Jesus claimed to be a Jewish Messiah and was later misrepresented to create Christianity

Pro asserted that Josephus "refutes" the Christian narrative about why Jesus was crucifiedMy response: Well, that shows me that you haven't even bothered to read what Josephus said:"Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, [if it be lawful to call him a man;] for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher [of such men as receive the truth with pleasure,] He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. [He was the Christ.] And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross" [1]Josephus, being a hostile witness says that Jesus performed deeds that people took as miraculous, he was a teacher, and was condemned to death for his teachings, all of which the Gospels say, so I don't know what you are trying to prove from Josephus.Pro assserted that Paul had a negative view of the law.My response: It seems to me that Pro hasn't even bothered to read any of Paul's letters, Paul never said the law was bad, what he did say was that the law exposed our inability to do the law perfectly, which is why we needed Christ to redeem us, here is the proof:"Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good. Has then what is good become death to me? Certainly not! But sin, that it might appear sin, was producing death in me through what is good, so that sin through the commandment might become exceedingly sinful." (Romans 7:12-13)So to say that Paul had a radically different view from Jesus on the Law is to ignore the context of Paul's letters and/or to ignore what he actually says.Pro asserted that if pharisees are misrepresented in the Gospels, then someone deliberately distorted the Jesus story.My response: Again, where is the evidence for this assertion? Simply saying that the pharisees were misrepresented in the Gospels isn't good enough, give me your evidence.Pro asserted that the Bible whitewashes the Romans, overshadows their conflict with the Jews, and why Jesus was crucified.My response: I'm not following what your point is...what do you mean by whitewashing? You haven't given me an example of this. Also, making bogus claims like "the Bible overshadows the Romans conflicts with the Jews" is an unqualified assertion, again if you're going to make an assertion, you better present your evidence, which I got non from you. As far as why the Romans crucified Jesus, I already explained that, but for some reason, you don't like what I have to say, or you just simply ignored me.Pro asserted that "I cannot agree that you're doing a better job by believing the Word as it is, and instead demanding of unbelievers to prove Gospels wrong, onus probandi is yours."My response: How do you expect me to prove the Gospels for you when there are no other 1st century documents that tell us about what Jesus said? I go by what the earliest Historical evidence says about Jesus, namely the Gospels, you on the other hand accuse the Gospels of distorting the message of Jesus, while at the same time pick and choose what appeals to your interests, very inconsistent. You operate under the assumption of "guilty until proven innocent". It's actually the other way around..."innocent until proven guilty" which you haven't gave a shred of evidence of the Gospel writers lying about Jesus, just "well I don't like that".Pro asserted that "As you can see in Phase Two, I already listed this argument. You ignored this only to argue about virgin birth and other less important matters. (also ignoring my reminder that this discussion is about the reasons why Jesus was crucified since that has a lot to do with internal consistency of Gospels' narration)My response: The reason I mentioned the virgin birth because it was relevant to this topic, namely does the earliest evidence we have about the Historical Jesus teach everything that Christians believe today, and I brought that up to prove the virgin birth wasn't a later invention. Again, I already answered why Jesus was crucified, you still haven't answered that.Pro said "One can unmask internal inconsistency of story made too complicated with inventions and "bones of old narrative jutting out of new" as Hyam puts it, to supply alternative theories."My response: You can come up with 1 alternate theory, you can come up with 10 alternate theories, you can come up with 100s of alternate theories; I couldn't careless, simply saying "well other alternatives are possible" is just a theory, that has no basis in reality unless you can prove it with sources that talk about the life of Jesus from the 1st century, which you have failed to do so.Pro said "well, prove it to me that the Jews in the 1st century found it blasphemy to claim to be the Son of God"My response: I think I know what you're getting at...Son of God doesn't necessarily mean you're God, since others were called the Son of God. The difference with Jesus is that when he claimed to be the Son, he did so in a more exalted