Jesus Probably existed

My defense of my Previous arguments will be mostly addressed in the final round, but I would like to point out some things that I find extremely amusing/hypocritical. 1) Tacitus: 'Why call him Christ and not Jesus?' Tacitus uses this term to justify his claim of the Christians originator. Not because he was hearing whispers. Tacitus was a renowned historian by Roman standards and even by modern standards, as he is still exulted as a great person today. He never once let slip in his integrity by publishing a historical document that made an unasserted claim. When he said 'Christ,' he indicated that Jesus was called the Christ all over the Eastern World. Furthermore, he made it clear that Christ was well known and not a rumor. people travelled far and wide to see Jesus teach, if they never saw him, the rumor would have been killed instantly. But it only grew, as those people who had travelled dispersed back to their homelands with accounts of the famous teacher. Let it be noted that it is impossible to fabricate a rumor of a person to fool an entire country, especially when everyone wishes to see him. 2) The Talmud 'Jews were merely parodying the Christian account.' Other way around, Christians were a big minority in the first century and everyone had the same account of events as each other. The debate therefore in early years between Jews and Christians was whether or not Jesus was who he claimed to be: The Son of God. The Jewish leaders had no need to approach a Christian for information about Christ considering they knew more about him than many Christians. The fact of the matter, is that the Jewish leaders knew him personally, and recorded events in present speech, which were later transferred into the Talmud. 3) Josephus This is were I laughed, he says Josephus's account was a forgery by Christians despite modern day historians and scholars having the surving original copies. On the documents, there are no signs of erasures or editing, the writing is from the hand of Josephus and the only reason why my opponent claims they are forgery is because of some colourful adjectives about Christ that doesn't agree with his case. I would like to conclude this section by showing how my opponent is either a hypocrite or historically illiterate. His most constant argument is that the further away something is written from the time of the event, the less reliable it is. If that is the case then he has claimed that the New Testament is the most reliable documents ever written and that nearly every ancient historical figure that we know to exist is actually all just a hoax! These documents written by famous historians are much closer to their date of publication than many others that we accept as accurate. Are we to discredit everything based on his claim? Historians certainly don't think so. His claim also supports my upcoming arguments about the New Testament, but first, lets have a look at what else he had to say in his Case. 1) The account of Jesus is similar to that of pre-existing saviours. Another laugh here, this argument only ever gets used to attack the divinity of Christ, not his historicity. But for the time being, lets give my opponent the benefit of the doubt and play along with what he has to say. Dionysus: Was the Greek god of wine. [1,2] However, his background story was exactly that, a narrative to go along with the history of one of their gods, as was traditional with most pagans. They did not provide any sort of evidence what-so-ever that Dionysus may have been a real person once, it was all based on faith. The same applies to the other gods he mentions. However, saying that people constantly rise up claiming to be a Messiah advances that claim that Jesus was not the Son of God. However, it does not at all seek to help the claim that Jesus did not exist. I would like to remind my opponent of the topic: 'Jesus probably existed.' Not 'Jesus was the Son of God.' His next claim is more ludicrous than the first. He brings up long-debunked allegations of so called 'contradictions' in the Bible. Before I address this, I would like to observe that we may be seeing an admittance by Con that the New Testament is reliable considering that he only brings up a single set of old claims against it. Or else he just got bored and ended his case. Which is hardly sporting. Matthew 1:17 and Matthew 1:2 Matthew 1:2-16 gives names of family members, father to son, to son etc starting from Abraham and ending with Jesus. Every couple versus it stops and says something like: '...They were carried away to Babylon.' In Matthew 1:17 the list ends and it adds up each section, from Abraham to David, 14 generations; David to captivity in Babylon, 14 generations; Babylon until Christ, 14 generations. Each passage says 14x3 overall. 14x3 according to the first passage equals 42. 14x3=42 according to the second passage as well. Either my opponent is not the best at maths, or he was using material from someone else, that someone else being very bad at maths. Next time my opponent claims a contradiction is happening, please look it up in the Bible first. 2 Timothy 3:16 and 1 Corinthians 7:12 One passage says that all scripture is inspired by God the other says the inspired writer of many of the letters was Paul. No Contradiction here people, just an overworking imagination. Move on... Acts 20:35 Does not reference other passages, it just quotes Jesus. A very funny misinterpretation/mistake by my opponent. Luke 4:29 says that there is a hill with a cliff face in Nazareth. My opponent says Nazareth is not on a mountain. Luke agrees, there are multiple mountains IN Nazareth, not the other way around. My argument for this round: The New testament is accurate and therefore Jesus probably existed. The New testament documents enjoy far more historical references and citations than any other historical article in existence. Its been documented by so many people so many times that we can now piece it all back together if we were to completely lose it. The same cannot be said of ANYTHING else. Referring back to where my opponent claimed that the longer the time gap, the more obliged we are to have to throw out the material. I would just like to say that I completely agree this argument in my favour. All the secular evidence I gave may be accurate according to modern day scholars and in comparison to other documents, but it isn't as good as the New Testament, so I will now advance my opponent's argument, that the New Testament is more accurate than anything else. First lets compare it to the very best and famous historical references we have Homers illiad: Written: 700BC Earliest manuscript: Unknown Number of surviving manuscripts: 643 History of Herodotus: Written: 450BC Earliest manuscript: 900AD Number of surviving Manuscripts: 8 Josephus' Jewish wars: Written: 70AD Earliest manuscript: 400AD Number of surviving Manuscripts: 9 New Testament: Written: 50-100AD Earliest Manuscript: 125AD Number of surviving Manuscripts: 5725 So my opponent argues that everything we know about Rome, Greece and Every other ancient source is invalid if he does not accept that the New Testament is more authentic than all of them. Furthermore, if you were to ask any honest historian this question: 'Are the New Testament Documents the most authenticated documents based on manuscript evidence?' they will always say yes. Whether to preserve their integrity or because they already know the answer, either way, its because they are forced to. I would like to conclude my case by asking you the date. Today, as I post this argument, its the 15th of the 9th 2012. But what is it the 2012th year from? A big rumor? No, Its the 2012th year from the most famous and most documented person ever to walk this planet. The resolution is affirmed. [1] http://www.greekmythology.com... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org...