It is the case that Jesus of Nazareth was a historical figure

[eliotitus]

Preamble
Proposition: Eliotitus
Opposition: Czahar
Judges: Vandaler, Hermanleadread, Comtesse

4 rounds: Opening statements
Two rebuttals
Closing statements

No time limit


It is the case that Jesus of Nazareth was a historical figure

Introduction

Over the course of this debate I shall be presenting the case for the fact that Jesus of Nazareth is based on what was a single historical figure and religious leader who existed in first century Jerusalem as a preacher and was executed by the Roman authorities of the era. There are many strands of evidence to which I will appeal throughout the debate which I lay out the opening case for now. However, I believe it to be the case that from what ancient authors have explicitly told us and from what can be inferred of what authors have said and the existence of certain circumstances it is beyond reasonable doubt that Jesus existed.

What I believe to be the key area of this debate is the concept of reasonable doubt and what it implies. There are varying standards of evidence expected for varying cases and so not only must evidence be provided to support the existence of Jesus, the standard of evidence which is expected to historically affirm him must also be ascertained. After all there can mountains of evidence pointing towards a historical event or person. But if its bar for reasonable doubt is still higher than the level of evidence provided it can still be happily doubted as at the least an unknown and unverified fact. As such I expect this concept of a reasonable historical doubt will also come out as the debate proceeds. Indeed I believe it such a central topic that I will start the main body of my argument discussing it.

The format of this opening statement shall be as follows:

Finding a bar of reasonable doubt for Jesus' existence
The evidence from biblical sources
The evidence from the sayings Gospel of Thomas in particular
The evidence from extra-biblical sources
Inferred evidence from circumstance
Conclusion

I feel this an ample introduction so onward with the core of my argument.

Finding a bar of reasonable doubt for Jesus' existence

As I stated in the introduction before we can get anywhere we must examine the level of evidence necessary to prove what I'm claiming. I certainly agree it would be a far higher bar of evidence were I trying to prove that the Jesus who did miracles and genuinely went round raising the dead, walking on water and being thronged in the streets as a celebrity. As it is, I'm not. I'm arguing that the historical Jesus on which that celebrity was based existed, thus the bar is much lower. In a similar way it is an indisputable fact that Joseph Smith existed as a historical personage. It is very disputable that he had discussions with the angel Mormoni about the location of the book of Mormon. Thus I aim to prove a figure behind the myth existed, bear that in mind during the rest of the case.

Rather than trying to form a bar completely independently of what standard of evidence is acceptable I shall proceed by creating a series of comparisons of historical figures doubted and those taken as an absolute given.

Firstly I will give an example of an individual whose existence is very doubtable. Lycurgus of Sparta the mythological lawgiver. He is referenced by numerous historians (Herodotus, Xenophon, Plutarch etc.) and yet still his existence is doubted. We must ask the question why? Because all the sources (including the earliest) create some sense of doubt about the veracity of facts around him. While many are in agreement they are seldom on minute issues of importance and indeed by the first century AD it is apparent that all information is suspect even then as Plutarch says in his preamble to describing the life of Lycurgus:


There is so much uncertainty in the accounts which historians have left us of Lycurgus, the lawgiver of Sparta, that scarcely anything is asserted by one of them which is not called into question or contradicted by the rest.

He goes on to say:


They cannot, by any means, be brought to an agreement as to the very age in which he [Lycurgus] lived

Neither of these problems exists with Jesus to any sort of similar degree. While there are numerous Gnostic texts that seem at the face contradictory to the synoptic story, almost all differences are additions or omissions or in the interpretation of things from a theological perspective. All the early sources on Jesus' life are largely in agreement on the major events and unfolding story (this will be expanded upon later). Indeed there is next to no confusion in terms of dates except perhaps in the nativity story, which can happily be called embellishment due to the fact that no living writers would have been witness to his birth and mythological embellishment on important figures was commonplace in the era (for example Augustus was supposedly borne of Atia and Apollo in the form of a snake [Suetonius "Divius Augustus" 94]). As such things we know that none of the writers can have been party to and are unlikely to have been party to anyone who did know what was going on we can discount such things as myths growing up round a pre-existent figure rather than a figure in of himself. That so specific dates as to be within the decade of which he lived and to know exactly who was in control when with accuracy in his later life is a testament to how specific the knowledge gospel writers seem to have is.

Our second comparison shall be not a man but an event. This is because we know without a doubt that the event happened and yet have very little textual evidence for it (which is the only sort of early evidence we are liable to get for Jesus). The event is the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and the destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum. The eruption in 79CE has just one reliable eye-witness. It is undoubtable that the event happened; we have two towns to prove it. And yet only one man in two letters to Tacitus describing how his uncle died thought to mention the volcano's eruption and still had his writings survive. There is no doubt that the utter destruction of two reasonably sized towns in the heartland of Italy would have been a significant event and yet there are very few surviving documents from the era. As such it is unreasonable to expect vast quantities of ancient writers with surviving documents to write about any event, much less relatively minor events and personages at the time. Thus the bar here cannot be particularly high in terms of evidence quantity.

Our third and final point of importance is the date between the supposed events and their writing down. Obviously a firsthand account is going to be more reliable from the same person than if his account is told again by someone else and someone else etc. etc. For a final comparison we shall have a look at the historicity of Socrates. The only surviving contemporary sources are from his students (Most notably Plato) in the form of Socratic dialogues. These are generally considered sufficient evidence to affirm Socrates existence as a wandering figure, debating the wisdom of others. While the specific details may not necessarily be true due to embellishment for philosophical purposes, that is not what we are arguing for in Jesus either, we are debating his basis as a historical figure.

So to briefly conclude this segment there are three main issues in whether the bar should be reached:


Precision of accounts with by and large consistency
Wealth of resources to act as a comparison and corroboration
The date and purpose of the resources available



There are both events and people taken as a given in the historical field as no doubt you know that flout all three simply because it doesn't make any sense for them to not exist. Jesus by contrast performs relatively well on all three tests as we shall see as I move on.

The evidence from biblical sources

It is undoubtable that the biblical evidence contained within the later cannon of the bible is some of the best corroboration of Jesus' existence we have. They smash all three criteria and would be alone, IMO, sufficient evidence to affirm a historical Jesus figure. In it we have 27 books dating from at best the 50s and 60s CE to at worst before the turn of the first century in the case of the gospel of John. These are dates that affirm we have at least 2nd or 3rd hand sources rather than far later, less reliable creations.

Let's have a look at just what it is we have in the biblical books, as a generic divide we have gospels and epistles. Both constitute good evidence of Jesus

Firstly let's look at the gospels. These are 4 detailed biographies of Jesus' life. 3 of them agree on numerous events, locations and even sometimes speech. We know they are at least partially independent as they all have at least a different take on the things going on and contain contradictions in peripheral detail (were there one or two angels present at the tomb of Jesus for example). The events however are the same.

Secondly we have the epistles. Possibly the earliest surviving Christian writings. These writings, despite what Jesus mythists have tried to imply take the existence of a physical Jesus on earth as a given. There is simply no controversy and much of what some of them say makes little to no sense if Jesus does not exist. For example:


2the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures 3regarding his Son, who as to his human nature was a descendant of David

One must have a physical existence on earth to be a descendant of David would you not agree? Estimated date for Romans, 50-60CE Two decades after the events themselves, a second-hand source. Paul claims to have met eye-witnesses. The focus of the text is not to assert Jesus' existence and divinity but to preach his message instead. If Jesus was a fabricated figure we would expect the former from the first texts in existence not the latter. As such it is reasonable to believe Jesus existed.

The biblical texts are early, reasonably consistent and independent and written for motives that make it appear Jesus is taken as a given. Not only that but we have a significant amount of them. 27 different texts by up to 8 different authors, a wealth of information by ancient standards.


The evidence from the sayings Gospel of Thomas in particular


The sayings Gospel of Thomas is, in my opinion one of the most conclusive pieces of evidence for the existence of Jesus of Nazareth. I am of this opinion as it can be dated early, very possibly to an eye-witness and is far from susceptible to later bias. It is a text very often underplayed in this debate relative to its importance which is why I'm making such a big deal of it.

The contents of the Gospel of Thomas are a series of sayings attributed to Jesus of Nazareth the Christ. In the preliminary of the text we have from it, it contains the attribution to Thomas. This is corroborated by our earliest references to it in which this attestation is not questioned. Indeed there is no questioning (and when there is they present no evidence beyond its heretical content) until the 4th and 5th centuries. Some 300 years later.

Hippolytus of Rome makes reference to it like this:

They transmit a tradition concerning this in the Gospel entitled "According to Thomas,"

Note he does not question its authorship by Thomas, and this is only the earliest unquestionable reference we have. There are earlier references to a gospel of Thomas but there is ambiguity in other references other whether the infancy or sayings gospel is being referenced.

What's more saying 12 of the gospel states:


12 The disciples said to Jesus, "We know that you are going to leave us. Who will be our leader?"

2Jesus said to them, "No matter where you are, you are to go to James the just, for whose sake heaven and earth came into being."


This seems to be Jesus giving authority to the church not to Peter but to James. This would only really make sense in the first century as the church began to take shape and form as were it a later composition it would try to make it appear that they had the credibility from the early leaders rather than question that the early leaders in fact were. This is another reason to put it at least first century if not mid-first century.

So? What do we have here; we have an early, eye-witness source to Jesus with a full text still in existence. It is at least independent of the synoptic gospels and is nowhere near developed enough in terms of Gnostic doctrine to be reliant upon any of them. Thus it is most reasonable to conclude that is exactly what we have, an early eye-witness source to Jesus of Nazareth documenting his sayings and preaching. Many of these overlap with synoptic text quotes of Jesus, thus lending them credibility as reliable sources as well on grounds of independent consistency.

The evidence from extra-biblical sources

But, of course, while we have a substantial amount of biblical sources that are more than enough corroboration of Jesus alone. A brief list of some of the earliest names only gives us on the secular side Tacitus, Josephus, Pliny the younger and Lucian

Then non-biblical sources that are still Christian further extends this list to include Justin martyr, Athenagoras, Origen, Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp etc. etc. By any ones account an absolute wealth of sources that mention Jesus as an explicitly existent figure. If there is to be a credible attack on the existence of Jesus this wide-spread unquestioned belief in his existence must be explained away. As it is I do not think there can be any such explanation more reasonable than that he existed as a historical figure.

Now to go in to a little more detail on the controversial issues of this. Most of the controversy is in the secular sources so I’ll start with them. Firstly, what does Josephus have to say on the matter?


3.3 Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.

At the time Josephus is discussing civil disobedience and problems facing the Jews under Pilate in Jerusalem. So the Testimonium Flavium is hardly out of place, particularly if, as Tacitus suggests when describing the fire of Rome the Christians were being persecuted in the era. It would have been a point of curiosity as to the origin of those Christians and so it is perfectly reasonable to assume that this passage is at least by and large authentic. Josephus was a credible historian and close to the date Jesus was alleged to have lived. As such can be considered fairly conclusive evidence.

The next reference is that of Tacitus:


But not all the relief that could come from man, not all the bounties that the prince could bestow, nor all the atonements which could be presented to the gods, availed to relieve Nero from the infamy of being believed to have ordered the conflagration, the fire of Rome. Hence to suppress the rumour, he falsely charged with the guilt, and punished Christians, who were hated for their enormities. Christus, the founder of the name, was put to death by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea in the reign of Tiberius: but the pernicious superstition, repressed for a time broke out again, not only through Judea, where the mischief originated, but through the city of Rome also, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind.


This is again only a passing reference and would make little sense to altogether fabricate at a later date. Not only because it does not reference with any emphasis on Jesus but because there was no controversy which a passage like this would lend any side credibility. It's just a note on who the Christians are that they follow a fellow called the Christ and that they were blamed for the fire of Rome. This is again a credible source that is not Christian backing up a common belief in Jesus' existence

This for now will do, in the next section I will expand upon the Christian authors as it is clear they all referenced Jesus with little controversy. What's more important is what they did not say as you will see.

So to conclude this segment we have literally dozens of sources within 200 years of the alleged events. It is unprecedented for something survive at all from the era, all of which seems to point in favour of an existent Jesus. We have Tacitus and Josephus on a non-Christian side as well. The overwhelming weight of evidence (and there is A LOT of evidence) is in favour of the existence of a historical Jesus. Thus I find it hard to believe that all this could happily be a fabrication on a non-existent or amalgamation man.

Inferred evidence from circumstance

As in all of history we are not told everything explicitly. Certainly as I hope I have already proven there are a great deal of people who DID explicitly mention Jesus. But that, is not all we have. One can also infer from the early development of Christianity in the first century and early second a great deal of information relevant to this debate. Not only from what those who mention Jesus say elsewhere about him but the from the mere existence of Christianity and the manner in which it grew.

I have at least hinted at most of the things in this section throughout the rest of the post however I am now going to explicitly discuss them in detail. The three main points to be inferred are the lack of controversy over Jesus' existence and the lack of desperation in his early followers in trying to affirm his existence. The third point is the early division over the principles and leadership of Christianity that would not exist if he were a fabricated figure

Firstly though, the lack of controversy in Jesus' existence. Let us examine the origin of the Jesus myth theory, its first known proponent was in the 18th century. How very very odd. There were eye witnesses around still alive while the first texts are being written and yet critics such as Celsus the late second century polemicist. Far from claiming Jesus did not exist he conjured numerous excuses as to why Jesus was not God for example his famous claim that Mary committed adultery with a Roman soldier who was Jesus' father. We know that he was not the only critic. And there were early critics. For example we have Justin Martyr in the first half of the century responding to them. In all these sources however not once do we hear even the slightest question of Jesus' factual existence as a man. We hear all sorts of other claims from "his miracles were unoriginal" to "he was a sorcerer" and yet not one apologist had to deal with the Jesus myth until the 18th century.

One would think it very queer that these people were able to just make up a man who lived in the public eye constantly within living memory and certainly within the children's living memory of numerous inhabitants of Jerusalem at the time Jesus was supposed to have been there and not one person ever thought it odd that they'd never heard of Jesus before. In fact it's not just queer it's simply absurd to suggest you could have arguments over whether a to all extents and purposes celebrity was all he's cracked up to be when there was no celebrity in the first place and NOT have someone get just a bit confused by the fact he never existed. The chances of us having simply lost any polemics on grounds of existence are equally absurd given the vast quantities of apologetics we have in response to them. We would know about it if we'd lost any major assault on Jesus' existence and yet there just isn't one. Why is it that no one thought until the 18th century that he might not exist, this belief in his existence must be explained away either through accident or fabrication. Fabrication I will go on to dispel in the next two points. Accident is ridiculous due to the sheer volume of attestation.