sense, for example:So the Jewish leaders began persecuting Jesus, because he kept doing such things on the Sabbath. But Jesus answered them, “My Father has been working until now, and I, too, am working.” So the Jewish leaderswere trying all the harder to kill him, because he was not only breaking the Sabbath but was also calling God his own Father, thereby making himself equal to God.There is your answer...notice the way Jesus talks, he is accused of working on the sabbath, and his response to their charge is "well, my Father is working, therefore, I have that same authority to do so". The Jews understood that by calling God his own Father and claiming to do things that the Father does, Jesus was making himself equal to God. Which is why the text says the Jews wanted to kill him for claiming to be the Son of God, in the sense that he is equal to God.Pro said "You're becoming passive-aggressive since the last phase Pro, stop snapping at me unless you want to get worse scores for tone of dicussion."My response: You think that I am somehow mad because I am answering you? So I can't emphatically respond to you, without giving you the impression that I am mad because I am defending what I believe? This is a debate for crying out loud...not a campfire where we are all friends and sing "we are a happy family". This is a debate, if you can't handle your views being challenged or can't handle the pressure, then maybe debating is not for you. Accusing me of being mad proves what exactly?Pro said "Is that meant to say you consider that article by tektonics unbiased? So then they too, "pick and choose", ignoring bulk of information Hyam introduced."My response: Is that meant to say you consider that Maccoby to be unbiased? So then, he too picks and choses what suits himself from the New Testament, and ignores what doesn't suit his agenda. Ignoring Maccoby's claims? No serious scholar considers Maccoby to be an authority on what he is attacking, only people who want a reason to not believe in Jesus appeal to him, like yourself. And quite the contrary, Maccoby is ignoring a majority of the New Testament, and takes Paul's statements out of context to give us the impression that we can't trust Paul.Pro appealed to 1 Corinthians 9:21-22 as his "proof" that Paul abolished the law.My response: Again, Pro has completely manhandled the words of Paul, Paul did not say "no more law", the point he was trying to get at is that even though that we are saved, it is expected to live lives of righteousness, doing good works, even though this doesn't save you, but it is expected that you live lives of righteousness and doing good works, which included the law and the commandments, even though some of the restrictions of the law were removed, the law altogether wasn't, here is proof from Paul:"Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law." (Romans 3:28)"Do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not! On the contrary, we establish the law." (Romans 3:31)Paul is very clear, the law doesn't save you, but he never abolished it, so stop trying to accuse Paul of doing something he never inteded to do.Pro asserted that Paul lied about who he really was, because if he was a pharisee, then why was he persecuting Christians. He also said that "Paul being a student of Gamaliel is an obvious lie".My response: Whether Paul was who he claimed to be or not, is not relevant to this debate, we aren't debating the credentials of Paul, we are debating whether or not what Christians believe was taught by Jesus, and on whether or not the early Christians misunderstood what Jesus said, so this point isn't really relevant to this discussion.Pro finally said "answer the questions that the articles I have you raise".My response: Why is it that I have to do so, when you didn't do the exact same thing to the articles I provided you, all you did was dismiss them, so I will be like you and do the same, I dismiss every rubbish article that you give me, this debate is not about appealing to authority, it's about establishing your case from historical evidence which you haven't done so.Conclusion: To wrap things up, I thank pro for this debate, but I got to be up front, I was very disappointed with the way he handled this debate. I clearly demonstrated that everything Christians believe is taught by Jesus in the earliest sources we have on his life: his deity, his death on the cross for our sins, and his resurrection from the dead. All of these teachings, I demonstrated were taught by Jesus, he taught his deity, he taught that he came to die for sins, and he taught his resurrection, this was also the teachings of his earliest followers. All pro could do in response was say "those were later inserted" or "they were invented by Paul". If he wants to believe that, that's fine, but he can't do so on the basis of evidence. All of our earliest historical evidence proves that Jesus claimed to be God, claimed to die for our sins, and claimed he would rise again.