera wanted to kill Hercules. Like Jesus, Hercules traveled the earth as a mortal helping mankind and performed miraculous deeds. Similar to Jesus who died and rose to heaven, Hercules died, rose to Mt. Olympus and became a god. Hercules gives example of perhaps the most popular hero in Ancient Greece and Rome. They believed that he actually lived, told stories about him, worshiped him, and dedicated temples to him. Pro said: "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?" What is the alternative to all this information? Quite simply that the Jesus story isn't new, this story has been used before by other cultures to support their savior myth. Almost all demi-god savior beings have the same attributes ascribed to Jesus like Horus, Buddha, Krishna, Odysseus, Romulus, Dionysus, Hercules, Glycon, Zoroaster/Zarathustra, and Attis of Phrygia. All of whom have similar if not exactly the same story attributed to Jesus of the bible and who all pre-date the time Jesus supposedly existed. Why are people writing about Jesus during the first one hundred years after his death? Why do so many sources say he was crucified? Seeing that this savior folklore have been used for centuries, well before the time Jesus supposedly lived, there's no wonder why another demi-god savior figure is invented in Judea which leads to many believing in that story. Now why do so many mention his supposed crucifixion? Well it's not because of any eyewitness report, but rather hearsay. Those ancient historians that recorded the name Christ or Jesus did so because they were simply told by those that were believing in that movement. Lastly, Pro stated "why are the stories harmonious"? This is your view but the facts show that there are wealth of surviving documents that are not included in the bible yet speak about Jesus. What's very interesting is there are several books that are referenced by other bible characters but are also 'missing' from the bible canon. Those lost books though have been found for the most part and in fact tell a much different story about Jesus (as well as other bible characters) then what the early church fathers wanted the masses to be familiar with. It has the appearance of being harmonious because the 'committee' decided which books stayed and which books went, it's that simple which puts into the question the entire bible. (a whole different topic) History has shown that every culture had a "super-savior" demi-god of some kind, who did virtually the same things that are reported to what Jesus of the bible apparently did. When it comes to using ancient historians for Jesus in particular (excluding other mythical figures like Hercules) many problems occur with the reliability of the accounts from ancient historians. Most of them did not provide sources for their claims, as they rarely included bibliographic listings, or supporting claims. They did not have access to modern scholarly techniques, and many times would include hearsay as evidence. No one today would take a modern scholar seriously who used the standards of ancient historians, yet this proves as the only kind of source that Christology comes from. Couple this with the fact that many historians believed as Christians themselves, sometimes members of the Church, and you have a built-in prejudice towards supporting a "real" Jesus. If you want to believe something so bad, you can always find a way to convince yourself and others by manipulating the facts or fabricating stories out of thin air. Some people actually believe that just because so much voice and ink has spread the word of a character named Jesus throughout history, that this must mean that he actually lived. This argument simply does not hold water. The number of people who believe or write about something or the professional degrees they hold say nothing at all about fact. Facts derive out of evidence, not from hearsay, not from hubris scholars, and certainly not from faithful believers. Regardless of the position or admiration held by a scholar, believer, or priest, if he or she cannot support a hypothesis with good evidence, then it can only remain a hypothesis. There is insufficient or no evidence to support a person of divinity, Jesus, ever existed who performed the fetes that my opponent will like to believe. Even for the sake of the argument, if there is evidence that "a" Jesus existed in Jerusalem, this doesn't serve as proof that his miracles actually happened, that he healed the sick/lame, that he walked on water, that he turned water into wine, or that he was raised from the dead. I hope my opponent understood my position clearer and I'm looking forward to his response Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org... http://en.wikipedia.org... http://listverse.com... http://listverse.com... http://www.answering-christianity.com...