The second major point for this section is that his followers do not seem particularly focussed on creating evidence for his existence but rather affirming his divinity instead. This is a rather odd thing to do if you've just made that person up. You want to make it look as full proof as possible that you've got evidence this guy was here, you know exactly what he did and when he did it. You don't leave holes in his life story (Like most of his teenage-ministry which aren't described in any text). And you certainly check your facts far better to make sure everyone’s story agrees 100% rather than differs on minor details. This simply didn't happen. On the contrary the earliest canonical texts are letters that barely mention him at all. They clearly uphold him as important but most of what they discuss is matters of doctrine rather than life story. This is a frankly bizarre thing to happen if Jesus was being deliberately created.

Furthermore what's the point of creating Jesus? So what they start a cult? By 70CE they were being persecuted this is still the first generation Christians and yet not one of them ends up saying "only joking guys, we made it all up, now please don't kill me" They were forced on to the edge of society following an illegal cult having to meet in secret and having those around them convinced they were performing ritual cannibalism and plotting the downfall of the Roman empire. I fail to see the upside in creating Jesus and the religion for the first Christians, why would they do it? This is another question that must be answered before Jesus' existence can be successfully questioned.

The third point I shall make here is of how divided early Christianity was thus conclusively ruling out a plot to create a Jesus movement with a fictional figurehead. Within the first century it appears we have two branches of Christianity already, Magdalene supporters and Paul supporters. The gospel of Mary presents her as one of the dominant figures in the early church. The synoptic by contrast diminish her to of only a minor role and numerous misogynistic sentiments can be found in Paul's letters in terms of women having control over men. Case in point this quote:


34women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says.

We also have the gospel of Thomas cited early stating that James the just was in charge of the church. One would think a conspiracy of this magnitude would have at least some coherence about who its living leaders were. The entire scenario reeks of a power vacuum after the fall of a previous leader, it makes no sense whatsoever for that leader to have not existed in the first place.

Then we have huge fundamental divides on what he taught. The most obvious being the Gnostic synoptic divide. But other sects included Marcionites, Canaanites early Antinomianism. We see all sorts of early church fathers bending over backwards to defend their particular view of what Jesus had taught. Irenaeus is a wonderful example of this writing in the latter half of the second century against heresies already developed. Once again the picture of Christianity is of a divided movement with each strand fighting for dominance after a power vacuum is created by the fall of their leader. Certainly not of some conspiracy to create a figure and a movement that supposedly followed him.

My final point for this section is a relatively minor one. It is that if there was a particularly famous rabble-rouser in Jerusalem, so what? It is apparent from the writings of the likes of Josephus that the Jews believed in an imminent return of their saviour

Conclusion

I should hope by now I have made my case abundantly clear. The level of evidence is far far above what we would need to affirm the existence of Jesus. We have dozens of early, reliable texts, and much inferred acceptance of the existence of Jesus from other writers of the era when discussing him.

Not only that but we have only two ways in which the belief in Jesus could exist. Firstly by accident, which makes no sense due to the large agreement on life events and the lack of questioning as to his historicity given he is claimed by the early Christians to have been a high profile character. The second potential method of the creation of a belief in him is conspiracy. But this makes no sense due to once again the lack of scepticism in to his existence expressed by the early church fathers contemporaries. What’s more it is unbelievable due to the lack of coordination in the movement and the attestation of non-Christians as to his existence such as Josephus and Tacitus.

Thus by all accounts it has been proved by all reasonable doubt that Jesus of Nazareth was a historical figure.

N.B. All dates of biblical text dates are from this source and translated with NIV:
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Not being an expert of ancient text dating myself and this seeming to be a credible resource I've assumed reasonable dates are offered by it.

[eliotitus]

elctrfdmc has volunteered to be a judge of the debate and barring any objections from you has been accepted.

[eliotitus]

Comtesse has volunteered to be the third judge

[czahar]

First of all, I would like to thank my opponent, Eliotitus, for an excellent OP and for giving me the opportunity to argue with him over such an interesting topic. Secondly, I'd like to thank the judges who are taking time out of their days to read and judge us on our posts.

Ladies and gentleman, what I will seek to prove in this debate is that there is no hard evidence that Jesus Christ ever existed as an actual, historical being. Let me take the time to explain what I mean by that. I'm not arguing that Jesus Christ never existed. One can never fully prove that something simply doesn't exist. Think about it. Can you truly prove that unicorns don't exist? No. You can challenge your opponent to scour the Internet looking for one solitary piece of scientific evidence to support the existence of unicorns, you can provide mountains of evidence showing the only writings and material we have on their existence come from fairytales and other fictional media, but you simply can't prove that they don't exist. Who knows, they could be living ten thousand miles under the Earth's surface, only occasionally popping above ground when no one is looking. I can't prove they don't.

Likewise, I can't prove to you that there wasn't a man who lived in Judea in the early first century who called himself Jesus, or, more accurately, Yeshua. Indeed, if a lack of written or physical evidence were truly proof that an individual never existed, virtually all of the ancient world, with the exception of some high ranking government officials and writers, could be disproven.

However, existence still requires proof, and until proof can be provided that Jesus was an actual historical figure, he can not be thought of as such. Instead, he must remain in a state of limbo – neither being able to be completely disproven, nor able to be recognized as an actual historical figure.

What I will seek to do in my opening statement is to keep him in this limbo. I will do this by demonstrating the following:


The canonical gospels are heavily fictional, were probably not written during his lifetime, and, as far as we know, not based on any primary source evidence; therefore, they can't be considered evidence for his existence.

The epistles were not only not written during his lifetime, but the author admittedly recognizes that he never knew Jesus.

The canonical gospels are not four independent accounts of Jesus' life.

Supposedly unbiased, non-Christian sources either say nothing about him as an actual historical figure, are probable forgeries, or aren't even referring to Jesus in the first place.

The physical evidence supporting his existence has either been exposed as a complete forgery, or is still up in the air.


THE PROBLEMS WITH CHRISTIAN SOURCES

The Canonical Gospels.

The canonical gospels were not written during the time of Jesus. I feel that both my opponent and I can agree on this claim considering the very source he cites for his information agrees with me:


N.B. All dates of biblical text dates are from this source and translated with NIV:
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Not being an expert of ancient text dating myself and this seeming to be a credible resource I've assumed reasonable dates are offered by it.

Allusions in all four of the canonical gospels to the destruction of the Jewish temple by Titus in 70 C.E., reinforce this claim:

1Jesus left the temple and was walking away when his disciples came up to him to call his attention to its buildings. 2"Do you see all these things?" he asked. "I tell you the truth, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down." (Matt. 24: 1-2).

1As he was leaving the temple, one of his disciples said to him, "Look, Teacher! What massive stones! What magnificent buildings!"
2"Do you see all these great buildings?" replied Jesus. "Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down." (Mark 13:1).

5Some of his disciples were remarking about how the temple was adorned with beautiful stones and with gifts dedicated to God. But Jesus said, 6"As for what you see here, the time will come when not one stone will be left on another; every one of them will be thrown down." (Luke 21:5-6)

John also makes an allusion to the capture and destruction of the temple, though unique from that of the other three gospels:

. . .we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our place* and our nation." (John 11:48)

*Place here, is translated as temple.
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Further evidence can certainly be provided to justify the claims that the canonical gospels were not written during the time of Jesus, but as my opponent has implied his agreement with me on this matter, I feel it is unnecessary to go into any long winded arguments.

The Epistles

The epistles are a group of letters in the New Testament attributed to Saint Paul. Born in 10 C.E. Paul certainly lived during the time of Jesus and even made contact with the Christian community in Jerusalem. The problem is, he never knew Jesus personally. Paul’s conversion to Christianity happened after Jesus’ crucifixion. He makes this very clear both in 1 Corinthians 15: 3-8 and Galatians 1:11-12.

3For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance[a]: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. 6After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born. (1 Cor. 15:3-8)
(emphasis added)

11I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up. 12I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ. (Gal. 1:11-12)
(emphasis added)

Independence of the Gospels

The gospels were almost certainly not written independently of each other. This can be demonstrated by certain passages being completely identical. Let me use two examples to illustrate my point:

7"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. (Matt. 7:7-8)

*9"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 10For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. (Luke 11:9-10)

The Dominant Theory of Biblical Scholarship

Today, the dominant theory on how the gospels were written is known as The Two Source Theory. The theory states, contrary to canon order, that Mark was actually the first gospel written, and, along with a mysterious source only known as “Q” (for “Quelle”, German for “source”), served as the source for both Luke and Mathew.
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While it is probable that Mark wasn't written during the time of Jesus, this doesn't rule out the possibility that the author of Mark still knew the historical Jesus. The possibility lessens, however, when we take into account Mark's blatant unfamiliarity with Judea.

Firstly, he tells us how Jesus and his disciples left Jericho en route to Jerusalem, and entered Bethphage before Bethany:

1As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage and Bethany . . . (Mark 11:1)

But a simple look at a map (linked below, due to size) would show that a person would have to go through Bethany first, in order to get to Jerusalem from Jericho.

Another example is Mark 7:31:

*31Then Jesus left the vicinity of Tyre and went through Sidon, down to the Sea of Galilee and into the region of the Decapolis.

Again, a simple look at a map would show one of two things:


Jesus, for some inexplicable reason, felt like taking the scenic route.

The author of Mark was so unfamiliar with Judea that he didn't realize going through Sidon to get to the Sea of Galilee from Tyre, would be like going through New York, to get from Missouri to southern Florida.


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Had the author of Mark lived in Judea with Christ, wouldn't he have been far more familiar with the landscape, especially one which he traveled alongside Jesus on?

Another interesting verse demonstrates that the author of Mark probably wasn't living in Judea. In Mark 7:3 the author describes how:

3(The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the tradition of the elders. (Mark 7:3)

To a Jew born and raised in Judea, this probably would've been a rather commonplace practice, one which the majority of Jews would've been familiar with. It would therefore be unnecessary to explain it.

The Life of Jesus and It's Parallels with the Old Testament

The main challenger to Markan priority in biblical authorship is the Two Gospel Theory. This one states that Mathew was the first gospel, followed by Luke, who used it as a source, and finally by Mark who used both of them as sources.
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Virtually every aspect of Jesus' life in Mathew (and even in other gospels, though not as frequently) seems to fulfill a prophesy and/or run parallel to an Old Testament scripture. Combined with the stories of magic and supernatural beings, this means Jesus' life was almost certainly fictional, as real people's lives A) don't involve the supernatural, and B) don't coincide (at least not at every major event) with prophesy:

His Birth

22All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23"The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel"—which means, "God with us." (Matt: 1:22 - 23)
(embolded taken directly from Isaiah 7:14)
(emphasis added)

His escape to Egypt:

3When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. 4When he had called together all the people's chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Christ] was to be born.
5"In Bethlehem in Judea," they replied, "for this is what the prophet has written:
6" 'But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for out of you will come a ruler
who will be the shepherd of my people Israel.'" (Matt. 2:3-6)
(emboldened taken from Micah 5:2)
(my emphasis)

Herod's slaughter of the innocents:

16When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. 17Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:
18"A voice is heard in Ramah,
weeping and great mourning,
Rachel weeping for her children
and refusing to be comforted,
because they are no more."[g] (Matt. 2:13-18)
(emboldened taken directly from Jer. 31:15)
(my emphasis)

His meeting with John the Baptist:

*1In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the Desert of Judea 2and saying, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near." 3This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah:
"A voice of one calling in the desert,
'Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.' " (Matt.3:1-3)
(emboldened taken from Isaiah 40:3)
(my emphasis)

And finally his crucifixion:

41In the same way the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders mocked him. 42"He saved others," they said, "but he can't save himself! He's the King of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. 43He trusts in God. Let God rescue him now if he wants him, for he said, 'I am the Son of God.' " 44In the same way the robbers who were crucified with him also heaped insults on him. (Matt. 27:41 - 44)
(my emphasis)

*7 All who see me mock me;
they hurl insults, shaking their heads:
8 "He trusts in the LORD;
let the LORD rescue him.
Let him deliver him,
since he delights in him." (Psalm 22:7 - 8)
(my emphasis)

Keep in mind, that was only a very partial list. More examples can be given if asked.

The Gospel of John

John was almost certainly not written during the lifetime of Jesus. Not only does its dating (from 90 – 120 C.E.), make this unlikely, but the gospel mistakingly represents Jesus and his followers as not being allowed in synagogues.
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22His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews, for already the Jews had decided that anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the Christ would be put out of the synagogue. (John 9:22)
(my emphasis)

42Yet at the same time many even among the leaders believed in him. But because of the Pharisees they would not confess their faith for fear they would be put out of the synagogue; 43for they loved praise from men more than praise from God. (John 12:42)
(my emphasis)

2They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to God (John 16:2)
(my emphasis)

Secondly, much like Mathew, we see aspects of his life which run uncanny parallels to Old Testament scripture.

12The next day the great crowd that had come for the Feast heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. 13They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting,
"Hosanna![c]"
"Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!"[d]
"Blessed is the King of Israel!" 14Jesus found a young donkey and sat upon it, as it is written,
15"Do not be afraid, O Daughter of Zion;
see, your king is coming,
seated on a donkey's colt." (John 12:12-15)
(emphasis added)

9 Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion!
Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem!
See, your king comes to you,
righteous and having salvation,
gentle and [B]riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey (Zech 9:9)
(emphasis added)

THE PROBLEMS WITH NON-CHRISTIAN SOURCES
*
The non-biblical sources which mention Christ are particularly compelling, as they are unbiased in favor of his existence.* However, they suffer the same problem as the epistles and canon, in that none of them were written during the time of Christ, and even suffer some unique problems – namely, the probability of forgery.*
*
Suetonius, The Lives of the Twelve Caesars (121) and Pliny, Letter to Trajan (112).

"As the Jews were making constant disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he (Claudius) expelled them from Rome".
- Suetonius, The Lives of the Twelve Caesars
*
Those who denied that they were or had been Christians, when they invoked the gods in words dictated by me, offered prayer with incense and wine to your image, which I had ordered to be brought for this purpose together with statues of the gods, and moreover cursed Christ — none of which those who are really Christians, it is said, can be forced to do — these I thought should be discharged. Others named by the informer declared that they were Christians, but then denied it, asserting that they had been but had ceased to be, some three years before, others many years, some as much as twenty-five years. They all worshiped your image and the statues of the gods, and cursed Christ.
- Pliny, Letter to Trajan

Both of these texts concern themselves with the followers of Christ and not with Christ himself.* They make no attempt to put Christ in any type of historical setting or recognize him as an actual historical figure.

Tacitus, Annals (116).

Nero fastened the guilt of starting the blaze and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians [Chrestians] by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius 14-37 at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre [sic] and become popular.
Tacitus, Annals

This is a particularly strong case for the existence of Christ, as Tacitus was not a Christian and is often lauded for his meticulous historical research.* Tacitus did, indeed, obtain a good deal of information from historians and he used them with critical sense.

