Cont...

>"If it had not been for the miracles, his historicity would be entirely irrelevant, and not even worth a minute's discussion."
-Putting aside that being a charismatic teacher and leader and getting executed as a zealot are not miracles, you again betray a great deal here. I agree that if he existed then we must ask if his claims are true, but that is not the current discussion (even if you wish to move it to that). You seem to imply that if the accounts are considered valid attestation of Jesus himself, then they ought to be considered valid attestation of the miracles too (though hardly any historian would agree with that reasoning). So it seems that as you don't appear to allow for the miraculous, the non-miraculous must also be discounted. It seems to me that this is heart of your argument: mircales can't happen, Jesus is only reported becauses of miracles, therfore, he must not have existed.. close? Let's leave all the ad hominem business, and tell me, if the accounts had no miraculous claims, would you still reject their attestation of his existence?
Also, do likewise reject the existence of John the Baptist? Peter and the other 11? James? Paul? Herod? Pontius Pilate?
I'm interested to know who you accept and why.

Could you also please explain why a created myth would contain so much embaressing detail (women discovering the tomb, Peter denying Jesus), and why there is no evidence that anyone tried to deny the existence of Jesus even though the claim was being spread and fought against by the authorities who were said to have crucified him within the lifetimes of those who could have denied it? And yet again, could you please explain how this unlikely movement got off the ground as it did without an actual person?

(I'm really getting frustrated by this comment system.. thinking of taking the discussion to my blog http://wp.me/p156W6-1eFUMo or here http://wp.me/p156W6-1eFUQy if you're up for it?)

A. "If your argument stands on the Tacitus reference"

Of course it doesn't - that was but one example of references just to Christians, as also is the Pliny reference, and I have just given you a couple of others from sources *you* provided.

B. "there is no doubt that it is Jesus to whom Lucian is referring here. No one else was ever worshipped by the Christians!"

Of course, the early Christians worshipped Jesus, and just as likely a fictitious one.

C. In using the term 'scant' I do *not* acknowledge that there is some non-canonical corroboration. By scant, I meant scant.

""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.""

My assertion was just about the non-canonical sources. However, it was interesting to be introduced to the three source theory of Mark Paul, and John, though of course that is not chronological order of those writings.

Pericles : ".. Did the disciples actually converse with a corporeal Jesus? Or was it, like Paul, an "encounter" within their own minds?... If, on the other hand, the resurrection exists only in the minds of his followers, unsupported by the physical manifestation of "was dead, now not dead" Jesus, then we can open our minds to any number of alternate explanations for the report....."

The mystery of the Resurrection is that the presence of the Risen Lord, across generations over millennia, can be as real in the treasure trove of a person's "knowing", in the present, as that of close family and friends who have died. My late wife is in the room with me without entering via locked doors and windows. This appears to be a natural experience in the presence of lasting living love, yet the family memories yield no power or life changing encounters.

The intrinsic reason of the Logos that permeates the created universe provides a logical placement and understanding of the Resurrection to those open to it in faith. Without faith you cannot know the Resurrection, even for believers.

Re your comments on >>Faith in Jesus Christ, as the Son of God the Risen Lord, causes offence to reason which is simply the by-product of an irrational event.... This is another way of saying "if you believe in the miracles, which are essentially irrational events, then you are in a good position to have faith in "the Risen Lord".<<

You are twisting things here a bit. It would have been better worded as ".... causes offence to THAT reason which is simply the by-product of an irrational event being the Big Bang without the Creator God's will to happen....".

AndrewFinden
"Could you also please explain why a created myth would contain so much embarassing detail (women discovering the tomb, Peter denying Jesus), and why there is no evidence that anyone tried to deny the existence of Jesus?"

The detail exists partly because it is collated from a number of sources that actually pre-date the writings attributed to Mark, Matthew, Luke and John, and probably pre-date Paul's epistles, too.

Many numerous early Christian stories were alternate edited versions of accounts, including works that were presented as "authentic".

Some were vigorously suppressed and survive only as fragments (especially those "not divinely inspired" eg. the apocryphal gospels). Non-canonical gospels, such as the Gospel according to the Hebrews, were widely read.

There was considerable debate over a few hundred years concerning which books to include in a New Testament canon*

McDonald, Lee M. The Formation of the Christian Biblical Canon. Peabody: Hendrickson, 1995.
Patzia, Arthur. The Making of the New Testament. Downers Grove: IVP, 1995.

""The formation of the New Testament canon (A.D. 100-220)
The idea of a complete and clear-cut canon of the New Testament existing from the beginning, that is from Apostolic times, has no foundation in history. The Canon of the New Testament, like that of the Old, is the result of a development, of a process at once stimulated by disputes with doubters, both within and without the Church, and retarded by certain obscurities and natural hesitations, and which did not reach its final term until the dogmatic definition of the Tridentine Council (1500s).
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03274a.htm

The canonical gospels were decided on popularity as stories, and their relevance to the Old testament prophecies, not as factual accounts. Hence the synoptic problem. The selected stories were mostly elaborate fiction written embellished and collated over a couple of centuries. Hence, the disputes amongst the early Christian sects - Mythracism, Docetism, Montanism, Gnostacism, Marcionism, etc

Moreover, the earliest biblical description of the resurrection appearances of Jesus (Paul's account in Corinthians 15: 3-7; 1Cor) seems to represent a pre-Pauline creedal statement derived from the first Christian community.

According to prevalent Jewish beliefs, Jesus' failure to establish the Kingdom of God, and his death at the hands of the Romans, invalidated any messianic claims. Paula Fredriksen, in "From Jesus to Christ", has suggested that Jesus' impact on his followers was so great that they could not accept this failure. ... some Christians believed that they encountered Jesus after his crucifixion; they argued that he had been resurrected (the belief in the resurrection of the dead in the messianic age was a core Pharisaic doctrine).

According to Daniel Boyarin, in "A Radical Jew", Paul of Tarsus combined the stories of the life of Jesus with Greek philosophy to reinterpret the Hebrew Bible in terms of the Platonic theory of distinction between the ideal (which is real) and the material (which is false).

For those who sleep easily on the pillow of measured or selective truth. Here is an interesting article from the New Yorker.

The decline effect actually being a decline of illusion? Slippery empiricism?

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/04/101004fa_fact_gladwell

You can see the cat respond to the pidgeons and vice versa at:

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/12/the-mysterious-decline-effect/

and

http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2010/12/10/the-decline-effect-can-we-demonstrate-anything-in-science/

Here's to truth, always open to be assessed.