@McReal

Here.. many of these links deal with the points raised and authors referenced on your religioustolerance link:

http://www.tektonics.org/jesusexisthub.html
http://www.tektonics.org/copycathub.html
http://www.bethinking.org/bible-jesus/advanced/did-jesus-exist.htm
http://www.bethinking.org/bible-jesus/intermediate/the-christ-conspiracy.htm

Or check out these interviews with the eminent Australian classicist Edwin Judge: http://www.publicchristianity.com/judgevids.html

One more quote (as you seem to like them) this time from non-believer, Bart Ehrman:

"Tacitus's report confirms what we know from other sources, that Jesus was executed by order of the Roman governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate, sometime during Tiberius's reign."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus#Jesus_as_myth

I think I'm done with this actually. I've not seen any good arguments to doubt the existence of Jesus. You admit that your argument boils down to ignoring the most important attestations, which is completely flawed, and your rejection of the non-canonical sources seems to rely mostly on quote mining. If the arguments of Wells and Co. and radical fringe convince you - good for you. They do not convince the mainstream, and they don't convince me.

(If I don't reply anymore, it is because I have stopped subscribing to the comments - I really do think we've been over everything already, don't you?)

My goodness, how do wriggle and squirm AndrewFinden.

>>I won't waste anymore time pointing out how ignoring an argument because it's 'wallpaper' by 'believers' is ad hominem.<<

I should remind you that all of your quoted sources provide evidence that is wholly circumstantial.

Dickson even indulges in a form of speculation that looks suspiciously like a red herring.

"I suspect that even if we were to find a batch of letters between Pilate and Tiberius for the very year of Jesus’ death (AD 30), historians would not expect to find mention of him."

Absence of proof is of course simply that: absence of proof.

Speculating that the absence is somehow to be expected, is a two-edged sword, however. It puts into even greater relief the presence of a bunch of accounts that rely totally upon each other for their credibility.

That's akin to your own attempt at sleight-of-hand:

>>The idea of a 'disinterested' ancient historian is the real myth here.<<

Not all sources need to be "ancient historians".

I'm simply noting the absence of any disinterested individual, whether ancient historian or simply a reporter of current events. Someone who does not have a motive for perpetuating and promulgating stories that very much suit their own unique purpose.

>>At very minimum you have four independent sources: Mark, John, Paul and Josephus<<

These are not in any universe "independent" sources, I'm afraid.

John is most revelatory in this respect. Clearly, he had access to the earlier material, and saw the need to transform it into something far more aggressive in its messianic message. Hence the "upgrade" of the miracles - including, for the first and only time, Lazarus - to a new, and totally incredible, level.

>>His historicity is not dependant on whether he did miracles or not.<<

You keep saying this, but I'm not so sure.

If it had not been for the miracles, his historicity would be entirely irrelevant, and not even worth a minute's discussion.

"There was this guy, Jesus"

"Oh yes. What did he do?"

"Nothing much"

"Oh."

AndrewFinden

1. The issue is not the spellings, and I do not contend there are errors. The varied spellings are likely to mean varied references and meanings, including the historical existence of around 200 Latin inscriptions with the name Chrestos - many of them were to slaves or ex-slaves.

2. Again mispelling is not an issue - he is talking about the followers of chritianity, not necesarily the source of it - i.e he doe not refer to Jesus directly.

3. Yes Jospehus is an attestation, but it is a vague one, especially given Origen's concerns a couple of centuries later that Josephus did not consider the Jesus in the sotry the Christ.