The unfortunate fact of the matter, however, is that Tacitus typically didn’t frequent depositories of records, and even if he did, it’s doubtful that such depositories would’ve contained records of crucifixions going almost a full century back.* What’s worse, is that his account shows an unfamiliarity with the time.* “Tacitus” (if it were him in the first place) mistakenly refers to Pontius Pilate as “procurator”.* At first, this might seem like an innocent mistake, as after 44 C.E. and into Tacitus’ time, procurators did have gubernatorial roles in the provinces.* However, an inscription of Pontius Pilate refers to him as “prefect”.
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This has led some scholars to suggest that Tacitus’ paragraph about Jesus is a later Christian forgery, considering Tacitus would’ve been well aware of the provincial changes taking place after Claudius’ ascension to emperor:

The kings were either dead, or reduced to insignificance, when Claudius entrusted the province of Judaea to the Roman Knights or to his own freedmen, one of whom, Antonius Felix, indulging in every kind of barbarity and lust, exercised the power of a king in the spirit of a slave. He had married Drusilla, the granddaughter of Antony and Cleopatra, and so was the grandson-in-law, as Claudius was the grandson, of Antony.
Tacitus, The Histories, Book 5
(emphasis added)

Josephus, The Testimonium Flavianum, (93 C.E.)

About this time came Jesus, a wise man, if indeed it is appropriate to call him a man. For he was a performer of paradoxical feats, a teacher of people who accept the unusual with pleasure, and he won over many of the Jews and also many Greeks. He was the Christ. When Pilate, upon the accusation of the first men amongst us, condemned him to be crucified, those who had formerly loved him did not cease to follow him, for he appeared to them on the third day, living again, as the divine prophets foretold, along with a myriad of other marvellous things concerning him. And the tribe of the Christians, so named after him, has not disappeared to this day.
- Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews

The Testimonium Flavianum (TF) has two things in common with Tacitus’ reference in the Annals: 1) it’s often cited as evidence of Jesus’ historicity, as it is a non-Christian, and therefore, non-biased, reference, and 2) it’s of highly questionable authenticity.* The last example is particularly important as the TF has been questioned ever since the sixteenth century.* There are good reasons for this.* Firstly, it is hard to believe that Josephus, a staunch Jew, would’ve referred to Jesus in such glowing terms.* Secondly, the TF is not only not mentioned by Origen, who was clearly familiar with Josephus and who certainly could’ve used it to argue against the anti-Christian writer, Celus, but it contradicts Josephus' glowing accounts of Jesus:

"Flavius Josephus, who wrote the "Antiquities of the Jews" in twenty books, when wishing to exhibit the cause why the people suffered so great misfortunes that even the temple was razed to the ground, said, that these things happened to them in accordance with the wrath of God in consequence of the things which they had dared to do against James the brother of Jesus who is called Christ. And the wonderful thing is, that, though he did not accept Jesus as Christ, he yet gave testimony that the righteousness of James was so great; and he says that the people thought that they had suffered these things because of James." (On The Gospel Of Matthew, 1:15)
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(emphasis added)

I would like to say to Celsus, who represents the Jew as accepting somehow John as a Baptist, who baptized Jesus, that the existence of John the Baptist, baptizing for the remission of sins, is related by one who lived no great length of time after John and Jesus. For in the 18th book of his Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus bears witness to John as having been a Baptist, and as promising purification to those who underwent the rite. Now this writer, although not believing in Jesus as the Christ, in seeking after the cause of the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple, whereas he ought to have said that the conspiracy against Jesus was the cause of these calamities befalling the people, since they put to death Christ, who was a prophet, says nevertheless--being, although against his will, not far from the truth--that these disasters happened to the Jews as a punishment for the death of James the Just, who was a brother of Jesus (called Christ),--the Jews having put him to death, although he was a man most distinguished for his justice. Paul, a genuine disciple of Jesus, says that he regarded this James as a brother of the Lord, not so much on account of their relationship by blood, or of their being brought up together, as because of his virtue and doctrine. If, then, he says that it was on account of James that the desolation of Jerusalem was made to overtake the Jews, how should it not be more in accordance with reason to say that it happened on account (of the death) of Jesus Christ, of whose divinity so many Churches are witnesses, composed of those who have been convened from a flood of sins, and who have joined themselves to the Creator, and who refer all their actions to His good pleasure.(Origen, Against Celsus, 1:47)
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(emphasis added)

Thirdly, he makes the same mistake as Tacitus, referring to Pilate as the “procurator” and not the “prefect", suggesting he may not have been familiar with the age, or may have been quoting a source of equal unfamiliarity.* Fourthly, the TF produces a very awkward interruption in the text, almost as if it were tacked on during a later date.* In paragraph two we are given a rather grisly description of how Pilate slaughtered a group of rebels (and the innocent people mixed in with them).* Then, all of a sudden, in the third paragraph, we are given this glowing description of Jesus and an optimistic look at the survival of Christianity, only to be thrown back again to the calamity of the Roman presence in Judea.
* *
The Antiquities seem to flow much smoother without the Testimonium.
Note: Paragraph one is quoted here one to show the Josephus' mistake with Pontius Pilate's title:

1. BUT now Pilate, the procurator of Judea, removed the army from Cesarea to Jerusalem, to take their winter quarters there, in order to abolish the Jewish laws. So he introduced Caesar's effigies, which were upon the ensigns, and brought them into the city; whereas our law forbids us the very making of images; on which account the former procurators were wont to make their entry into the city with such ensigns as had not those ornaments. Pilate was the first who brought those images to Jerusalem, and set them up there; which was done without the knowledge of the people, because it was done in the night time; but as soon as they knew it, they came in multitudes to Cesarea, and interceded with Pilate many days that he would remove the images; and when he would not grant their requests, because it would tend to the injury of Caesar, while yet they persevered in their request, on the sixth day he ordered his soldiers to have their weapons privately, while he came and sat upon his judgment-seat, which seat was so prepared in the open place of the city, that it concealed the army that lay ready to oppress them; and when the Jews petitioned him again, he gave a signal to the soldiers to encompass them routed, and threatened that their punishment should be no less than immediate death, unless they would leave off disturbing him, and go their ways home. But they threw themselves upon the ground, and laid their necks bare, and said they would take their death very willingly, rather than the wisdom of their laws should be transgressed; upon which Pilate was deeply affected with their firm resolution to keep their laws inviolable, and presently commanded the images to be carried back from Jerusalem to Cesarea.

But Pilate undertook to bring a current of water to Jerusalem, and did it with the sacred money, and derived the origin of the stream from the distance of two hundred furlongs. However, the Jews (8) were not pleased with what had been done about this water; and many ten thousands of the people got together, and made a clamor against him, and insisted that he should leave off that design. Some of them also used reproaches, and abused the man, as crowds of such people usually do. So he habited a great number of his soldiers in their habit, who carried daggers under their garments, and sent them to a place where they might surround them. So he bid the Jews himself go away; but they boldly casting reproaches upon him, he gave the soldiers that signal which had been beforehand agreed on; who laid upon them much greater blows than Pilate had commanded them, and equally punished those that were tumultuous, and those that were not; nor did they spare them in the least: and since the people were unarmed, and were caught by men prepared for what they were about, there were a great number of them slain by this means, and others of them ran away wounded. And thus an end was put to this sedition.

About the same time also another sad calamity put the Jews into disorder, and certain shameful practices happened about the temple of Isis that was at Rome. I will now first take notice of the wicked attempt about the temple of Isis, and will then give an account of the Jewish affairs. There was at Rome a woman whose name was Paulina; one who, on account of the dignity of her ancestors, and by the regular conduct of a virtuous life, had a great reputation: she was also very rich; and although she was of a beautiful countenance, and in that flower of her age wherein women are the most gay, yet did she lead a life of great modesty.
(emphasis added)

And with it.

1. BUT now Pilate, the procurator of Judea, removed the army from Cesarea to Jerusalem, to take their winter quarters there, in order to abolish the Jewish laws. So he introduced Caesar's effigies, which were upon the ensigns, and brought them into the city; whereas our law forbids us the very making of images; on which account the former procurators were wont to make their entry into the city with such ensigns as had not those ornaments. Pilate was the first who brought those images to Jerusalem, and set them up there; which was done without the knowledge of the people, because it was done in the night time; but as soon as they knew it, they came in multitudes to Cesarea, and interceded with Pilate many days that he would remove the images; and when he would not grant their requests, because it would tend to the injury of Caesar, while yet they persevered in their request, on the sixth day he ordered his soldiers to have their weapons privately, while he came and sat upon his judgment-seat, which seat was so prepared in the open place of the city, that it concealed the army that lay ready to oppress them; and when the Jews petitioned him again, he gave a signal to the soldiers to encompass them routed, and threatened that their punishment should be no less than immediate death, unless they would leave off disturbing him, and go their ways home. But they threw themselves upon the ground, and laid their necks bare, and said they would take their death very willingly, rather than the wisdom of their laws should be transgressed; upon which Pilate was deeply affected with their firm resolution to keep their laws inviolable, and presently commanded the images to be carried back from Jerusalem to Cesarea.

2.But Pilate undertook to bring a current of water to Jerusalem, and did it with the sacred money, and derived the origin of the stream from the distance of two hundred furlongs. However, the Jews (8) were not pleased with what had been done about this water; and many ten thousands of the people got together, and made a clamor against him, and insisted that he should leave off that design. Some of them also used reproaches, and abused the man, as crowds of such people usually do. So he habited a great number of his soldiers in their habit, who carried daggers under their garments, and sent them to a place where they might surround them. So he bid the Jews himself go away; but they boldly casting reproaches upon him, he gave the soldiers that signal which had been beforehand agreed on; who laid upon them much greater blows than Pilate had commanded them, and equally punished those that were tumultuous, and those that were not; nor did they spare them in the least: and since the people were unarmed, and were caught by men prepared for what they were about, there were a great number of them slain by this means, and others of them ran away wounded. And thus an end was put to this sedition.

Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, (9) those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; (10) as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.

About the same time also another sad calamity put the Jews into disorder, and certain shameful practices happened about the temple of Isis that was at Rome. I will now first take notice of the wicked attempt about the temple of Isis, and will then give an account of the Jewish affairs. There was at Rome a woman whose name was Paulina; one who, on account of the dignity of her ancestors, and by the regular conduct of a virtuous life, had a great reputation: she was also very rich; and although she was of a beautiful countenance, and in that flower of her age wherein women are the most gay, yet did she lead a life of great modesty.
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The Torah
Some scholars have suggested that Jesus may have even been mentioned in the Torah. In Talmud Sanhedrin 107b, Sotah 47a, for instance, we are given a story of a man named Yeshu (very closely resembling “Yeshua”, the Aramaic name for Jesus).

When John [Hyrcanus] the king killed the rabbis, R. Yehoshua Ben Perachiah [and Yeshu] went to Alexandria of Egypt. When there was peace, Shimon Ben Shetach sent to him "From me [Jerusalem] the holy city to you Alexandria of Egypt. My husband remains in your midst and I sit forsaken. . ."
- Sanhedrin 107b, Sotah 47a

Yeshu even has five disciples, one of whom is named Matai (Mathew), as Talmud Sanhedrin 43a describes:

It is taught: Yeshu had five disciples - Matai, Nekai, Netzer, Buni, and Todah.
They brought Matai [before the judges]. He said to them: Will Matai be killed? It is written (Psalm 42:2) "When [=Matai] shall (I) come and appear before G-d."
They said to him: Yes, Matai will be killed as it is written (Psalm 41:5) "When [=Matai] shall (he) die and his name perish."
They brought Nekai. He said to them: Will Nekai be killed? It is written (Exodus 23:7) "The innocent [=Naki] and the righteous you shall not slay."
They said to him: Yes, Nekai will be killed as it is written (Psalm 10:8) "In secret places he slay the innocent [=Naki]."
They brought Netzer. He said to them: Will Netzer be killed? It is written (Isaiah 11:1) "A branch [=Netzer] shall spring up from his roots."
They said to him: Yes, Netzer will be killed as it is written (Isaiah 14:19) "You are cast forth out of your grave like an abominable branch [=Netzer]."
They brought Buni. He said to them: Will Buni be killed? It is written (Exodus 4:22) "My son [=Beni], my firstborn, Israel."
They said to him: Yes, Buni will be killed as it is written (Exodus 4:23) "Behold, I slay your son [=Bincha] your firstborn."
They brought Todah. He said to them: Will Todah be killed? It is written (Psalm 100:1) "A Psalm for thanksgiving [=Todah]."
They said to him: Yes, Todah will be killed as it is written (Psalm 50:23) "Whoever sacrifices thanksgiving [=Todah] honors me."
- Talmud Sanhedrin 43a
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The are numerous problems with these texts. First of all, placing “Jesus” along side John Hyrcanus, a first century B.C.E. king, would've meant he lived a century before his normally chronicled life. Secondly, even the most uneducated atheist could tell you that Jesus had twelve disciples, and not five. Thirdly, only one of the disciples (Matai) is named correctly.

THE PROBLEMS WITH NON-LITERARY SOURCES

The evidence for the existence of a historical Jesus has not even been limited to the written word. The James Ossuary and the Shroud of Turin have both grabbed the attention of Christians and skeptics alike. Again, unfortunately, both shed little light on this matter. The owner of the James Ossuary, Oded Golan, is still on trial for being part of an elaborate forgery ring which has lasted around twenty years.

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The Shroud of Turin, on the other hand, remains in academic limbo. Though thought to have been put to rest in 1988 when carbon dating dated the cloth to the fourteenth century, it has been hard to disprove as a forgery, considering the eerie and inexplicable photographic images it makes, residue from plants unique to the Middle East in its cloth, and even the blood stains along the wrists. Medieval painters (and Mel Gibson!) mistakingly believed the Romans crucified their victims through the palms, but today's scholars know they were nailed through the wrists. Questions concerning whether or not the material tested was taken from Medieval cloth used to fix the tattered shroud has reopened the case. Nonetheless, the shroud has not yet been able to prove the divinity or the historicity of Christ.

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CONCLUSION

It can NOT be assumed that Jesus was a real historical figure for the following reasons:


There are no primary source accounts of his life.

The New Testament canon was written at least thirty years after his death.

The canonical gospels were probably not written independently.

The author of the Epistles, Paul, admits to never having met Jesus when he was alive.

Following The Two Source Hypothesis we must accept the canonical gospels as being partially based on someone who wasn't familiar with Judea (and therefore, probably didn't live with Jesus), and partially based on an unknown source which we can't measure the authenticity of.

With The Two Gospel Hypothesis, (the dominant challenger of The Two Source Hypothesis) we must accept a highly fictional account of Jesus as being the basis of the gospels.

The gospel of John shows a lack of familiarity with Jesus' time. It also parallels Old Testament scripture, showing that it was almost certainly fictional.

