This House believes that Jesus Christ was a historical figure

Con's note on sourcingThe purpose of giving citations is so people will know where to look to verify what was said. Just because Con doesn't want to look up the references doesn't mean I didn't provide evidence. It is unreasonable (not to mention poor writing) to quote all of your sources. It's better to sumarize/paraphrase them, then cite them, and that's what I do most of the time, not only because that's good writing style (as you'll learn if you ever take upper level classes in history or philosophy), but because in this debate format, we have limited space. Con can ignore my arguments if he wants to, but he shouldn't get away with it when it comes time for voting."How much should I quote? As few words as possible. Remember, your paper should primarily contain your own words, so quote only the most pithy and memorable parts of sources."[1]Quoting all my sources wouldn't save Con that much time anyway if he wanted to verify them.. He'd still have to make sure I was quoting them correctly and wasn't taking them out of context, which would require him to read the surrounding paragraphs.Con quoted his sources, but his citations are inadequate. In notes 1, 2, and 6, he didn't give us a page number. He complains about having to "drudge through 20-page sources to debate," yet I'd have to read three books to verify his! And as we'll see, he took Gary Habermas out of context.Presumption of historicityWhereas I argued for the presumption of historicity, Pro argued for the presumption of non-historicity. If I understand him correctly, he's saying that since there would be "natural fluxuations" in which evidence for Jesus would exist even if Jesus himself did not, we should assume he did not exist unless we have substantial evidence that he did.I'm not sure natural fluctuations would produce evidence of Jesus even if he didn't exist. If Jesus didn't exist, Christianity might not exist, and nobody would ever have even thought of him.Even if true, it wouldn't follow that we should assume Jesus didn't exist apart from substantial evidence. At best, we should be neutral about it. This is the only argument Con gave us for the non-existence of Jesus, and it's a non-sequitur.This line of reasoning also leads to absurdity because it would require us to deny the existence of anybody just in case it's possible they were made up. Such radical skepticism is unjustified.Explanatory powerCon's response commits the strawman fallacy. The issue isn't whether Christianity is true or even why it was successful. The issue is why it began. I don't deny that the founders of other religions existed. Lao-Tzu (Taoism), Gautama Buddhia (Buddhism), Muhammad (Islam), Baha'u'llah (Baha'ism), and Joseph Smith (Mormonism) all existed, and their existence is the best explanation of the origin of their respective religions just as Jesus' existence is the best explanation of the origin of Christianity.Con compares the NT account of Jesus to The Life of Brian, but this is a confusion of genres. The intention of Monte Python was to produce fiction, whereas the intention of the NT authors was to report history (cf. Luke 1:1-2).Con thinks a better explanation is that Jesus was just made up, but he doesn't tell us why that's a better explanation. The existence of Jesus explains why he had followers who actually believed in him as well as why Christianity took the particular shape that it did. It's consistent with the origin of other messianic movements in the first century in the fact that those leaders had followers as well.AuthorityCon mistakenly thinks all appeals to authority are fallacious, but appeals to authority are "fallacious only when the person is not a legitimate authority in a particular context."[2] Con denied my claim of concensus on the existence of Jesus among scholars, then quoted Gary Habermas out of context as evidence. What Habermas actually said was, "Of these scholars, approximately 75% favor one or more of these arguments <i>for the empty tomb</i>," not for the existence of Jesus.[3] The consensus on the existence of Jesus is just one person shy of 100%, or two people if you count Richard Carrier. Contrast that with the large number of credentialed scientists who "are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life," which I cited in the previous round.[4] Clearly, there is a stronger consensus on the existence of Jesus than on Dawinian evolution in their respective fields.Ironically, Con commits the fallacy of false appeal to authority when he cites Spiegel on postmodernism's attack on historical realism. He admits that it's "an extreme minority position." He gives no first name for Spiegel, and in his footnote, he references Richard Evan's book, and doesn't even give us a page number.The BibleCon thinks the Bible counts as only one source, and an unreliable one at that.While it's true that Matthew and Luke both used Mark as a source, John is independent of the synoptic gospels, and Q is independent of Mark. Also, as E.P. Sanders said, "Paul did not know the gospels, and the authors of the gospels did not know Paul's letters."[5] So the Bible contains multiple independent sources that all agree that Jesus existed. At the very least, we have Mark, Q, John, and Paul.Con claims that the Bible builds on itself with "exaggerations." To call them exaggerations is to beg the question against their historicity. Actually, when Matthew and Luke use Mark as a source, they sometimes expand on what Mark says, and they sometimes abbreviate what he says (cf. Mark 1:40-45//Matthew 8:1-4). But none of this is relevant to any of my arguments.Con claims that many of the events recorded in the gospels (especially surrounding the resurrection) are a-historical, but his arguments are all arguments from silence. But again, this is irrelevant. Even if the whole resurrection narrative was made up, it wouldn't follow that Jesus didn't exist anymore that it would follow that George Washington didn't exist just because the story of him chopping down the cherry tree was made up. Con's reasoning is fallacious.Ignored argumentsCon ignored my argument from Paul's personal acquaintence with Jesus' brother unless you take his general critique of the Bible to amount to a refutation. It's not, though. My argument doesn't depend on multiple independent attestation or the general reliability of the gospels. Rather, it's a first hand account of somebody who actually knew Jesus' brother, James. I think Con needs to give us a better response against this argument.Con's arguments against the general reliability of the gospels also fail to refute my arguments from the crucifixion and from Nazareth. Neither of these arguments depended on the gospels being generally reliable in all their details. I argued from both multiple independent attestation and the criteria of embarrassment that Jesus was crucified and that he was from Nazareth. While Con thinks bias works against our sources, in the case of embarrassment, it actually works for us. Since they had a bias in favour of Christianity, we would not expect them to make stuff up that would make it harder for them to sell the Christian message. The fact that we have multiple witnesses admitting that the messiah was crucified by the Romans and that he was actually from Nazareth instead of Bethlehem is good evidence that both of those are true. That entails that Jesus existed.ConclusionCon tried to cast doubt on my case for Jesus' existence, but made no substantial case against Jesus' existence. His burden is unmet.*****[1] http://writingcenter.unc.edu...[2] http://www.nizkor.org... [3] http://www.garyhabermas.com...[4] http://www.discovery.org...[5] E.P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus, 4