Jesus probably didn't exist

I'm going to start with three quick admissions (not concessions, because I never argued for them).The first is that the text of the New Testament has been relatively well preserved. Compared to other texts, the New Testament has not been changed much through the ages - although of course, this does not help it much if it was mythic to begin with.The second is that the Zeitgeist movie is really, really bad, and that most serious scholars disagree with me. My position in this debate is, unfortunately, one mostly held by crazy internet lurkers who enjoy trolling Christians. This is the only argument all my debates on this subject so far have had in common, which is funny. This is the most obvious ever ad populum fallacy. An argument is not true or logical just because everyone believes in it, nor is an argument false just because everyone disbelieves in it. Like I keep saying, chances are excellent that you, as a random voter, disagree with everything I say. However, this debate is about who is right on the balance of the evidence given by myself and my opponent - not you, not some other scholars, and not crappy YouTube videos.The third is that there is no good literary evidence for Alexander the Great. Were it not for the abundance of archeological evidence, I probably would be sceptical about his existence too. We can discuss the historiography of other characters on another occasion.Is there evidence for Jesus?My opponent cites Craig Evan's book "Jesus and his World", which as chance would have it, I possess and have read a copy of. He does not tell us what archeological evidence Evans brings up for Jesus, which is a real shame. In fact, the book gives no archeological evidence that I have not refuted as a Christian relic in the previous round. Almost all of the archeological evidence is not for "Jesus" but for "his world", over which I think there need be no contention.Next my opponent dismisses the gnostic authors as writing fables. Perhaps they did - and perhaps, the mainstream church wrote fables and the gnostics corrected them. Historically there is no real way of telling, as each side accused the other of being wrong. My point is that the existence of historical writings characterising somebody as mythical lends some evidence that perhaps they were, even if there is the possibility (as there is with any text) that the text is mythical.I identified three main bodies of historical literature that believe Jesus existed, and these are the only other points of contention.First we turn to the gospels. I said I was willing to accept that Mark's style wasn't that which would be expected of a history, but this was not my argument. Until my opponent engages with my material there's nothing more I can say.Second we have the other historians. I criticised Suetonius, Tacitus and Josephus. My opponent adds the Babylonian Talmud to the mix, and Pliny the Younger, but he does not cite the specific passage in either. This is problematic because the Talmud contains reference to four different people who all share the same name and who all seem to have experienced a part of Jesus' life, although there is specific evidence for each of them also showing that that is not the Jesus we are talking about (http://www.angelfire.com...). Pliny does not mention Jesus at all, merely that Christians existed and that they sang hymns to Christ. People still do that today, but that does not provide evidence that he ever existed.My opponent dodges my criticism of Tacitus. All he says is that he doesn't get my argument, so let me explain again in slightly different terms. The problem with Tacitus is that there is historical evidence to suggest that he got his information from either what Christians told him, or what Romans thought Christians believed. Because the evidence they gave could not be falsified, it was accepted. The only other possible source is an official record - which would have a) yielded Jesus' name instead of his title, and b) made it near-impossible for Tacitus to get Pilate's rank wrong in the same passage.My opponent ignores my criticism of Suetonius, despite talking about him for ages. Until he engages with my material there's nothing more I can say.On Josephus, my opponent conceeds that the Testimonium is not authentic but argues for the authenticity of another passage with a much more passing reference to being Jesus' brother. This fails on two levels - first because "brother" is frequently used in a metaphoric sense to mean "bretheren", and second because it's an arbritrary place to draw the line. If one passage is edited, that fact provides really good evidence that the other passage might be edited too.The strongest evidence there is for Jesus are the letters. My opponent cites three passages that show the letter authors wrote Jesus had flesh and blood, but my point was that he is never explicitly called a human. Therefore this is not an "extreme error", nor even an "error". He says that witnessing is no criteria for historiography. That's a poor standard because of the Chinese whispering factor I talked about last round. Of course this happens through multiple independant lines, but that only makes it less accurate, as you cannot know which of the lines is accurate. He adds his belief that St Peter wrote Peter, which not even Christian scholars would defend (http://en.wikipedia.org...); moreover he does so without any evidence. That St John wrote the epistles of John has been rejected by the church for well over a millenium (http://en.wikipedia.org...). St James has the same problem with the word "brother", besides the epistle is generally considered to have been written after St James death, in the late first or early second century (http://earlychristianwritings.com...). That's not to mention the theological argument and the "divine revelation" argument against the letters. And this is presuming the letter writers are all absolutely truthful.Is there evidence against Jesus?First, my opponent conceeds (at least for the purposes of his argument) that the gospels contain contradictions. He claims that this is irrelevant to historical reliability, without addressing my argument that it is. To say it again: reality has no contradictions, so the words of the recieved writings about Jesus cannot be both real and contain contradictions. As Pope Leo XIII once said, "Truth can never contradict truth."Second, my opponent refuses to refute what he calls "annoying internet myths". In fact, I very nearly plagiarised my whole argument from early Christian theologian Celcius. The idea that Jesus' divinity fits a certain archtype of literature isn't some recent "discovery" of the internet but an ancient observation that the stories of Jesus are apparently mythic. But even if it were a recent discovery, that does not show it false. My opponent may not want to, but so long as he does not advance an argument for why Jesus does not fit the general mold of what makes a "saviour", I have managed to give you strong evidence against the existence of Jesus.