Non-Christian sources about his life are possible forgeries, show a lack of familiarity with his times, only talk about his followers, and/or don't even make a clear reference to him or his followers at all.

Non-literary sources have either been proven to be forgeries, or are have not yet proven his existence.


Note: Please ignore the random asterisks in my post. I don't know why they are there

[eliotitus]

My first question in response to Czhar's large preamble about the concept of disproof is quite a simple one. What is the level of evidence one would expect or want Jesus to fulfil in order to believe that he is in fact a historical figure?

As I went in to great lengths to make clear in my opening statement this concept of reasonable doubt (which Czhar seems to have raised as an important issue as well) is heavily prevalent in all of history. Many of the alleged failings of Jesus on the counts Czhar has listed are far far worse in other historical figures we take as given. I do however agree that Czhar has no requirement to prove Jesus' non-existence, he does however have to provide a reasonable reason for the belief in his existence. Especially given the likes of Paul claim to have at least met eye witnesses.

THE PROBLEMS WITH CHRISTIAN SOURCES

The Canonical Gospels.


The canonical gospels were not written during the time of Jesus. I feel that both my opponent and I can agree on this claim considering the very source he cites for his information agrees with me:


We can, I do doubt very much however that we will be in agreement on the implications of this. Bear in mind that the time difference between the last gospel and Jesus' time of death (which, incidentally we can fix to within one or two years, something quite astounding if he did not in fact exist) is at the very most 70 years. Two other figures with no contemporary written accounts of their existence are Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar, not exactly what one could call disputable figures in history or anywhere near as low profile as Jesus would've been. A localised upstart in an already trouble ridden (and almost universally illiterate) province. The passages either side of the Testemonium flavium more than show us the problems in Jerusalem at the time. And we know both of them exist through archaeological evidence which there is no way we could obtain for Jesus (his face was certainly never imprinted on coins as far as I'm aware).

The Epistles

The epistles are a group of letters in the New Testament attributed to Saint Paul. Born in 10 C.E. Paul certainly lived during the time of Jesus and even made contact with the Christian community in Jerusalem. The problem is, he never knew Jesus personally. Paul’s conversion to Christianity happened after Jesus’ crucifixion. He makes this very clear both in 1 Corinthians 15: 3-8 and Galatians 1:11-12.


I simply fail to see how this is a problem given Paul repeatedly both claims and infers he has met eye-witnesses to Jesus. Heck even in the passages Czahar himself cited of his we have this:


3For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. 6After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.

Clear implication that he has been in contact with them and is intimately aware of their concepts. He refers to them as the twelve without feeling the need to elaborate, evidently at the point of writing they are at least reasonably well known figures (whom all testify to having met Jesus). Furthermore he seems to explicitly know some of the 500, how else would he know of their deaths. These would all imply he knows eye-witnesses.

Now it is one thing to imply that he seems to have met 500 people mistaken about when or what they saw with regard to Jesus leading them to think he had been resurrected. It is quite another to suggest that he met 500 people all of whom are conspiring in an elaborate plot to invent a religion for... absolutely no reason or possible gain whatsoever...

Independence of the Gospels


The gospels were almost certainly not written independently of each other. This can be demonstrated by certain passages being completely identical. Let me use two examples to illustrate my point:

7"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. (Matt. 7:7-8)

*9"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 10For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. (Luke 11:9-10)

I'm sorry to say but this demonstrates absolutely nothing but that a direct quote from Jesus was remembered effectively. It is one of the more famous moments of his life it is entirely reasonable to suggest that multiple people remembered an identical quote from him.

Furthermore if they were written using the texts of one another as a basis it would make absolutely no sense for them to have detail discrepancy whatsoever. ESPECIALLY in the vital moments to Christian doctrine (i.e. the resurrection). In which the accounts disagree on the number of angels present and the order of events, this makes far more sense if it is a fact that the original disciples (presumably the source of most information) were not present upon discovering Jesus' body not there to begin with (and they are not in any of the gospel accounts). If however the texts were dependant on one another these discrepancies would simply not have arisen.


The Dominant Theory of Biblical Scholarship


Today, the dominant theory on how the gospels were written is known as The Two Source Theory. The theory states, contrary to canon order, that Mark was actually the first gospel written, and, along with a mysterious source only known as “Q” (for “Quelle”, German for “source”), served as the source for both Luke and Mathew.
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The success of this theory would only serve to push back the date of the time between the crucifixion and the account being written down. This could surely only serve as further support that there is little to no possibility of fabrication of Jesus.


While it is probable that Mark wasn't written during the time of Jesus, this doesn't rule out the possibility that the author of Mark still knew the historical Jesus. The possibility lessens, however, when we take into account Mark's blatant unfamiliarity with Judea.

Quite, Mark was a Roman and no author ancient or otherwise has tried to claim he ever met Jesus. He was Peter's disciple not Jesus'

We have a great deal of corroboration for this. Justin Martyr for example quotes the gospel of Mark referring to them as the memoirs of Peter

Ireneus also tells us:


After their departure [of Peter and Paul from earth], Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, did also hand down to us in writing what had been preached by Peter."

Then we also have Eusebius quoting the earlier Papias once again affirming Mark as a student of Jesus' disciple Peter:


For information on these points, we can merely refer our readers to the books themselves; but now, to the extracts already made, we shall add, as being a matter of primary importance, a tradition regarding Mark who wrote the Gospel, which he [Papias] has given in the following words: "And the presbyter said this. Mark having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately whatsoever he remembered. It was not, however, in exact order that he related the sayings or deeds of Christ. For he neither heard the Lord nor accompanied Him. But afterwards, as I said, he accompanied Peter, who accommodated his instructions to the necessities [of his hearers], but with no intention of giving a regular narrative of the Lord's sayings. Wherefore Mark made no mistake in thus writing some things as he remembered them. For of one thing he took especial care, not to omit anything he had heard, and not to put anything fictitious into the statements." This is what is related by Papias regarding Mark.

Thus we can excuse Mark for being unfamiliar with the lay of Judea. He was writing after Peter's death as we can see from all three sources and could hardly use him to corroborate what he was writing down. However due to these references we can see that Mark is another man who knew an eye-witness personally and accounted Jesus' life as best he could.

The Life of Jesus and It's Parallels with the Old Testament


The main challenger to Markan priority in biblical authorship is the Two Gospel Theory. This one states that Mathew was the first gospel, followed by Luke, who used it as a source, and finally by Mark who used both of them as sources.
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I would like to challenge this theory as redundant with the discovery that Mark did not originally contain any post-resurrection thought. The earliest copies we have of Mark end at Mark 16:8. It would make little sense for the final gospel written gospel to fail to mention the most important aspect of Christian philosophy in detail when it already has two detailed accounts to deal with as a source.


Virtually every aspect of Jesus' life in Mathew (and even in other gospels, though not as frequently) seems to fulfill a prophesy and/or run parallel to an Old Testament scripture. Combined with the stories of magic and supernatural beings, this means Jesus' life was almost certainly fictional, as real people's lives A) don't involve the supernatural, and B) don't coincide (at least not at every major event) with prophesy:

But people's accounts of those self-same lives often do. Case-in-point Muhammad, if one believes points A and B invalidate the existence of someone as credible then because Muhammad moved a mountain he cannot have possibly existed. Likewise nor can Augustus as he was borne of a snake aka Apollo, or Constantine who met supposedly met Apollo etc. etc. History is littered with supernatural accounts of real people, these do not invalidate these peoples existence.


His Birth

22All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23"The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel"—which means, "God with us." (Matt: 1:22 - 23)
(embolded taken directly from Isaiah 7:14)
(emphasis added)

His escape to Egypt:

3When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. 4When he had called together all the people's chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Christ] was to be born.
5"In Bethlehem in Judea," they replied, "for this is what the prophet has written:
6" 'But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for out of you will come a ruler
who will be the shepherd of my people Israel.'" (Matt. 2:3-6)
(emboldened taken from Micah 5:2)
(my emphasis)

Herod's slaughter of the innocents:

16When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. 17Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:
18"A voice is heard in Ramah,
weeping and great mourning,
Rachel weeping for her children
and refusing to be comforted,
because they are no more."[g] (Matt. 2:13-18)
(emboldened taken directly from Jer. 31:15)
(my emphasis)

His meeting with John the Baptist:

*1In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the Desert of Judea 2and saying, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near." 3This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah:
"A voice of one calling in the desert,
'Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.' " (Matt.3:1-3)
(emboldened taken from Isaiah 40:3)
(my emphasis)

And finally his crucifixion:

41In the same way the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders mocked him. 42"He saved others," they said, "but he can't save himself! He's the King of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. 43He trusts in God. Let God rescue him now if he wants him, for he said, 'I am the Son of God.' " 44In the same way the robbers who were crucified with him also heaped insults on him. (Matt. 27:41 - 44)
(my emphasis)

*7 All who see me mock me;
they hurl insults, shaking their heads:
8 "He trusts in the LORD;
let the LORD rescue him.
Let him deliver him,
since he delights in him." (Psalm 22:7 - 8)
(my emphasis)

Keep in mind, that was only a very partial list. More examples can be given if asked.

I would also like to point out that it's far easier to twist the facts to meet the prophecy than fabricate them when the events happened within living memory. If one wishes to push for a fabrication of Jesus' existance one must present evidence of how and why he was fabricated.

The Gospel of John


John was almost certainly not written during the lifetime of Jesus. Not only does its dating (from 90 – 120 C.E.), make this unlikely, but the gospel mistakingly represents Jesus and his followers as not being allowed in synagogues.
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22His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews, for already the Jews had decided that anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the Christ would be put out of the synagogue. (John 9:22)
(my emphasis)

42Yet at the same time many even among the leaders believed in him. But because of the Pharisees they would not confess their faith for fear they would be put out of the synagogue; 43for they loved praise from men more than praise from God. (John 12:42)
(my emphasis)

2They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to God (John 16:2)
(my emphasis)

Secondly, much like Mathew, we see aspects of his life which run uncanny parallels to Old Testament scripture.

12The next day the great crowd that had come for the Feast heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. 13They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting,
"Hosanna![c]"
"Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!"[d]
"Blessed is the King of Israel!" 14Jesus found a young donkey and sat upon it, as it is written,
15"Do not be afraid, O Daughter of Zion;
see, your king is coming,
seated on a donkey's colt." (John 12:12-15)
(emphasis added)

9 Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion!
Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem!
See, your king comes to you,
righteous and having salvation,
gentle and [B]riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey (Zech 9:9)
(emphasis added)

John is bad for those reasons it is true. It is however a very very interesting thing to bring up. It's stories are almost entirely independent from those in the other synoptic gospels suggesting at the very least it was written independently. Thus creating yet another tradition of belief in a historical Jesus which must be explained away for a case for Jesus' non-existence to be made. So it must be asked, why did people start believing Jesus existed all of a sudden? And why did two independent traditions arise out of it? The most reasonable answer to this is that he did in fact exist and his disciples scattered and placed different emphasis on different stories.

THE PROBLEMS WITH NON-CHRISTIAN SOURCES

Suetonius, The Lives of the Twelve Caesars (121) and Pliny, Letter to Trajan (112).

"As the Jews were making constant disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he (Claudius) expelled them from Rome".
- Suetonius, The Lives of the Twelve Caesars
*
Those who denied that they were or had been Christians, when they invoked the gods in words dictated by me, offered prayer with incense and wine to your image, which I had ordered to be brought for this purpose together with statues of the gods, and moreover cursed Christ — none of which those who are really Christians, it is said, can be forced to do — these I thought should be discharged. Others named by the informer declared that they were Christians, but then denied it, asserting that they had been but had ceased to be, some three years before, others many years, some as much as twenty-five years. They all worshiped your image and the statues of the gods, and cursed Christ.
- Pliny, Letter to Trajan


Both of these texts concern themselves with the followers of Christ and not with Christ himself.* They make no attempt to put Christ in any type of historical setting or recognize him as an actual historical figure.

Because neither text sets out to assess whether he existed or not. They take it as a given, there is simply no early controversy which we would expect over his existence if it were fabricated. The secular sources had no need or want to concern themselves with the specifics of Jesus' life they were concerned with his followers. Surely given concern over his followers had there been such a problem as no shred of early proof or early witnesses to him existing they would have made a much bigger deal of this. It simply makes no sense for Jesus to have been fabricated and everyone all of a sudden take it as a given even though there are people within living memory when he starts being written about. We know for a fact there were sizeable populations of Christians in Corinth, Rome, Thessalonica and everywhere else the early epistles were addressed to because people were writing to those Christians. This is within 20 years of his alleged existence.

Tacitus, Annals (116).

Nero fastened the guilt of starting the blaze and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians [Chrestians] by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius 14-37 at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre [sic] and become popular.
Tacitus, Annals


This is a particularly strong case for the existence of Christ, as Tacitus was not a Christian and is often lauded for his meticulous historical research.* Tacitus did, indeed, obtain a good deal of information from historians and he used them with critical sense.

The unfortunate fact of the matter, however, is that Tacitus typically didn’t frequent depositories of records, and even if he did, it’s doubtful that such depositories would’ve contained records of crucifixions going almost a full century back.*

[QUOTE=czahar;374615]What’s worse, is that his account shows an unfamiliarity with the time.* “Tacitus” (if it were him in the first place) mistakenly refers to Pontius Pilate as “procurator”.* At first, this might seem like an innocent mistake, as after 44 C.E. and into Tacitus’ time, procurators did have gubernatorial roles in the provinces.* However, an inscription of Pontius Pilate refers to him as “prefect”.
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This has led some scholars to suggest that Tacitus’ paragraph about Jesus is a later Christian forgery, considering Tacitus would’ve been well aware of the provincial changes taking place after Claudius’ ascension to emperor:

There are numerous more reasonable explanations than the out and out fabrication of an entire passage when no one was questioning Jesus' existence. Human error being a big one. There simply wasn't a need to reinforce Jesus' historicity as a fabrication would suggest on the grounds that no one for the next dozen centuries or so was going to think to challenge Jesus' historicity. And the passage was definitley there before that.

Josephus, The Testimonium Flavianum, (93 C.E.)

