Jesus Christ was a Historical Person

Hello and welcome to Round Three of this debate. Now, for this round and the ones to follow, there are merely rebuttals on the initial arguments of the debaters.I will be step by step providing a rebuttal of my opponent's arguments before turning it back to him.Opponent Argument #1: Historical vs. Existence My opponent began with a strawman account of my resolution. First, "Jesus Christ" is a term that is used to identify Jesus out of the various Yeshuas that did live during the first century. This debate is not about proving the claims of Jesus, whether it be His miracles or His divinity. It is instead a debate about His existence and knowing historical facts about Him.Opponent Argument #2: Legendary vs. historical religious figuresWhether it be John Frum and the cargo cults or John Smith and Mormonism, they are not analogous to Jesus and Orthodoxy. Allow me to explain:For the Cargo Cults1. John Frum is not independently attested. Unlike Jesus, where we have Josephus, Gospel of Mark, Q Source, Gospel of Thomas, perhaps the Gospels of John and Peter, and writings of Paul all are independent of each other.2. If 5-7 different and independent islands developed a religious system at the same time, based on John Frum and similarly described events, we could be reasonably certain that John Frum does exist.3. However, independent attestation is not found in the John Frum story, but it is found in the Jesus narrativesJohn Smith1. Again, independent attestation for the events of John Smith's founding of Mormonism cannot be independently collaborated by other sources.2. Jesus is independently collaboratedArgument #3: The "Problem" of miraclesMiracles do not happen. And since miracles cannot happen, Jesus did not exist.Let's look at one major flaw with this argument:Claimed miracles do not make someone historical or nonhistoricalThis can be most easily seen in the life of Caesar Augustus as described in the historian Seutonius' work The Lives of the Twelve Caesars. In this book, he describes this of Augustus:Whilst he was yet an infant, as Caius Drusus relates, being laid in his cradle by his nurse, and in a low place, the next day he was not to be found, and after he had been sought for a long time, he was at last discovered upon a lofty tower, lying with his face towards the rising sun 249. When he first began to speak, he ordered the frogs that happened to make a troublesome noise, upon an estate belonging to the family near the town, to be silent; and there goes a report that frogs never croaked there since that time. As he was dining in a grove at the fourth mile-stone on the Campanian road, an eagle suddenly snatched a piece of bread out of his hand, and, soaring to a prodigious height, after hovering, came down most unexpectedly, and returned it to him. (1)Augustus was also thought to have been divine, as were all Caesars.Just because supernatural claims are made about a person, it does not mean that person did not exist.With my opponent's argument, not only did Jesus not exist, neither did historical figures like Augustus. This is purest folly and a leap in reasoning.Argument #4: No historical documents There are two major issues with this argument, and we can unpack them here1. Definition of "historical document" We, as 21st century inhabitants, are used to accuracy. The modern journalism understanding is absolutely factual all the time. This is a modern development, however, and, as we have already seen from Seutonius, they were not always correct. They gave their heroes qualities that may not be factual. This is not a sign of deceit, but simply one of the times.2. Jesus was not a big deal for from 30 CE to 200 CE Despite what we may think, Jesus was not a big deal during the first two centuries of the world. by 100 CE, there were only about 40 churches in the entire Roman Empire. Assuming there were even 100 members (fairly large) in each church, there were only 4,000 Christians. (2)By contrast, the Roman Empire had a population, based of Karl Beloch's estimates (which are quite conservative), of around 45,000,000 around 15 CE and 61,400,000 by 165 CE. Averaging these two out, you get a population of approximately 53,200,000. (3)This mean only .0075% of those residing in the Roman Empire.Only .0075% of the Roman Empire was Christian. Christianity was not widespread, not that big of a deal, by the time the witnesses within a lifetime of Him died. And again, this is not an argument about whether Jesus was God or miraculous, only that He existed as a historically rooted figure.Argument #5: More ProbableMy opponent denies the basic tenets of historical criticism used by all secular scholars of the Bible including Bart Ehrman, Borg, Spong, Crossan, and many others. We can, again, using the basic criteria of independent attestation and embarrassment, find several historical events in the life of JesusMy examples of Judas, crucifixion, and various sayings of Jesus still stand these texts.My opponent continues to try to force spirituality into the debate on whether Jesus was a historical person. I'd like to point out that only Johannine and Petrine literature ascribes obvious and detailed divinity to Christ, and the trinity appears nowhere by name in the Bible. This debate is about the person of Jesus, not whether or not He was God and miracles.Argument #6: The Gospels are the only record of Jesus and based on hearsayFalse! Absolutely 100% false in every single way.Pauline literature such as 1 Thessalonians and Galatians date to around 50 CE, only 20 years after the crucifixion of Jesus. Not only that, passages such as Kenosis passages of Philippians 2:5-11 show signs of doxology and writing unusual to Paul. This means that many statements that Paul writes even date back perhaps 10+ years before the letters were written, back to 40 CE. Only ten years after the crucifixion. (4)Not just that, Paul records for us that he knew the apostles that knew Jesus, including Jesus' own brother, James, as well as His closest disciple, Peter. We also see that Paul disagreed with both parties from Galatians 2. If you are going to make up knowing the apostles, you would think you would want them to agree with you, not make you an outsider!Then, we have the fact that Mark is in fact from before 70 CE (as attested to by the lack of mention of the fall of Jerusalem), as well as the Q source's probable composition around the same time.Argument #7: The Accounts of Jesus are wildly differentOf the independent accounts, which rank only between 5-7 sources, there is actually a surprising amount of similarity, including:Betrayal by JudasMustard Seed SayingLeaven SayingParablesCrucifixionBirth to Mary and JosephBurial by Joseph of AramathiaSower Parable"Who do you say that I am?" discourse"Anyone with ears, hear" sayingNo prophet is accepted in His home countryDo not fret about eating or drinking sayingSly as snakes and gentle as doves sayingOld Wineskins sayingBeatitudesAnd many, many other pieces of Christ's life.The contradiction my opponent brought up makes it clear: these are independent accounts not based on one another, but if they are not based on one another, then they are independent and trace back to a single source that dates to the apostles themselves, and then to Jesus. Finally, I would like to leave you with this quote from Bart Ehrman. Ehrman is an Agnostic New Testament scholar from UNC-Chapel Hill:" To state openly that Jesus never existed is to automatically lump oneself into the same sort who denies the world is over 6,000 years old." (5)That is coming from the leading Agnostic scholar on this subject. Keep that in mind as the debate progresses. My opponent's position in the academic world is considered equivalent to a Young Earth Creationist's view in the academic world.Sources:(1) THE LIVES OF THE TWELVE CAESARS By C. Suetonius Tranquillus; Translator.:Alexander Thomson, M.D.Revised and corrected by T.Forester, Esq., A.M.(2) Hitchcock, Geography of Religion (2004), p.281(3) Frier, Demography, Contours of the World Economy, 32–33.(4) http://www.systematicchristianity.org...(5) http://www.bibleinterp.com...