Jesus was and is still real.

The fact that Jesus Christ was a historical person is not contested at all among scholars. The historicity of Jesus is one of the most well-substantiated things in the historical record. People denying his existence are usually atheists with an agenda and little regard for actual scholarship.

I didn't put you in the flat earther category. You are simply ignorant of the facts at the moment. There is nothing wrong with that as the internet is full of loony conspiracy theories like Jesus Mythicism and it can be hard for someone to separate facts from reddit atheist misinformation. What would make you a flat earther is if you are presented with the facts and refuse to change your mind in the face of them.

Yes we do. The Jewish historian Josephus when writing on the subject of first century Jews that claimed to be the messiah (Jesus was certainly not the only one doing this) mentions Jesus of Nazereth twice, and in his second mention of him mentions Jesus' brother James who was still alive at the time of Josephus' writing. Tacitus the great Roman historian (of Germania fame) also mentions Jesus Christ (quite negatively in fact because he hated Christians) as a historical figure and helpfully tells that he was crucified by Pontius Pilate.

I'm going to link you to a website called history for atheists written by an atheist  who nevertheless wishes to educate his ideological group on the terrible history they peddle that makes them and their movement look foolish. He has many articles answering the flat earth theory of Jesus Mythicism and they are all collected here. historyforatheists.com/jesus-mythicism/

The fact is that New Atheists butcher history like no other group in existence and as a history enthusiast rather than as a Christian this offends me greatly.

This is such a ridiculous point that it does not warrant a response. 

Uh huh. I saw your argument with Elizabeth about Noah's flood and I wanted to get involved but didn't want to spend five hours arguing with her. You are right to say that the Bible comes from a tradition of Eastern mysticism and there very much are allegorical aspects to them in abundance. This is how the ancient world thought and its not really even a Western thing, the West used to think like this as well as the Early Church  fathers' writing on the first chapters of Genesis clearly shows. It wasn't until the enlightenment where highly literal mechanistic thinking entered the western zeitgeist. 

However just because there is allegory and symbolism involved in the text doesn't mean that there is no historical basis to it. The stories in the Bible are written in the genre of historical narrative, it not necessarily a Western style overly literal, just the facts, style of Western history. It very much is mixed in with allegory, symbolism, and dreamlike elements and sometimes it is hard to parse out where the facts as we westerners understand it and the dreamlike element begin and end especially in the first eleven chapters of genesis which are wonderfully dreamlike in atmosphere, but the events portrayed were thought to have happened, the characters presented within were thought to be real people. The Bible is meant to be a history book even if it is mixed in with dreamlike elements. You both have taken a hard position on either side of the literal or figurative argument not realizing that the truth is somewhere in the middle.

This is the first mention of Jesus by Josephus.

As you can see, it not only mentions Jesus by name it also mentions Pontius Pilate crucifying him and the resurrection.

This is the second mention by Josephus

There he calls Jesus by name again and mentioned his brother James who has an epistle or two in the Bible. As stated earlier Josephus was a contemporary of James.

This is the mention by Tacitus

He does only use the word Christ but he mentions him as the founder of Christianity (as opposed to the other Christ that founded Christianity ), the people that Nero persecuted, and as a real man that was crucified by Pontius Pilate.

Yeah see, you say that you've researched this from every angle but your words show that you do not have the slightest clue on how to research properly. Why would you expect there to be a bunch of contemporary sources about a lower class Jewish carpenter and holy man from a backwater part of the Roman Empire? Do you have any idea how few documents actually survive from that time? You do know that the eye witnesses test would rule out a bunch of historical figures right? Hannibal of Carthage is a famous one, we don't have eyewitness accounts of him. We don't have eyewitness or contemporary accounts of many people who lived during that period. 

The fact is that you dub yourself to be oh so logical and oh so unbiased but you haven't the slightest clue as to what you are talking about. You hold to a very fringe position regarding the historicity of Jesus, a position that would get you laughed out of a room of scholars that know about these things because its so manifestly ridiculous. The only reason you can have for holding to a cuckoo conspiracy theory like this is either ineptitude in research or willful bias.