About this time came Jesus, a wise man, if indeed it is appropriate to call him a man. For he was a performer of paradoxical feats, a teacher of people who accept the unusual with pleasure, and he won over many of the Jews and also many Greeks. He was the Christ. When Pilate, upon the accusation of the first men amongst us, condemned him to be crucified, those who had formerly loved him did not cease to follow him, for he appeared to them on the third day, living again, as the divine prophets foretold, along with a myriad of other marvellous things concerning him. And the tribe of the Christians, so named after him, has not disappeared to this day.
- Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews


The Testimonium Flavianum (TF) has two things in common with Tacitus’ reference in the Annals: 1) it’s often cited as evidence of Jesus’ historicity, as it is a non-Christian, and therefore, non-biased, reference, and 2) it’s of highly questionable authenticity.* The last example is particularly important as the TF has been questioned ever since the sixteenth century.* There are good reasons for this.* Firstly, it is hard to believe that Josephus, a staunch Jew, would’ve referred to Jesus in such glowing terms.* Secondly, the TF is not only not mentioned by Origen, who was clearly familiar with Josephus and who certainly could’ve used it to argue against the anti-Christian writer, Celus,

The problem is Josephus' account contains remarkably little detail and Celsus never questioned the historicity of Jesus. Thus the only use of the Testimonium Flavium (to assert his historicity) would have been unnecessary arguing over something they both agreed on. Jesus existed, they did not in fact disagree about this, they disagreed about whether or not he was the Christ.


but it contradicts Josephus' glowing accounts of Jesus:

It is entirely possible that one or two words were changed without the entire passage being doctored. This would be far easier to do than to fully fabricate a passage in a famous and well known book. The comment about Jesus being the Christ that Josephus makes I will concede could well be a forgery, however given that the book managed to last some centuries without anyone noticing an entire paragraph just slotted in for conveniences sake some hundred odd years after it was written (the only time Christians could have possibly had enough power and influence to get editing’s of this magnitude done) is simply ridiculous. Furthermore we also have reference to Jesus' brother in Josephus as Oriegen attests in his mention of James in the passages you yourself highlighted. Further confirmation of another eye witness in existence at some point even if they never wrote an account themselves.


Thirdly, he makes the same mistake as Tacitus, referring to Pilate as the “procurator” and not the “prefect", suggesting he may not have been familiar with the age, or may have been quoting a source of equal unfamiliarity.* Fourthly, the TF produces a very awkward interruption in the text, almost as if it were tacked on during a later date.* In paragraph two we are given a rather grisly description of how Pilate slaughtered a group of rebels (and the innocent people mixed in with them).* Then, all of a sudden, in the third paragraph, we are given this glowing description of Jesus and an optimistic look at the survival of Christianity, only to be thrown back again to the calamity of the Roman presence in Judea.

In what manner does this in any way interrupt the narrative? We have a glowing reference to Jesus with regard to his brutal execution at the hands of Pilate just as the passages before and after deal with the Roman's brutal treatment of the Jews.


The Antiquities seem to flow much smoother without the Testimonium.

Purely subjective assertion with no grounding whatsoever.


Note: Paragraph one is quoted here one to show the Josephus' mistake with Pontius Pilate's title:

Given we have two independent assertions that Pilate was a procurator can it not be regarded as possible that he may well have been and either the inscription was wrong, he was a pluralist, or he held different offices at different times (none of which are intrinsically unreasonable theories)

The Torah


Some scholars have suggested that Jesus may have even been mentioned in the Torah. In Talmud Sanhedrin 107b, Sotah 47a, for instance, we are given a story of a man named Yeshu (very closely resembling “Yeshua”, the Aramaic name for Jesus).

I do not support the notion that the Talmud Jesus was the historical Jesus, I am in agreement with Czahar on this.

THE PROBLEMS WITH NON-LITERARY SOURCES


The evidence for the existence of a historical Jesus has not even been limited to the written word. The James Ossuary and the Shroud of Turin have both grabbed the attention of Christians and sceptics alike. Again, unfortunately, both shed little light on this matter. The owner of the James Ossuary, Oded Golan, is still on trial for being part of an elaborate forgery ring which has lasted around twenty years.

Likewise I do not support either the James ossuary or the shroud of Turin as authentic, I do not regard them necessary to my case.

CONCLUSION

It would appear that there is in fact very little disagreement between myself and Czahar on the facts he has present in his post except on the authenticity of original sources. Indeed my case is not built in contradiction of the facts he raises to question Jesus existence. It is in fact entirely structured around them.

Let's examine the points he has raised individually:

There are no primary source accounts of his life.

And indeed I have conceded this except for the sayings gospel of Thomas which was not addressed. However, I have pointed out that there are numerous secondary sources claiming to be on primary source evidence. There is reference to James, Jesus' brother. There is Mark's gospel the memoirs of Peter. There is Paul's references to people who allegedly met Jesus etc. etc.

The New Testament canon was written at least thirty years after his death.

Yes? And? That's all I can say in response to that. Suetonius wrote generation upon generation after about Julius Caesar and Augustus etc. He is still regarded an excellent source as he based his account on primary sources. Given thirty years only and honesty in the fact the authors were not primary sources but instead knew those that met Jesus it is hardly unreasonable to think he exists. For example there is a fellow named Adam that numerous of my friends keep telling me little anecdotes about. I have met his brother, his ex-girlfriends, his friends, people who don't like him, people who do etc. I know parties he's been to that I wasn't at. It would be totally unreasonable for me to assume he didn't exist, simply because I'd never met him myself, the testimony of those who have met him to me is more than enough for me to be able to confidently assert his existence to anyone and no doubt if I wished to tell you numerous reliable anecdotes about him.

The canonical gospels were probably not written independently.

I have queried this assertion in the main section where it was presented in czahar's argument for it.

The author of the Epistles, Paul, admits to never having met Jesus when he was alive.

And yet he attests to having met people who have met Jesus.

Following The Two Source Hypothesis we must accept the canonical gospels as being partially based on someone who wasn't familiar with Judea (and therefore, probably didn't live with Jesus), and partially based on an unknown source which we can't measure the authenticity of.

With The Two Gospel Hypothesis, (the dominant challenger of The Two Source Hypothesis) we must accept a highly fictional account of Jesus as being the basis of the gospels.[/I]

Again I have queried both these theories and the conclusions czahar has drawn from them

The gospel of John shows a lack of familiarity with Jesus' time. It also parallels Old Testament scripture, showing that it was almost certainly fictional.

And at the same time it shows an independent account of Jesus' existence arising. So not only has Jesus been managed to be made up once, he's been entirely fabricated out of nothing TWICE, with two entirely different lives. Surely that is less reasonable than that he existed and different disciples placed different emphasis on different stories.

Non-Christian sources about his life are possible forgeries, show a lack of familiarity with his times, only talk about his followers, and/or don't even make a clear reference to him or his followers at all.

Again this has all been addressed as irrelevant or out and out indulgent thinking about the powers of early Christian writers to majorly doctor every available text of widely circulated texts.

Non-literary sources have either been proven to be forgeries, or are have not yet proven his existence.

And I do not base my case on these

[czahar]

First off, to my opponent, to the judges, and to all of the people who have followed this debate, I apologize sincerely for the lateness of my rebuttal.

With that being said, I have not wavered in my belief in Jesus Christ's lack of historicity. To reiterate, I will not make an attempt to prove that Jesus was fake. As I stated in my OP, such is impossible. Could a debater truly prove that unicorns don't exist? No. She could challenge her opponent for scientific research to defend their existence and show that virtually all literature concerning their existence is fictitious, but she couldn't show that they don't exist. After all, an inability to prove the Earth were round wouldn't make it flat.

What I will attempt to show is, much like unicorns, Jesus Christ, has no primary or secondary source evidence taken from the time in which he probably lived to justify his existence.

Let's say I were a Ph.D. candidate presenting my thesis before a board of historians. The first thing I would need to prove my case is evidence. This evidence would either need to be taken from the time of my subject's existence, or, at the very least, be based on evidence which were taken from the time of my subject's existence. In the latter case, it would be necessary to assess the reliability of the evidence and its interpretation. Indeed, how could anything truly prove the existence of an individual's existence if it weren't either taken from the time of the individual's existence, or based on something which was taken from that time?

In the case of Jesus, we have neither. We don't have any evidence taken from the time of his existence. We do have evidence taken after his death, but we don't know what this evidence was based on; therefore, it can't be assessed.

Neither being able to show any evidence taken from the time of my subject's existence, nor being able to assess the reliability of my evidence, the foundation of my thesis would be toppled. Considering the supporters of Jesus' historicity have similar support, there's no reason theirs shouldn't suffer the same fate.

What I will do in my rebutal, is show this lack of support, and prove that Jesus can't be proven as an actual, historical individual.



The evidence from the sayings Gospel of Thomas in particular


The contents of the Gospel of Thomas are a series of sayings attributed to Jesus of Nazareth the Christ. In the preliminary of the text we have from it, it contains the attribution to Thomas. This is corroborated by our earliest references to it in which this attestation is not questioned. Indeed there is no questioning (and when there is they present no evidence beyond its heretical content) until the 4th and 5th centuries. Some 300 years later.

Actually, it is far more likely that this points to Thomas following a second century Gnostic tradition of enhancing the position of James. While there is mention of Christ revealing himself to James in 1 Corinthians (written ca. 60 C.E.) we only have mention of him by name in the synoptic gospels and only does Acts refer to him as a leader of the Jerusalem Church.

In the early first century, however, James becomes a greater center of attention. The Secret Book of James, for instance, appeals to him for a source of secret and superior knowledge while the Gospel of the Hebrews represents him, though implicitly, as a partially elevated disciple.

The other thing that makes the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas more likely to have been written in the second century is its use of James’ surname, “the Just”. Paul never refers to him in such a way, nor do any of the synoptic gospels. Later first century documents, do however.


I am of this opinion as it can be dated early, very possibly to an eye-witness and is far from susceptible to later bias.

I find this particularly interesting. My opponent takes an assumption which he explicitly states as only a possibility (that the author of Thomas or whatever it bases itself on was an eye-witness), and then implies it as fact.


So? What do we have here; we have an early, eye-witness source to Jesus with a full text still in existence. . . Thus it is most reasonable to conclude that is exactly what we have, an early eye-witness source to Jesus of Nazareth documenting his sayings and preaching.



It is at least independent of the synoptic gospels and is nowhere near developed enough in terms of Gnostic doctrine to be reliant upon any of them.

I don't see how my opponent can argue this. There are tens of hundreds of parallels between the Gospel of Thomas and the synoptic gospels. Here are two for example:

The Gospel of Thomas: Logion 9:

Jesus said, "Look, the sower went out, took a handful (of seeds), and scattered (them). Some fell on the road, and the birds came and gathered them. Others fell on rock, and they didn't take root in the soil and didn't produce heads of grain. Others fell on thorns, and they choked the seeds and worms ate them. And others fell on good soil, and it produced a good crop: it yielded sixty per measure and one hundred twenty per measure."

Mark 4: 3 - 8

3"Listen! A farmer went out to sow his seed. 4As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. 6But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. 7Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants, so that they did not bear grain. 8Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, multiplying thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times."

Logion #10

Jesus said, "I have cast fire upon the world, and look, I'm guarding it until it blazes."

Luke 12:49

I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!

If my opponent would like more, I suggest he check out this site:

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Inferred evidence from circumstance

Firstly though, the lack of controversy in Jesus' existence. Let us examine the origin of the Jesus myth theory, its first known proponent was in the 18th century. How very very odd. There were eye witnesses around still alive while the first texts are being written and yet critics such as Celsus the late second century polemicist. Far from claiming Jesus did not exist he conjured numerous excuses as to why Jesus was not God for example his famous claim that Mary committed adultery with a Roman soldier who was Jesus' father. We know that he was not the only critic. And there were early critics. For example we have Justin Martyr in the first half of the century responding to them. In all these sources however not once do we hear even the slightest question of Jesus' factual existence as a man. We hear all sorts of other claims from "his miracles were unoriginal" to "he was a sorcerer" and yet not one apologist had to deal with the Jesus myth until the 18th century.

Most individuals duing the pre-Classical Age of Greek history believed the Illiad was an actual record of historical events. Allow me to quote Ernst Breisach from his book, Historiography: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern:

It [the Illiad's meter] all enhanced the revenue in which listeners held the epics as the records of the distant past and the respect they gave the bards as teachers about the past. (p. 6)
(emphasis added)

Going by my opponent’s logic, the simple fact that the listeners didn’t question the historical authenticity of the Illiad would lend credence to its reality.

As far as to why even Jesus’ opponent’s accepted his historicity, we can’t say. What we can say is that it proves little in the authenticity of his existence. Indeed, if we were to take the trust of enemies as proof of something’s truth, the Donation of Constantine never would’ve been proven as a forgery. For over two hundred years, even the opponents of Rome recognized its authenticity, and even after Otto III mentioned some scepticism about it, it was only in the mid fifteenth century that the strongest step was taken in proving it as a forgery.


One would think it very queer that these people were able to just make up a man who lived in the public eye constantly within living memory and certainly within the children's living memory of numerous inhabitants of Jerusalem at the time Jesus was supposed to have been there and not one person ever thought it odd that they'd never heard of Jesus before.

And why does my opponent assume that any of these writers were writing for this audience? St. Paul wrote his letters to the Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossions. By my opponent’s own admission, Mark was written by a gentile author outside of Judea. As I’ve pointed out, he was probably written for a gentile audience, one which certainly wouldn’t have had any living memory of Jesus. Matthew was probably written in Antioch and Luke was almost certainly written by a Christian gentile outside of Jerusalem. None of these authors were writing in an area where anyone would’ve been familiar with Jesus, if, indeed, Jesus’ popularity during his lifetime was ever great enough to get the attention of the masses in the first place.



The second major point for this section is that his followers do not seem particularly focussed on creating evidence for his existence but rather affirming his divinity instead. This is a rather odd thing to do if you've just made that person up. You want to make it look as full proof as possible that you've got evidence this guy was here, you know exactly what he did and when he did it. You don't leave holes in his life story (Like most of his teenage-ministry which aren't described in any text).

My opponent is assuming that Jesus was intentionally fabricated. I have never made such a claim, and to say that the idea that his fabrication is a necessary component of his mythicism is wrong. Indeed, Homer probably didn't create Achilles, and, much like his listeners, probably trusted his writing as actual history. This certainly doesn't prove the historical authenticity of Achilles. These people could've easily been basing their knowledge of Jesus on what they knew about him.


And you certainly check your facts far better to make sure everyone’s story agrees 100% rather than differs on minor details. This simply didn't happen.

What kind of editorial work and scrutiny does my opponent honestly think went into most ancient writing? It is very reasonable to believe that these books of the Bible, written hundreds of miles away at times, with upwards of ten to thirty years between them, would have disagreed in particular areas.


On the contrary the earliest canonical texts are letters that barely mention him at all. They clearly uphold him as important but most of what they discuss is matters of doctrine rather than life story. This is a frankly bizarre thing to happen if Jesus was being deliberately created.

My opponent has basically stated that, because the epistles didn't write about Jesus' existence, it can be assumed that Jesus was probably real. After all, if he were created, wouldn't it have been likely we would have had more details about his life?

But Mark, written only about fifteen years afterwards, did feel the need to write about Jesus' life. Can we assume now that Jesus was probably fake because someone came along and made some details (many of them completely fictitious) about his life? Can we assume that this need to write about his life was a desperate attempt to prove to an unbelieving audience, perhaps demanding details to be filled in from Paul's epistles, to prove the existence of this man? I certainly don't think so, but going my opponent's logic that a lack of early biography equals an increased possibility of existence, it's certainly reasonable.


