Jesus Probably existed

I would like to spend this entire round correcting my opponents mistakes. But before I go on to rebuttals, I've come to the conclusion that after reading this debate, many people will assume it is a merely a squabble between an atheist and a christian apologist. I do not doubt this view in light of Con's last post. So lets take a moment to examine things that actual credible people have to say on this matter. Once you have read it all, you will be able to conclude the following: >The majority of atheist doubt the historicity of Christ. >The majority of of historians and scholars do not doubt the historicity of Christ. I find that summary rather amusing. In a 2011 review of the state of modern scholarship, Bart Ehrman wrote: "He certainly existed, as virtually every competent scholar of antiquity, Christian or non-Christian, agrees" [1] Van Voorst, Robert E (2000) states that modern scholarship views the theories of non-existence of Jesus as effectively refuted. [2] Michael Grant states that "In recent years, 'no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non historicity of Jesus' or at any rate very few, and they have not succeeded in disposing of the much stronger, indeed very abundant, evidence to the contrary."[3] James D. G. Dunn states that the theories of non-existence of Jesus are "a thoroughly dead thesis" [4] Richard A. Burridge states: "There are those who argue that Jesus is a figment of the Church"s imagination, that there never was a Jesus at all. I have to say that I do not know any respectable critical scholar who says that any more." [5] The only thing that my opponent can refute here is that I am wrong when I say that most athiests doubt the historicity of Christ. He can do this by arguing that very few athiests doubt the historicity of Christ, which I encourage him to do. These quotes from modern day historians confirms my claim that my opponent is in the habit of using debunked arguments in an attempt to support his case. The fact is, his case has been thoroughly refuted and disproven countless times in the past. I suspect my opponent hasn't been told this and thus, believes that Christ might actually be a myth. Which is a myth in itself. Moving away from the topic for one moment, I just wish to say that I hope this is the first debate in DDO that actually manages to convince the opposition, Its bad enough being wrong without having to make a show of it. Progressing on, I want to look through his patchy rebuttals. Here, I must assume that my opponent used his own mind or unknown sources to base his work on. Lets look at his assault on Tacitus. My opponent attacks the forefather of written history by saying that the Roman Historian was only writing down unverified rumors. However, he has failed to prove the following misconceptions that must be true before he can procede to attack the Historian. a) The rumor started AFTER the death of Jesus and not during his life. b) The rumor was unverifiable. c) Eye witness accounts that were not documented due to their numbers were all false. d) The Eye witnesses were under the influence of a mass-hypnotist who convinced them to go back home with the same story. Once my opponent proves that all the above were true, which is unproveable, then he has the right to attack the integrity of Tacitus. Until then, his BoP that Tacitus was dishonestly documenting rumors remains unfulfilled and Tacitus remains innocent of that charge until proven guilty. The Talmud: 'my opponent's entire case is premised in the Talmud being written in the first century.' There is no need to overexhadurate Con. I might as well say: Con's rebuttal's are all based on the assertion that something cannot be accurate at all if it is written more than 50 years after the event happened. In which case, nearly everthing we know about our past over 1000 years ago is compeltely and utterly innacurate. Which is an accurate summary of his claims. Furthermore, he didn't actually provide an argument as to why we cannot use the Talmud, beside saying that it might be speaking of a different Jesus, in which case I say that the religious leaders did not document unimportant figures, and documenting a minor Jesus would be a large break in tradition. And we do not need to dispute that the religious leaders of the Jews were a big fan of tradition, 6000 years of history, they still havent changed, prefering even to abstain from modern day technology too. So my opponents rebuttal of the Talmud is based on assumptions instead of hard facts. Josephus: I would like to point out now that my opponent quotes from a source that contradicts his case. He uses a wikipedia article (which can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org... ) to claim that we cannot trust documents recovered in the 11th century. But the article says that Josephus's work was in fact done in the first century. I can't imagine what my opponent is trying to claim. "...we have surviving original copies of Josephus. This is wrong," Is my opponent claiming that none of the copies survived? In which case, he certainly disagrees with the source of his information. "Note that the Antiquities is a different book from the Histories, which curiously enough do not mention Jesus at all." Yes, it's obvious, in the histories, you find a record of Jesus, because he was historical, and in the Antiquities, you find a completely different saga about completely different things. I dont find anything suspicious about it with the exception of my opponents overworking imagination trying to justify a long dead claim. New Testament. 'Christ was born around 1BC-1AD according to convention.' According to convention is not according to evidence, I personally, disagree that the year of Christ's birth can be pinpointed down to a few years simply because most evidence came about during his life, during the time he got famous. he wasn't famous at birth, and thus, logically, there is little evidence to assume that it was exactly 1BC-1AD. Now note this quote from my opponent: 'Historical proximity is but one measure of likely accuracy.' Do you see him telling us that the dates between the documents publication and the actual event matter? Its right in that quote. But notice how I have been trying to advocate that claim to my opponents deaf ears and even though he says it himself, he still doesn't believe it. All throughout his rebuttals, my opponent has been reiterating on the point that Histoical proximity is everything, nearly every rebuttal he has, he has pointed out that the Historical proximity is no enough to satisfy his uneducated guesses. So now that he has aknowledged that Historical proximity is but one measure, I would like to dismiss all his rebuttals that are completely centered around historical proximity. Even though I have rebutted, his words have contradicted his behaviour and he therefore, has not refuted anything adequately enough to dismiss it. All my arguments stand. His final statement against the New Testament is by far his strongest. 'Many do believe that Homer's Illiad is mostly mythic.' Thats his closing argument against the NT and I'm not going to bother pointing out why its a rubbish rebuttal. In his failed contradictions, my opponent used a website and not a bible, I used a bible and found nothing wrong. You should read one too and see. The resolution is affirmed. Vote Pro. [1]B. Ehrman, 2011 Forged : writing in the name of God ISBN 978-0-06-207863-6. page 285 [2]Van Voorst, Robert E (2000). Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence. Eerdmans Publishing. ISBN 0-8028-4368-9 page 16 [3]in Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels by Micjhael Grant 2004 ISBN 1898799881 page 200 [4]James D. G. Dunn "Paul's understanding of the death of Jesus" in Sacrifice and Redemption edited by S. W. Sykes (2007) Cambridge University Press ISBN 052104460X pages 35-36 [5]in Jesus Now and Then by Richard A. Burridge and Graham Gould