Jesus probably didn't exist

In this round, I'm going to offer a quick summary of my case and why I think it has won this debate. As I do this, please bear in mind that the source of an argument does not affect it's veracity. For example, we know Celsius wondered about whether Christ was real because Origen argued against it, even if I can't source Celsius because the original has been lost (http://en.wikipedia.org...). It's interesting also that on Wikipedia, my opponent's link on Jesus in the Talmud gives a very pro-Christian view of Jesus in the Talmud, while entering his Jewish name (http://en.wikipedia.org...) gives a very pro-Jewish one (which also just so happens to confirm everything that "some internet lurker", according to my opponent (actually a top Jewish rabbi) has written), illustrating the ridicliousness of deciding veracity based on source. Arguments are correct not because of who made them, but because of the inherent strength of the argument itself. The ironic thing here is that none of my opponent's links from last round go to the correct page. As can be seen from his indentations, many of my opponent's arguments are taken verbatim from other websites. Also, bear in mind that since I cannot respond to any new evidence or arguments my opponent uses in his final round, they should not be counted as part of the debate. Is there evidence against Jesus? This is my contention. As I have the burden of proof, it is the most important issue in the debate. My opponent has ignored, and therefore conceeded, one-half of this argument. He has said nothing against my case that Jesus fits the narrative archtype of saviour literature, and is therefore more likely to be an example of such literature. He also ignores the crux of my argument around contradictions - the existence of contradictions, which he has conceeded, makes the whole story less likely to be true. If the stories were absolute truth, they could not contradict. They must contain fiction - and if they contain fiction, why not assume they are wholly fiction? My opponent never engages with this material and therefore my point stands. Is there evidence for Jesus? This is where most of the engagement actually happened in the debate. Contrary to my opponent's assertion, I did not dispute the veracity of Pliny the Younger. I am sure Pliny probably did write that Christians sang hymns about Christ. That does not prove, however, that Christ existed. People sing hymns for all kinds of mythical figures, but that doesn't make them real. On the Talmud, he has still not told me which Jesus he is referring to, so I'll assume it's the one who got hanged on the passover. The trouble with this Jesus is that he was hanged a century and a day before the Jesus we are discussing, this Jesus was said to be "close to the government", and this Jesus was executed by Jews as opposed to Romans. Moving on to Tacitus, who my opponent finally argues against. He said that it would be expected to use the popular title. This is true only if Tacitus was echoing popular opinion, or perhaps writing for a popular audience. While Pilate's rank or Jesus' name may make no difference, they suggest that this particular element of information was accepted on the Christian account because there was no good reason to disbelieve it. Logically the argument still stands. My opponent does provide two reasons why Tacitus should be considered reliable. First, that he presents Christians in a bad light. This is, however, consistent with the theory that the source of his information was not Christians themselves, who after all were banned at that time, but popular anti-Christian sentiments in Rome that he was merely echoing. When common people heard that Christians believed Jesus was killed by Romans, they would exclaim "ha ha, your leader was killed by us!" (as confirmed by Lucian) and that would be that. No in-depth study would need be made. Secondly, he says Tacitus may have heard about Jesus from Pliny. That may be true, but it does not prove that Pliny was right either. Besides, there is no evidence Pliny believed Jesus existed, merely evidence that Pliny believed Christians were singing songs about Christ. On to Suetonius. My opponent says that if Christians worshipped Christ in the early days then Christ must have existed. I seriously fail to see how this follows. I could start worshipping Waggaoohgaoohgahstan the Invincible right now and that would not cause him to have existed. Next we have Josephus, who he says is unambiguous. I didn't say he was ambiguous about Jesus. I said he was ambiguous about the meaning of "brother". My opponent does not refute this, nor does he refute my other argument that if one part is edited, it makes it more likely that the other part is edited too, since an editor was clearly going through the work. Let us turn to the texts of the bible. My opponent continues to maintain proximity is no test for accuracy. There is a temporal factor - facts from long ago get forgotten unless written down at some point - but this is not it. This is the simple fact that if I write something down myself, it will be a more accurate copy than if I tell my friend and they write it down. This is of course assuming that the Biblical texts were derived directly from a "Jesus", which is rather begging the question, besides which the Galatians texts I cited in the first round prove it wrong. The further removed our evidence is from the person, the less likely the person was real. The fact, for instance, that we have texts by Cicero makes it quite likely Cicero is real. If we only had what Augustus said about Cicero, that would make it less likely. If we only had texts from people who had never met Cicero, and had only heard about him from people who had only heard about him from people who, in turn, had never met him - then we'd be getting to about the level of the gospel of Mark. If Mark had himself known Jesus, the transmission could have been more accurate (not the transmission of the gospel, but that of the evidence). I feel like my point about the epistles has been missed, so I'm going to randomly conceed that Jesus was human in the eyes of those writing the epistles. I could argue it further, but I've already won the point. Why? Because my opponent hasn't responded at all to my other two arguments against the epistles, which if you read round one are far more important and integral to my case. Since it's too late for my opponent to bring up new arguments now that I cannot respond to, these two points are enough to show that the epistles are a poor source of information. All of my other points about the gospels have also been completely ignored by my opponent, thus I feel that they have been conceeded.