The issue with the religioustolerance link is not the authors conclusions, but the summary of the scant extra-biblcial references to Jesus as the Christ, including the point that Tacticus (and others) were just mentioning the believers, not the source of their belief.

http://www.tektonics.org/jesusexist/lucian.html - "" Jesus is not mentioned by name in these citations"

http://www.tektonics.org/jesusexist/serapion.html - "This reference to Jesus is not particularly valuable"

http://www.tektonics.org/jesusexist/pliny.html - "Pliny's knowledge of Christianity was "largely second-hand"

@McReal
If your argument stands on the Tacitus reference, then I'm afraid it's incredibly weak.
You seem to have a think for pulling out quotes that appear to support your position, and ignoring everything that argues against it - as you did with the RT France quote and quite disingenuously in the last reply. Let me show what you quoted and then what was actually written:

>"Jesus is not mentioned by name in these citations"
-vs: "Obviously Jesus is not mentioned by name in these citations, but there is no doubt that it is Jesus to whom Lucian is referring here. No one else was ever worshipped by the Christians!"

>"Pliny's knowledge of Christianity was "largely second-hand"
- This is a particularly bad misquotation, because, as anyone who reads the actual article will see, the author has the word 'although' in front of that sentence, and spends several paragraphs explaining why Pliny is never-the-less a reliable source. Unfortunately I don't have the word space here to quote it - it's after the second bold heading.

Hmm... A little different from what you implied!

In using the term 'scant' you acknowledge that there is some non-canonical corroboration. In any case, you still seem to simply dismiss the canonical attestation, which is simply unwarranted.
We could go around in circles about the non-canonical sources and their value all day, but that still ignores the major flaw in your argument, which is that you simply ignore the canonical sources.

Quite simply, I find your argument to be based on a massive false assumption and thus - there's 'scant' reason to find it persuasive - and indeed why the number of historians who do find it persuasive also rather 'scant'. But thank-you for putting it forward so we could discuss it. With your penchant for quote mining, I'm inclined to think that our discussion has run its course.

@Pericles

>"I should remind you that all of your quoted sources provide evidence that is wholly circumstantial. "
- I should remind you that we're doing ancient history. And it's a bit rich, considering the arguments used to support the Jesus-Myth theories are generally nothing more than arguments from silence and misappropriation of terminology!

>"Dickson even indulges in a form of speculation that looks suspiciously like a red herring.

"I suspect that even if we were to find a batch of letters between Pilate and Tiberius for the very year of Jesus’ death (AD 30), historians would not expect to find mention of him."

Absence of proof is of course simply that: absence of proof."
- Yes, that is indeed Dickson's point! Unfortunately for you, the Jesus-Mythers tend to fall into the trap of thinking that a lack of references in particular, pre-defined material is evidence of non existence.
Far from being a red herring, he's arguing directly against the kind of argument you appear to be trying to make!

>"Speculating that the absence is somehow to be expected, is a two-edged sword, however. It puts into even greater relief the presence of a bunch of accounts that rely totally upon each other for their credibility."
- No, that's called corroboration, which is what you asked for: you are admitting that there is, in strong 'relief' such corroboration - except that now you write it off... seems you want to have your cake and eat it.

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>"That's akin to your own attempt at sleight-of-hand:

>>The idea of a 'disinterested' ancient historian is the real myth here.<<

Not all sources need to be "ancient historians".

I'm simply noting the absence of any disinterested individual, whether ancient historian or simply a reporter of current events. Someone who does not have a motive for perpetuating and promulgating stories that very much suit their own unique purpose."
- Don't be so pedantic. Would you prefer if I'd used the term 'ancient source'? In any case, the point remains, that in ancient history, the idea of a disinterested party recording something for posterity doesn't exist. That is an anachronism. We deal with the texts we've got. If we discarded anything except disinterested writers, we'd have virtually no ancient historical texts left. Obviously you didn't watch the video with Prof. Judge on this point.

>"These are not in any universe "independent" sources, I'm afraid."
- I'm afraid you're simply wrong; unless you can demonstrate that Mark relied on Paul's epistles, or that John relied on them, or Josepus? Who relied on who here? Or can you show that they used the same source like Q? No? Then why are they not independent? Because they agree?

What you've written about John's gospel is pure speculation. Scholars like Brown and Barnett would argue that it was written independently from the Synoptics. And obviously Paul's epistles were too.
For much more detail on why the accounts are considered independent sources: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=7047

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