Furthermore what's the point of creating Jesus? So what they start a cult? By 70CE they were being persecuted this is still the first generation Christians and yet not one of them ends up saying "only joking guys, we made it all up, now please don't kill me" They were forced on to the edge of society following an illegal cult having to meet in secret and having those around them convinced they were performing ritual cannibalism and plotting the downfall of the Roman empire. I fail to see the upside in creating Jesus and the religion for the first Christians, why would they do it? This is another question that must be answered before Jesus' existence can be successfully questioned.

Did Homer create Achilles for the sake of tricking the Greeks? Did he say to himself, "Ha! This will certainly screw with those boy loving, olive eaters?" Probably not. If anything, he probably heard his name from some tale passed along the ports of Ionia and formed it all into one huge epic poem.


The third point I shall make here is of how divided early Christianity was thus conclusively ruling out a plot to create a Jesus movement with a fictional figurehead. Within the first century it appears we have two branches of Christianity already, Magdalene supporters and Paul supporters. The gospel of Mary presents her as one of the dominant figures in the early church. The synoptic by contrast diminish her to of only a minor role and numerous misogynistic sentiments can be found in Paul's letters in terms of women having control over men.

Again, I don't understand my opponent's logic here. Many religious movements have schisms and various warring branches, but that certainly doesn't prove the existence of their gods or their followers.

(Due to a busy schedule I will get to the rest of my opponent's arguments later. In the meantime, I hope this satisfies those who are still paying attention to this debate).

[czahar]

The Canonical Gospels.

We can, I do doubt very much however that we will be in agreement on the implications of this. Bear in mind that the time difference between the last gospel and Jesus' time of death (which, incidentally we can fix to within one or two years, something quite astounding if he did not in fact exist) is at the very most 70 years. Two other figures with no contemporary written accounts of their existence are Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar, not exactly what one could call disputable figures in history or anywhere near as low profile as Jesus would've been. A localised upstart in an already trouble ridden (and almost universally illiterate) province. The passages either side of the Testemonium flavium more than show us the problems in Jerusalem at the time. And we know both of them exist through archaeological evidence which there is no way we could obtain for Jesus (his face was certainly never imprinted on coins as far as I'm aware).

My opponent's last sentence explains exactly why Jesus' existence is far more questionable than Julius Caesar or Alexander the Great.

As far as Jesus' lack of primary and secondary source evidence, I agree with my opponent completely. Most of the individuals written about in ancient times were high ranking government officials and the biographies of ordinary individuals and minor upstarts were rare at best.

However, no evidence means exactly that - no evidence! If a lawyer's house is broken into and all of his evidence is destroyed, he certainly has a valid reason for not having any evidence to present at a trial. However, he still doesn't have a case.

The Epistles



I simply fail to see how this is a problem given Paul repeatedly both claims and infers he has met eye-witnesses to Jesus. Heck even in the passages Czahar himself cited of his we have this:

Clear implication that he has been in contact with them and is intimately aware of their concepts. He refers to them as the twelve without feeling the need to elaborate, evidently at the point of writing they are at least reasonably well known figures (whom all testify to having met Jesus). Furthermore he seems to explicitly know some of the 500, how else would he know of their deaths. These would all imply he knows eye-witnesses.

Now it is one thing to imply that he seems to have met 500 people mistaken about when or what they saw with regard to Jesus leading them to think he had been resurrected. It is quite another to suggest that he met 500 people all of whom are conspiring in an elaborate plot to invent a religion for... absolutely no reason or possible gain whatsoever...

Strawman. I have never implied any type of hoax. People sincerely believe in false things all of the time. There are hundreds of cases of people who claim to see ghosts, and I would find it hard to believe that all, or even most of these people are conspiring in some sort of elaborate plot. Nonetheless, five hundred, one thousand, one million, or even on billion people believing in ghosts does not prove the existence of ghosts.

My opponent has already agreed to argue the historicity of Jesus on purely scientific terms (i.e., terms which leave no room for what can’t be proven by science):


I certainly agree it would be a far higher bar of evidence were I trying to prove that the Jesus who did miracles and genuinely went round raising the dead, walking on water and being thronged in the streets as a celebrity. As it is, I'm not.

Therefore, I think it’s safe to say that this debate doesn’t recognize the existence of ghosts. The thing that Paul and the crowd of five hundred saw was a ghost. It is clearly stated in that passage:


3For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. 6After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.

Unless we are to believe in the existence of ghosts, how can this report be considered credible evidence of Jesus’ existence?



Independence of the Gospels

I'm sorry to say but this demonstrates absolutely nothing but that a direct quote from Jesus was remembered effectively. It is one of the more famous moments of his life it is entirely reasonable to suggest that multiple people remembered an identical quote from him.

Is my opponent honestly suggesting it is probable for two independent sources, written at least thirty years after the date of these supposed events, to be able to reproduce a statement, word for word, without any literary source to base it on?


Furthermore if they were written using the texts of one another as a basis it would make absolutely no sense for them to have detail discrepancy whatsoever. ESPECIALLY in the vital moments to Christian doctrine (i.e. the resurrection). In which the accounts disagree on the number of angels present and the order of events, this makes far more sense if it is a fact that the original disciples (presumably the source of most information) were not present upon discovering Jesus' body not there to begin with (and they are not in any of the gospel accounts). If however the texts were dependant on one another these discrepancies would simply not have arisen.

Of course it would. The Book of Mormon differs significantly from the Bible, despite using it as a source for its teachings (unless, of course, we can believe the mythology of Joseph Smith).



The Dominant Theory of Biblical Scholarship

The success of this theory would only serve to push back the date of the time between the crucifixion and the account being written down. This could surely only serve as further support that there is little to no possibility of fabrication of Jesus.

I’m not following my opponent here.


Quite, Mark was a Roman and no author ancient or otherwise has tried to claim he ever met Jesus. He was Peter's disciple not Jesus'

We have a great deal of corroboration for this. Justin Martyr for example quotes the gospel of Mark referring to them as the memoirs of Peter

Ireneus also tells us:

Then we also have Eusebius quoting the earlier Papias once again affirming Mark as a student of Jesus' disciple Peter:

Thus we can excuse Mark for being unfamiliar with the lay of Judea. He was writing after Peter's death as we can see from all three sources and could hardly use him to corroborate what he was writing down. However due to these references we can see that Mark is another man who knew an eye-witness personally and accounted Jesus' life as best he could.

I don’t see how this proves Mark’s relationship with Peter. All of the authors mentioned lived no less than thirty years after Peter’s death in 64 C.E., and two of them were born almost a century and a half later.

Mark says nothing of being a disciple of Peter (something which would certainly would’ve helped his authority), nor does Peter say anything about Mark (if Peter authored his gospels at all).



The Life of Jesus and It's Parallels with the Old Testament

But people's accounts of those self-same lives often do. Case-in-point Muhammad, if one believes points A and B invalidate the existence of someone as credible then because Muhammad moved a mountain he cannot have possibly existed. Likewise nor can Augustus as he was borne of a snake aka Apollo, or Constantine who met supposedly met Apollo etc. etc. History is littered with supernatural accounts of real people, these do not invalidate these peoples existence.

And if there were no other evidence of Augustus’ existence then I would certainly agree with this.


I would also like to point out that it's far easier to twist the facts to meet the prophecy than fabricate them when the events happened within living memory. If one wishes to push for a fabrication of Jesus' existance one must present evidence of how and why he was fabricated.

Please see my previous post about living memory.

The Gospel of John


John is bad for those reasons it is true. It is however a very very interesting thing to bring up. It's stories are almost entirely independent from those in the other synoptic gospels suggesting at the very least it was written independently. Thus creating yet another tradition of belief in a historical Jesus which must be explained away for a case for Jesus' non-existence to be made. So it must be asked, why did people start believing Jesus existed all of a sudden? And why did two independent traditions arise out of it? The most reasonable answer to this is that he did in fact exist and his disciples scattered and placed different emphasis on different stories.


Why does my opponent assume that all of a sudden, people started believing in the existence of Jesus? People certainly believed he existed before John.

Also, how does a different interpretation close to one hundred years after his death, prove or even support the claim of Jesus’ historicity? If I were to write a radically different ending to Great Expectations (say, where Pip bumps uglies with Ms. Havisham and Estella at the same time) that certainly wouldn’t lend any credence to Pip’s existence.




THE PROBLEMS WITH NON-CHRISTIAN SOURCES

Because neither text sets out to assess whether he existed or not. They take it as a given, there is simply no early controversy which we would expect over his existence if it were fabricated. The secular sources had no need or want to concern themselves with the specifics of Jesus' life they were concerned with his followers. Surely given concern over his followers had there been such a problem as no shred of early proof or early witnesses to him existing they would have made a much bigger deal of this. It simply makes no sense for Jesus to have been fabricated and everyone all of a sudden take it as a given even though there are people within living memory when he starts being written about. We know for a fact there were sizeable populations of Christians in Corinth, Rome, Thessalonica and everywhere else the early epistles were addressed to because people were writing to those Christians. This is within 20 years of his alleged existence.

Nor do either of these sources question the divine nature of Christ, but that certainly doesn’t prove his divine nature.


Tacitus, Annals (116).

There are numerous more reasonable explanations than the out and out fabrication of an entire passage when no one was questioning Jesus' existence. Human error being a big one. There simply wasn't a need to reinforce Jesus' historicity as a fabrication would suggest on the grounds that no one for the next dozen centuries or so was going to think to challenge Jesus' historicity. And the passage was definitley there before that.

I have already addressed Jesus' opponents and why their lack of questioning about his existence doesn't prove his existence.


Josephus, The Testimonium Flavianum, (93 C.E.)
- Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews
The problem is Josephus' account contains remarkably little detail and Celsus never questioned the historicity of Jesus. Thus the only use of the Testimonium Flavium (to assert his historicity) would have been unnecessary arguing over something they both agreed on. Jesus existed, they did not in fact disagree about this, they disagreed about whether or not he was the Christ.

Very true, only again I would argue that Celsus' lack of questioning doesn't prove Christ's existence.


It is entirely possible that one or two words were changed without the entire passage being doctored. This would be far easier to do than to fully fabricate a passage in a famous and well known book. The comment about Jesus being the Christ that Josephus makes I will concede could well be a forgery, however given that the book managed to last some centuries without anyone noticing an entire paragraph just slotted in for conveniences sake some hundred odd years after it was written (the only time Christians could have possibly had enough power and influence to get editing’s of this magnitude done) is simply ridiculous. Furthermore we also have reference to Jesus' brother in Josephus as Oriegen attests in his mention of James in the passages you yourself highlighted. Further confirmation of another eye witness in existence at some point even if they never wrote an account themselves.

I certainly don't see it as being ridiculous considering:


The Testimonium Flavianum is only one paragraph in a more than five hundred page book

There was a very large illiterate population during ancient and medieval times.

Even scribes were often barely literate in medieval times. There is evidence to show that some of them had to practice writing their names.


However, I'm actually going to concede my argument and say there is a very good chance that Josephus did, in fact, mention Jesus in his book (though I agree with my opponent that there is a strong possibility he didn't mention Jesus as the Christ).

However, Josephus, like most historians of the ancient period, can't be considered much of a scientific source on the past. As Anthony A Barrett, Professor and Distinguished University Scholar at the University of British Columbia, states in his introduction to Tacitus's The Annals:


"Although for the modern historian primary evidence is supreme, and the modern historian will feel obliged, wherever possible, to consult primary archives, there was no such zeal among ancient historians, who saw their role as much more that of improving on the work of their predecessors."

- Tacitus and J.C. Yardley (trans).The Annals. (Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2008), xxi.

Furthermore, he made no attempts to separate myth and legend from truth. The Antiquities relies very heavily on Jewish mythology (such as the intervention of God and the Old Testament Bible) within its pages.

Josephus, writing around the latter part of the first century, would've had access to the Epistles, and considering, much like the epistles and unlike the gospels, he mentions very little about the life of Jesus, there is good reason to assume he probably used them in his works and other early Christian texts - i.e., texts which were equally flawed.

Finally, the question has to be asked as to how much a doctored source can be used as evidence. Simply put, we don't have the original Testimonium Flavianum. What did Josephus say about Jesus? Did it actually say anything that could've confirmed his existence or could it have said something along the lines of "Jesus, who was thought to have lived . . ."


In what manner does this in any way interrupt the narrative? We have a glowing reference to Jesus with regard to his brutal execution at the hands of Pilate just as the passages before and after deal with the Roman's brutal treatment of the Jews.

I have conceded my view on the Testimonium as a complete forgery;therefore, there is no need to argue this.

Conclusion

In my rebuttal I have elaborated on the reasons as to why the evidence which my opponent has presented can't be considered credible evidence for the existence of Jesus:

The Gospel of Thomas


Probabably written in the early second century and not the first; therefore almost certainly not an eyewitness account.

Contrary to my opponent's claims, it is not independent of the gospels.


The Epistles

The Epistles make no claims to seeing Jesus when he was alive.

The Gospels


It is highly unlikely the gospels were written independently.

The differences between them can't be thought of as proof, as the differences in time, area, and author could easily explain them.


Mark and Peter

WE can't establish the relationship between Mark and Peter as neither mention a relationship with the other.

Josephus

There is no reason to believe he assessed the validity of his sources as it was neither common practice in ancient times and Josephus was more than willing to use Jewish mythology in his "history".

Living Memory

Neither the gospels nor the epistles would have been written in a place and/or targetted at an audience which would've witnessed the living Christ.

Inferred Evidence


People have believed mythical figures as fact in the past, as can be evinced by Achilles.

Opponents have believed inaccurate sources in the past - as can be evinced by the Donation of Constantine.


Thank you ladies and gentlemen. I look forward to my opponents second rebuttal.

[eliotitus]

Prelude

Firstly I’d like to point out that I’m going to beat Czahar in yet another respect in this debate. If you thought his delay was long, just check out mine. In seriousness though I’d like to apologise to the many eager fans of this debate and judges and finally and most of all to Czahar (who I know I’ve promised a quick reply about a dozen times to since his last post and whom has been very patient). A myriad of factors kept getting in the way coupled with my own procrastination. With that said I think it’s about time I got this show back on the road!

Before I start the crux of my rebuttal however a note on the issue of form. For ease of reading I’m going to break this reply down into (admittedly largely pre-existing) sections. So my reply, while I will try to cover everything, will not necessarily be in the same order Czahar wrote it. I’m going to attempt to group issues together.

