Jesus of Nazareth never existed

"Not only do we not know who wrote the Gospels (they are after all anonymous), none of the Gospels existed during the alleged life of Jesus, nor do these anonymous writers claim to have seen a historical Jesus." No, they were not anonymous. They signed their names as Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. These names have been traced back to four people who very conveniently fit the evidence given as people who could have written the Gospels. "A vast majority of the Gospels are in third-person, which is strange if the authors consider themselves eyewitnesses to Jesus." Any point at which the narrator did something was in first-person. The authors obviously did not write from the viewpoint of Jesus, so they were not part of most of the story. It's kind of like Lemony Snicket's role in A Series of Unfortunate Events. [1] Snicket narrates the story in first person all the way, but the action of the main characters are in third person. It makes perfect sense. "The Church has pointed to the apostles Mark, Luke, Matthew, and John, but scholars know from critical textural research that there simply occurs no evidence that the gospel authors could have been the apostles in the Gospel stories. Granting the assumption that the texts support the notion that the apostles are the authors, note the average life span of humans at that time was approximately 30. Very few reached 70. If the apostles were the same age as the alleged Jesus, and wrote their gospels in old age, that would make St. Mark at least 70 years old and St. John well over 110. Truly a miracle!" For one thing, you claim that there is critical textural research, but you do not give it. You only give sources as books, and even then, you give no page numbers. I would like to see some online evidence that could back up your statements, as well as more detailed evidence that can actually be countered. Furthermore, it really does you no good to claim that it must have been a miracle for men to survive to old ages, as we are talking about a supposed miracle-worker, and the datings could very easily be wrong. A bit more evidence would be needed. "A detailed look of the Gospels Matthew, Mark, and Luke should reveal Mark as the common element between Matthew and Luke: the main source for both of them. The author of Luke's Gospel admits to being an interpreter and not an eyewitness (Luke 1:1-4). Many scholars think Matthew and Luke were derived from Mark and another hypothetical document. Yet again, one encounters questionable methodology and apocryphal sources." Well, by all means, give us this detailed look. I already acknowledged that Luke was a second-hand source; however, he was also an incredibly accurate historian, who wrote down the events he researched. You give no sources for these "many scholars." Yet again, I encounter source-less claims about general scholars. "John, the last Gospel, consists of lengthy theologies from Jesus, not literal words from a historical Jesus. The Gospel of John disagrees with events described in Mark, Matthew, and Luke. In addition, the anonymous pen of this Gospel wrote it in Greek near the end of the first century. This is according to the Bishop Shelby Spong." Ah, but how do they disagree? And could you give an online source to back the Greek argument? "This response simply does not hold water, given the enormous response to Jesus described in the Bible... Thus, either the Bible is exaggerating the situation (and thus wrong, and thus fallible, and thus... you get the point), or this Roman or otherwise anti-Jesus radical must have been an atomic bomb of censorship to destroy all records and all memory of the man. Something must have survived, even if there was an extensive effort to destroy the eyewitness accounts of Jesus' existence. This is despite the fact that this response is relatively weak, insofar as it offers a possible account of what happened." Perhaps the idea of "an innumerable multitude of people" and "great multitudes" did not exactly describe thousands upon thousands, or even hundreds upon hundreds. It could have been about fifty people per sermon, and it would be a great multitude under the eyes of some. Furthermore, the Bible is that something that survived. If all of the Romans in the government who executed Jesus decided that they would not record it, and would destroy all of his documentation, so as to remove all possibility of his existence, they could have immediately done a very good job. Many of the people who met Jesus were probably illiterate, so only a few people could write decent accounts of Jesus: the four Gospels. So, in conclusion, it is easily possible for the Bible to have been written by two eyewitnesses of Jesus, and two secondary-source historians, as well as early radicals destroying all evidence of Jesus with the exception of the Bible. Vote CON. Again, I ask for an online source. Thank you. 1. http://en.wikipedia.org...