The bar of Jesus’ existence


With that being said, I have not wavered in my belief in Jesus Christ's lack of historicity. To reiterate, I will not make an attempt to prove that Jesus was fake. As I stated in my OP, such is impossible. Could a debater truly prove that unicorns don't exist? No. She could challenge her opponent for scientific research to defend their existence and show that virtually all literature concerning their existence is fictitious, but she couldn't show that they don't exist. After all, an inability to prove the Earth were round wouldn't make it flat.

Here I quite agree with Czahar. I have no expectation that he will prove the non-existence of Jesus. I merely intend to point out that the evidence corroborating the existence of Jesus is more than ample to prove his existence beyond reasonable doubt.

Notice the difference here between doubt and reasonable doubt. I went to great efforts at the start of my opening post to point out just what a bar of reasonable doubt is like in the corroboration of ancient historic events or persons. Numerous figures and occurrences have next to no surviving documentation and yet there is very little doubt they exist as it is the best possible explanation of what does exist. If sources can be ascertained as reliable on the fact that Jesus existed, as I have attempted to prove in my opening post and will go on to defend here, then I believe that it is beyond reasonable doubt that Jesus of Nazareth was a historical figure.


My opponent's last sentence (Referencing the archaeological evidence of these other figures which would not exist for Jesus for obvious reasons) explains exactly why Jesus' existence is far more questionable than Julius Caesar or Alexander the Great.

The point was not one of explanation but one of comparison. If we look to how well documented indisputable historical figures are we can garner an impression of how well documents an historical figure should be. Jesus' documentation is in fact far superior to Caesar or Alexander the Great's. I shall reiterate my point that we have the entire bible quite apart from anything else written within 70 years of the events.


As far as Jesus' lack of primary and secondary source evidence, I agree with my opponent completely. Most of the individuals written about in ancient times were high ranking government officials and the biographies of ordinary individuals and minor upstarts were rare at best.

Then it is a curious event, no doubt, as to why we have such a wealth of information on this one local upstart named Jesus if he did not exist.


However, no evidence means exactly that - no evidence! If a lawyer's house is broken into and all of his evidence is destroyed, he certainly has a valid reason for not having any evidence to present at a trial. However, he still doesn't have a case.

I have not asserted there is no evidence. Indeed to the contrary I have pointed out time and time again that there is far more evidence than there should be if there could be any reasonable doubt as to Jesus' existence.


Nor do either of these sources (The gospels in particular the gospel of John) question the divine nature of Christ, but that certainly doesn’t prove his divine nature.

My opponent is comparing apples and oranges. I made it quite clear in the start of my OP that there is a difference between claims of divinity and claims of existence of a historical figure. I also made it quite clear that the bar of reasonable doubt should be set far higher for divinity than historical existence. If my opponent believes the two are historically similar claims, then he must justify that assertion.

The Gospel of Thomas


Actually, it is far more likely that this (The attestation of Thomas as author of the Sayings gospel of Thomas) points to Thomas following a second century Gnostic tradition of enhancing the position of James. While there is mention of Christ revealing himself to James in 1 Corinthians (written ca. 60 C.E.) we only have mention of him by name in the synoptic gospels and only does Acts refer to him as a leader of the
Jerusalem Church

But again I would like to return to the incredibly naive Gnostic thought within the Gospel of Thomas. The development of it as it was in the second century simply wasn't there. With this fact it is more probable that Gnostics are lifting and expanding upon an earlier and shallower theology (The Gospel of Thomas) and developing it.

In order to prove what I'm saying here I shall cite a few examples of this from The Gospel of Thomas as compared to later Gnostic thought.

Gospel of Thomas:
80 Jesus said, "Whoever has come to know the world has discovered the body, and whoever has discovered the body, of that one the world is not worthy."
112 Jesus said, "Damn the flesh that depends on the soul. Damn the soul that depends on the flesh."

Notice the lack of utter condemnation of the flesh later Gnostics had for flesh.

And yet at the same time, thought begins to head that direction:

Gospel of Thomas: 87 Jesus said, "How miserable is the body that depends on a body, and how miserable is the soul that depends on these two."

This is nowhere near the extreme recantation of the entire world of the physical being an evil that surfaces in later Gnostism. It is thus unreasonable to assume that this is a text from the prime of Gnostic existence and scriptural creation in the second century

Gospel of Thomas:
28 Jesus said, "I took my stand in the midst of the world, and in flesh I appeared to them
79 A woman in the crowd said to him, "Lucky are the womb that bore you and the breasts that fed you."
99 The disciples said to him, "Your brothers and your mother are standing outside."
104 They said to Jesus, "Come, let us pray today, and let us fast."


A human undergoing the human process of fasting. Gnostics did not believe Jesus had come in human flesh form. Bear in mind that Gnostism had developed this view BEFORE the turn of the century. We see it attested as heresy in the New Testament itself.

1 John 4
1Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.

John (or whoever in practice wrote it, it doesn't make a difference it's still dated to circa 90CE) is recanting the by then common Gnostic view that Jesus did not come in flesh, a theological interpretation wholly impossible to gleam from the gospel of Thomas.


In the early first century, however, James becomes a greater center of attention. The Secret Book of James, for instance, appeals to him for a source of secret and superior knowledge while the Gospel of the Hebrews represents him, though implicitly, as a partially elevated disciple.

James is mentioned just once in the Gospel of Thomas. Granted I will concede that the mentioning elevates him to a place above that of the synoptic gospels:
12 The disciples said to Jesus, "We know that you are going to leave us. Who will be our leader?"

Jesus said to them, "No matter where you are you are to go to James the Just, for whose sake heaven and earth came into being."

This does not however appear a counter movement attempting to assert James' authority. One would expect far more of James than a single explicit reference to him in some 113 different sayings. Indeed let's look at The Secret Book of James by comparison:

1.Now I sent you ten months ago another secret book with the Saviour revealed to me. But that one you are to regard in this manner, as revealed to me, James.

2.James writes to you. Peace be with you from Peace, love from Love, grace from Grace, faith from Faith, life from Holy Life!

3. Let me have James and Peter, in order that I may fill them

etc. etc.
James is not only given a place of importance but the principle place of importance to the exclusion of nearly everything else in a dialogue that becomes just him and Jesus.

My opponent has failed to realise that this transition to the primacy of James could well be a result of this mention in the Gospel of Thomas rather than the other way round. And given the otherwise naive Gnostic thought and attestation of Thomas as author which was not questioned until centuries later, this is by far the more likely option.


The other thing that makes the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas more likely to have been written in the second century is its use of James’ surname, “the Just”. Paul never refers to him in such a way, nor do any of the synoptic gospels. Later first century documents, do however.

This could equally be a sign of independence from other early documents given the reasons I have already stated for it being an earlier document.


I find this particularly interesting. My opponent takes an assumption which he explicitly states as only a possibility (that the author of Thomas or whatever it bases itself on was an eye-witness), and then implies it as fact.

I at no point stated it as an assumption. My opponent has misinterpreted my words. From the very next paragraph of my Opening Post we can see I defend my assertion that this is likely an eye witness account:


it contains the attribution to Thomas. This is corroborated by our earliest references to it in which this attestation is not questioned. Indeed there is no questioning (and when there is they present no evidence beyond its heretical content) until the 4th and 5th centuries. Some 300 years later.

This is yet to be questioned.


I don't see how my opponent can argue this ( that the gospel of Thomas is independent of the synoptic gospels . There are tens of hundreds of parallels between the Gospel of Thomas and the synoptic gospels. Here are two for example:

I'm most glad my opponent has brought this up. Indeed it is very curious that the gospel of Thomas contains some of the parables in full, or indeed merely the morals of the parables that are also found in synoptic gospels. It is more interesting still that the morals of these parables are far closer in exact phrasing than when the stories are completely redescribed (as you can see yourselves from the two examples quoted by my opponent).

This indeed serves only to prove what I have been saying. The books are independent. Let us take an example of how copying of stories worked from the synoptic gospels. By way of example the calling of Matthew:

Matthew 9
10While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house, many tax collectors and "sinners" came and ate with him and his disciples. 11When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?"

12On hearing this, Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.'[a] For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."

Mark 2
15While Jesus was having dinner at Levi's house, many tax collectors and "sinners" were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. 16When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the "sinners" and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: "Why does he eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?"

17On hearing this, Jesus said to them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."

The difference between the sorts of copying in use in the synoptic sources where one account was based on the other is stark from that of what Czahar is arguing for the Sayings gospel of Thomas.

Eyewitness testimony and the evidence from the bible –

Part 1- The epistles


And why does my opponent assume that any of these writers (Christian books) were writing for this audience (potential eye witnesses? St. Paul wrote his letters to the Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossions. By my opponent’s own admission, Mark was written by a gentile author outside of Judea. As I’ve pointed out, he was probably written for a gentile audience, one which certainly wouldn’t have had any living memory of Jesus. Matthew was probably written in Antioch and Luke was almost certainly written by a Christian gentile outside of Jerusalem. None of these authors were writing in an area where anyone would’ve been familiar with Jesus, if, indeed, Jesus’ popularity during his lifetime was ever great enough to get the attention of the masses in the first place.

Why do I assume that they were writing for these audiences? I don't have to. Indeed I don't even have to argue that these people were even reading these texts (ignoring the epistle to the Hebrews in which was most certainly written for the Jews). I can rely on the fact that there was undoubtedly enough people questioning the events of Jesus' life to make it reasonable to assume that enough scrutiny went into the life of Jesus within a very short period of time that it beyond reasonable doubt that he existed. And indeed we have ample scrutiny, look again at the list of some of the authors before the second century was out:
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But as it happens I have evidence for Jews from Jerusalem or at least in the habit of visiting Jerusalem in the locations Christian communities sprung up in. Czahar's point fails to take into account the spread of the Jewish population even before the fall of Jerusalem and collapse of the Jewish revolt which lead to Jews being sold into slavery and fleeing to spread out in all corners of the Roman Empire. Indeed even before this event Paul was writing to populations containing Jews. See for example Galatians where he feels it necessary to assert:
Galatians 3
28There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
So despite the fact that even if they were totally unaware of Jewish politics at the start of hearing about Jesus it would not serve to hamper my case as a result of the fine tooth comb that was to be taken to his life as time went on, they would not have been totally unaware anyway. Indeed this qualification of neither Jew nor Greek only makes sense if significantly large amounts of the people he was writing to were in fact Jewish and coming from the Levant.

And as if this circumstantial evidence were not enough, Philo of Alexandria records “countless multitudes from countless cities” coming to Jerusalem during festival time. Acts 2:5 expresses a similar sentiment “5Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven.” It is very probable that the letters were to people who had been, were likely to go or at least had a very high chance of knowing people who had gone on pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Particularly as Christianity started amongst Jews most prominently.


What kind of editorial work and scrutiny does my opponent honestly think went into most ancient writing? It is very reasonable to believe that these books of the Bible, written hundreds of miles away at times, with upwards of ten to thirty years between them, would have disagreed in particular areas.

Yes, but it's not reasonable to suggest (assuming the root that Jesus was fabricated as the reason for the evidence) that people would be writing the bible hundreds of miles away at different times.


My opponent has basically stated that, because the epistles didn't write about Jesus' existence, it can be assumed that Jesus was probably real. After all, if he were created, wouldn't it have been likely we would have had more details about his life?

On the contrary. I have pointed out that while they contain biographical information, what there is, is minor in nature. This would suggest that controversial issues were of doctrine, rather than the nature of Jesus. One would expect if Jesus were fictional their to be a greater controversy over the nature of the man at least as well as the controversy in doctrine. Instead we find the Pauline epistles assuming knowledge of Jesus' life and instead discussing doctrine and interpretation of what he preached. This is a bizarre fact that must be explained if he did not exist.


But Mark, written only about fifteen years afterwards, did feel the need to write about Jesus' life. Can we assume now that Jesus was probably fake because someone came along and made some details (many of them completely fictitious) about his life? Can we assume that this need to write about his life was a desperate attempt to prove to an unbelieving audience, perhaps demanding details to be filled in from Paul's epistles, to prove the existence of this man? I certainly don't think so, but going my opponent's logic that a lack of early biography equals an increased possibility of existence, it's certainly reasonable.

It's a matter of the nature of the texts. One would expect the biography of a fictional man to predate the interpretation of what he said and did. This is not what we find.


Strawman. I have never implied any type of hoax. People sincerely believe in false things all of the time. There are hundreds of cases of people who claim to see ghosts, and I would find it hard to believe that all, or even most of these people are conspiring in some sort of elaborate plot. Nonetheless, five hundred, one thousand, one million, or even on billion people believing in ghosts does not prove the existence of ghosts.

It does not you are right. But 500 people simultaneously having a vision of someone or getting confused about when an event happened surrounding someone who was a real figure they had previously met or heard about is far more likely than 500 people spontaneously imagining the exact same person's existence... which just so happens to corroborate with 12 other people's stories of having spent three years with the fellow, which was also a complete accident. Surely you can see which is the better explanation here?

Part 2- The Gospels


Is my opponent honestly suggesting it is probable for two independent sources, written at least thirty years after the date of these supposed events, to be able to reproduce a statement, word for word, without any literary source to base it on?

Given the effectivness of people recanting the Iliad for centuries I shouldn't think it unreasonable. Although it's also not the case. Translators make it the same, is not the same thing as it was written the same:

Luke 11
9 Καγὼ ὑμῖν λέγω, αἰτεῖτε καὶ δοθήσεται ὑμῖν ζητεῖτε καὶ εὑρήσετε, κρούετε καὶ ἀνοιγήσεται ὑμῖν• 10 πᾶς γὰρ ὁ αἰτῶν λαμβάνει καὶ ὁ ζητῶν εὑρίσκει καὶ τῷ κρούοντι ἀνοιγήσεται.

Matthe 7
8 πᾶς γὰρ ὁ αἰτῶν λαμβάνει καὶ ὁ ζητῶν εὑρίσκει καὶ τῶ κρούοντι ἀνοιγήσεται.

9 ἢ τίς ἐστιν ἐξ ὑμῶν ἄνθρωπος, ὃν αἰτήσει ὁ υἱὸς αὐτοῦ ἄρτον _ μὴ λίθον ἐπιδώσει αὐτῶ;


The order in which the statements are made is opposite. Furthermore it isn only consistent on the line:
πᾶς γὰρ ὁ αἰτῶν λαμβάνει καὶ ὁ ζητῶν εὑρίσκει καὶ τῶ κρούοντι ἀνοιγήσεται

I can certainly quote one liners from numerous people I know that I heard only once. And these are trivial things. Is it really that hard to suggest that people in a culture in which memory was the only medium of retaining information were capable of quoting the exact words of their teacher and inspiration to whom they dedicated their life?

That said I do not advocate total independence of the gospels. I do however advocate that the differences in them are a result of multiple strands of thought into who Jesus was, thereby indicating multiple strands of testimony as to Jesus’ existence.


I don’t see how this (church father attestation) proves Mark’s relationship with Peter. All of the authors mentioned lived no less than thirty years after Peter’s death in 64 C.E., and two of them were born almost a century and a half later.

These writings thirty years later are the first references there are to the book. And thirty years in terms of ancient history is not a huge gap between attestation and authorship.


Mark says nothing of being a disciple of Peter (something which would certainly would’ve helped his authority)

If it was a well known fact at the time of his writing why should he?


nor does Peter say anything about Mark (if Peter authored his gospels at all).

Mark is a Roman who comes into the story after Jesus was already dead. The gospel of Mark was a biography of Jesus' ministry. How would it be pertinent to bring him up?


And if there were no other evidence of Augustus’ existence then I would certainly agree with this.

It is worth pointing out at this point that the historical sources of these figures are also the ones of the myths. Suetonius for example is the source of Augustus' snake induced birth and also the prime source of historical information on his life.

Part 3- Gospel of John


Why does my opponent assume that all of a sudden, people started believing in the existence of Jesus? People certainly believed he existed before John.

Allow me to rephrase. The differences in John's gospel would suggest people spontaneously started believing utterly new


Also, how does a different interpretation close to one hundred years after his death, prove or even support the claim of Jesus’ historicity? If I were to write a radically different ending to Great Expectations (say, where Pip bumps uglies with Ms. Havisham and Estella at the same time) that certainly wouldn’t lend any credence to Pip’s existence.

Neither Czahar nor Dickens claimed Pip's existence. Neither Czahar nor Dickens implies they have a link to people that would be close enough to validate Pip's existence. Furthermore neither Czahar nor Dickens set their story in an actual historical context as part of historical fact. The two are not comparable.

The evidence from circumstance


My opponent is assuming that Jesus was intentionally fabricated. I have never made such a claim, and to say that the idea that his fabrication is a necessary component of his mythicism is wrong.

I have not assumed any such thing. I have assumed that there are two possibilities to explain the evidence for Jesus' existence in a manner that does necessitate his existence. Either:

A He was fabricated intentionally. Which I have shown improbable without disagreement from my opponent on this point and through numerous others
or
B He was accidentally created. This I have elsewhere in my posts proved deeply unlikely. The sheer volume of attestation to his existance from all over the Roman world happily shatters the chances of this. You said it yourself, people within 20 years became a significant minority in all the churches that Paul wrote to. Myths are created over centuries of hearsay not two decades.




Again, I don't understand my opponent's logic here. Many religious movements have schisms and various warring branches, but that certainly doesn't prove the existence of their gods or their followers.

The discussion of schisms is relevant to a deliberately fabricated Jesus only. If my opponent does not believe this possible (leaving only an accidentally fabricated Jesus) then the point is irrelevant to his case. I included these points in my OP to anticipate an argument which may involve the possibility that Jesus was fabricated. My opponent appears to agree this is not a possibility.


Very true, only again I would argue that Celsus' lack of questioning doesn't prove Christ's existence.

Prove it? No. Indicate in the light of a backdrop of huge amounts of other evidence? Yes.

Josephus


I certainly don't see it as being ridiculous considering:


The Testimonium Flavianum is only one paragraph in a more than five hundred page book

There was a very large illiterate population during ancient and medieval times.

Even scribes were often barely literate in medieval times. There is evidence to show that some of them had to practice writing their names.


However, I'm actually going to concede my argument and say there is a very good chance that Josephus did, in fact, mention Jesus in his book (though I agree with my opponent that there is a strong possibility he didn't mention Jesus as the Christ).

I'm going to avoid responding to this as my opponent has agreed (at least for the sake of argument) Josephus makes reference to Jesus. As such arguing this point any further would be an altogether different debate.


However, Josephus, like most historians of the ancient period, can't be considered much of a scientific source on the past. As Anthony A Barrett, Professor and Distinguished University Scholar at the University of British Columbia, states in his introduction to Tacitus's The Annals

I quite agree, academic rigour in the ancient world was not supreme. However we have points of comparison in other historical figures as to the volume of attestation one should expect. Jesus meets this volume of attestation with flying colours as I have demonstrated.


Furthermore, he made no attempts to separate myth and legend from truth. The Antiquities relies very heavily on Jewish mythology (such as the intervention of God and the Old Testament Bible) within its pages.

As it happens if we look at the relevant sections of The Antiquities involved we find no mythology surrounding the events described at all. It is simply a description of historical disturbances in Judea in the early 1st century CE. This conveniently solves straight away the problem of just how much is Jewish folklore and how much is not. It is not simply folklore, it is specific reference to specific events within time.


Josephus, writing around the latter part of the first century, would've had access to the Epistles, and considering, much like the epistles and unlike the gospels, he mentions very little about the life of Jesus, there is good reason to assume he probably used them in his works and other early Christian texts - i.e., texts which were equally flawed.

He was writing his source in the late first century, meaning he was using sources from the early and middle first century. In other words around the time of Jesus' supposed existence? I fail to see how the assumption that all his sources were flawed is justified when we aren't even positive what they are, only that they certainly can't date past the mid first century because he was writing in the latter part of it.


Finally, the question has to be asked as to how much a doctored source can be used as evidence. Simply put, we don't have the original Testimonium Flavianum. What did Josephus say about Jesus? Did it actually say anything that could've confirmed his existence or could it have said something along the lines of "Jesus, who was thought to have lived . . ."

Even if it did say "who was thought to have lived..." it would still be testimony that Josephus was in contact with people who believed feverently in his existence within a few decades of his supposed existence. This is something utterly unexplainable if he did not in fact exist. Within centuries, sure then it would be questionable, but a few decades?

Argument from comparisons to other works

All of the comparison to people's belief in Achilles my opponent proposes is unfounded. But you may ask why. So allow me quickly to explain the numerous failings Achilles has:

Firstly and most importantly Homer's listeners are aware that the story is at the very least highly inaccurate (contrast this with Luke's motives in Luke 1:1-4. ). How do we know this? Well there are quite simple ways. Firstly Homer shows awareness of things such as siege warfare (as we see when Andromache pleads with him to not leave Troy and defend from inside the walls at a weak spot, or in his various discussions of the sack of Tenedos), but does not transfer this into the main narrative. Indeed on the contrary, during the Greek counter-attack of book 16 Patroclus decides he will help to try and take the walls of Troy that day... but he has no siege equipment. No siege methods planned, nothing, merely a dramatically useful, but factually impossible description of individual one on one or one on two battles typical of Greek literature describing an hero's aristeia.

Secondly the dating is nothing by comparison with evidence for Jesus. We have the description of a war which we can't even date but was at the very least in the centuries prior to composition in the Iliad (weighed against all the evidence I have supplied written within the century, most within a few decades).

Thirdly the Iliad has Author(s) (we don't even know if it was just one who compiled it let alone all the oral traditions that probably went into it) with absolutely no discernable link to the events themselves (again contrast this with those who wrote the evidence I have forwarded, second or third generation christians at worst).

Fourthly dialogue between characters was deeply stylised. Indeed if the Iliad was regarded as an accurate depiction of detail insofar as the war of Troy was concerned we are to believe that Homer's listeners genuinely thought we were capable of writing vertabrim the discussions of the Gods party to no one. Much less the conversations party only to the kings who would have very little concern later reiterating (what with most of them supposedly dying within a few years of the end of the war or during it). We also have the evidence in later plays around the subjects of the Trojan war (Ajax and Women of Troy) that they had no problem altering detail and making parts up to fit their audiences. Something again can be assumed consistent with the Iliad.

With those main points in mind let's look at the specific objections my opponent has used Achilles to raise.


Most individuals duing the pre-Classical Age of Greek history believed the Illiad was an actual record of historical events. Allow me to quote Ernst Breisach from his book, Historiography: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern:

Not necessarily true if we look at my first and fourth points above. Certainly people thought the Trojan war was real and the heroes were real, and major sequences such as the battle of Hektor and Achilles were real, but it is an ungrounded extension of this to believe that they necessarily regarded the Iliad as an accurate record of historical events.


It [the Illiad's meter] all enhanced the revenue in which listeners held the epics as the records of the distant past and the respect they gave the bards as teachers about the past. (p. 6)
(emphasis added)

The most obvious answer to this is that the evidence I have provided isn't from bards singing songs of praise they were from heretics (and for that matter criminals as a result of Christianity being outlawed) trying to validate themselves and spread their faith where they could. To suggest they had credibility in the same way the poets of the Iliad did is ludicrous at best.


Going by my opponent’s logic, the simple fact that the listeners didn’t question the historical authenticity of the Illiad would lend credence to its reality.

On the contrary this is an utter misrepresentation of my position. I'm saying that stories of Jesus WERE in fact questioned, as testified to by the numerous early apologists:
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And they're just ones before the third century.

This questioning of Jesus and his doctrine (much of which was directed at Jesus personally by questioning who he was) would be expected to question his historicity as well if it had ever been in question. But the fact is it wasn't. Indeed as we see in Matthew 28 a prime example of a time when questioning the existence of Jesus would have been the most obvious motive, instead we see this:

Matthew 28
11While the women were on their way, some of the guards went into the city and reported to the chief priests everything that had happened. 12When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, 13telling them, "You are to say, 'His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.' 14If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble." 15So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day.

It is not an unreasonable assumption that the author of Matthew wrote this in response to an already existent claim against Christians by the time of his writing. Indeed he makes specific mention in verse 15 of this rumour's existence to the same time he was writing, a rumour which makes no sense if Jesus was not a historical figure.


Indeed, Homer probably didn't create Achilles, and, much like his listeners, probably trusted his writing as actual history. This certainly doesn't prove the historical authenticity of Achilles. These people could've easily been basing their knowledge of Jesus on what they knew about him.

I quite agree with my oponent about Homer. He probably didn't invent Achilles. Indeed he probably didn't even event the Iliad assuming he was an actual historical figure himself. Far more likely that he compiled it from existing myth that had circulated for centuries long before anyone ever thought to write this down. Indeed Nicholas Richardson's 6 volume commentary on the Iliad suggests he didn't even know what some of the epithets he used meant and even if he did the meaning was certainly lost by the classical period.

Again we see the comparison fall to pieces. There is the bible, for which we have at worst rough dates ranging a couple of decades and locations of composition. We have them composing work set in a traceable and recognisable time, with historical events going on in the background.

Compare this with Achilles. Composed, well, somewhere in Greece. Dated, well it was written down some time in the 8th century BCE, but might have been much earlier composed. The events are set, some time in the Mycenean period during a war that might or might not have happened, long before the mass influx of virtually an entire new population of people in the Doric invasion and collapse of the Mycenean empire, followed by a dark age.


Did Homer create Achilles for the sake of tricking the Greeks? Did he say to himself, "Ha! This will certainly screw with those boy loving, olive eaters?" Probably not. If anything, he probably heard his name from some tale passed along the ports of Ionia and formed it all into one huge epic poem.

As I have pointed out already Jesus' existence can be questioned by two methods. Firstly conspiracy, secondly accident. I have dealt with both which includes conspiracy. If my opponent does not believe it possible that the evidence for Jesus is explainable by conspiracy then this section of the argument stands in disproving that being possible.


As far as to why even Jesus’ opponent’s accepted his historicity, we can’t say. What we can say is that it proves little in the authenticity of his existence. Indeed, if we were to take the trust of enemies as proof of something’s truth, the Donation of Constantine never would’ve been proven as a forgery. For over two hundred years, even the opponents of Rome recognized its authenticity, and even after Otto III mentioned some scepticism about it, it was only in the mid fifteenth century that the strongest step was taken in proving it as a forgery.

Again we see a comparison to something that is simply not comparable. The succession of Constantine the I was in the 330s. The first historical reference to the Donation of Constantine is in a letter from Hadrian I who was Pope from 772-775, a separation of some 400 years. The opponents of Rome recognising it as authentic amongst the vast stores of Imperial documents the opponents of Rome would have had little access to, and of which none would have read all of and had reason to be suspicious is simply not comparable to the invention, or even accidental creation of a historical local celebrity just a few decades before. The only two scenarios in which Jesus could not have been a historical figure, and both of which I have shown to be deeply unlikely.


Of course it would (The differences in detail in the gospels making sense if they based their texts off one another). The Book of Mormon differs significantly from the Bible, despite using it as a source for its teachings (unless, of course, we can believe the mythology of Joseph Smith).

The book of Mormon is hardly a reasonable comparison. It was written to start an entire new church, not complement the pre-existing documents. Furthermore it is utterly detached from the events themselves by more than a millennium.

Conclusion

The bar for the existence of Jesus
My opponent sets an unreasonable high bar for the existence of Jesus. The evidence in documents we have of Jesus' existence is equal to or far greater than the evidence we have of numerous other figures that undoubtedly exist. He unfairly draws comparisons between supernatural claims of Jesus' actions and divinity, and the perfectly natural claim of his existence.

The gospel of Thomas
My opponent wrongly argues that the Gospel of Thomas is a second century Gnostic creation. If that were true the Gnostic thought demonstrably existent by John as early as the end of the first century would be more prominent in Thomas. As such it is far more likely that this was one of the original sources of Gnostic thought rather than a second century manifestation of them. This leaves the Gospel of Thomas as an early eye-witness testimony to the existence of Jesus

The epistles
My opponent has wrongly argued that the epistles were not written to people aware of Jewish affairs. Furthermore he has failed to take into account the scrutiny of the epistles and the rest of the evidence for Jesus' life were put under within a short space of time after the events. This means the epistles are a testimony to the existence of eye-witnesses to Jesus existence which the author had been in contact with and advocated at least one of his new churches of getting in contact with.

The gospels
My opponent's argument that the gospels are not entirely independent is valid. However this does not deny them as useful evidence for Jesus' existence. The differences between them (and in particular in the gospel of John) indicate multiple sources of belief in Jesus' existence. The fact they were written within 70 years of the events taking place dispels any possibility of Jesus being a figure of pure mythology.

Josephus
My opponent and I are in agreement that Josephus made reference to Jesus' existence in his antiquities. He has wrongly argued however that this does not lend extra support to the claim Jesus existed. Josephus was writing by the end of the first century. This suggests earlier sources which would have been by definition contemporary or near contemporary to Jesus although the exact sources are not stated. This does in fact still lend support to the overall weight of evidence that Jesus existed.

The failure of comparing Jesus and the bible to other things
My opponent's comparisons have all been demonstrated wholly unsound. The difference in levels of evidence between Achilles and Jesus are dramatic. Achilles is separated from authorship of his events by centuries at least, they are outside a known historical context, and are composed the other side of a dark age from when they supposedly happened. The Donation of Constantine was wildly different in time from when it supposedly came from, and only advocates of it had easy access to it. Again the scenarios are not comparable.




Thus ladies and gentlemen I hope I have proved that the evidence for the existence of Jesus overwhelmingly valid. There is no reasonable doubt to be had in whether or not Jesus existed. The evidence is there and it is conclusive.

I look forward to my opponents second rebuttal