The word Jesus Mythicist is a descriptor of people who don't believe that Jesus was a historical figure but a myth and that is what you are claiming, so where's the lie? You put yourself in the camp of a bunch of fringe conspiracy theories through your fringe conspiracy theory beliefs not me. I'm not asking you to believe in Jesus as the messiah or that he did a bunch of miracles, i'm not here to evangelize my faith to you, I am only asking you, for the love of God, to accept basic historical facts and to think critically.

I




see unlike you I'm actually willing to admit that the entire thing is fubard that it requires tying a dollar to it that way when you throw it away you can say you lost something.

is it seemingly a big step in possibly even devastating to throw everything in the same basket?, absolutely, but I'm after the truth, I'm not just trying to confirming what I already know,
and I'm willing to throw it all in the trash as far as it having authority over my life like a religious text does to people,

and yes I'm willing to admit that we shouldn't put 100% of our faith in anything written because it all could be corrupted that's a possibility and from what we've seen it happens a lot I don't stuff my head in the sand cuz it's a scary thought, I actually deal with it.

and no I'm not holding the evidence for Jesus in to high of a standard because of the ridiculously bold claim it makes over one's life requires it to have ridiculously good evidence because as the saying goes extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and this is no exception because we are talking about the claim that in our short temporal life we have to make a decision that will affect us tremendously for eternity that is the steepest claim that can be made

so the evidence needs to be ridiculously solid not wishy-washy and especially not non-existent kinda like we have in this case


>>>What we have here is a genuine eyewitness account by the Apostle Paul of Jesus's favorite Apostle Peter and Jesus's brother James. Notice also from the text that Paul meeting these two men undermines the whole argument put forth in the text that he learned his message from no one, no apostle, but by the divine revelation of Christ. He ain't lying, in fact this is something he'd rather not admit to make his point. Now tell me, do fictional characters have flesh and blood brothers that people can meet?<<<

noooooo , I don't understand why Christians have such a hard time understanding 1 simple thing when it comes to confirming rather something is real or fake and that 1 thing is that if a book makes a claim YOU CANT USE THAT SAME BOOK TO TRY AND CONFIRM ITS AUTHENTICITY

you don't make the case stronger no matter how many parts of the book you can find that back your theory because it doesn't count you have to go outside of the book that holds the info you are claiming to be true and if you happen to find other sources that are completely separate from the place your claim is THEN you start to add some validity to your claim

but this is just uncomprehendable to Christians , probably because they know that without circular reasoning they can't justify anything or prove anything.


>>>This is within one lifetime. A human could be alive to see the ministry of Jesus take place and to read Tacitus, not to mention Josephus's, writings at the end of their life. Don't you find it funny that if Jesus was a made up fictional character that those within living memory or within a lifetime of his life and death never called the Christians out on it? In fact, nobody ever doubted Jesus' existence until the 20th century. No one questioned it. Not even the Jewish Talmud denies his existence calling Jesus an illegitimate child and a sorcerer whose disciples stole his body so they could lie about the resurrection but curiously they do not deny his existence. Why is that I wonder<<<

you say that as if it's easy but it's not so easy to travel that far especially when you're old or when you're a year old watch these take place as if it's MTV and you can follow him around and then not write about it until the end of your life and be able to accurately reflect and write down exactly what happened. nobody has that kind of memory nobody

not to mention Matthew Mark Luke and John do not say that they were written by Matthew Mark Luke and John it's just one of your many assumptions

and and to bring up saying that nobody questioned his existence when talking about Christians in the first few decades of Christianity's existence they might not have literally said "I question if he's actually a real person or not" they did make it clear that they were convinced that it was a blood drinking necromancy cult of radicals but you can just sleep that one under the rug and ignore that one with all the other things that you ignore.


>>>Obviously this is a little Syrupy for a first century Jew to be writing this about Christ. But scholars DO agree that Josephus genuinely made a reference to Jesus as this text shows signs of editing, not invention out of whole cloth. Using linguistic techniques they have recovered what they think something closer to the original text said which was what I posted rather than the edited version which I will post again below<<<

again you say that with such confidence to paint a false picture for people because even your precious scholars not all of them agree with that statement you just made there are people that disagree with that and they hold title of professional Bible opinion giver seeing as how you love titles,

I don't care about what scholars say I only bring them up because you like to ride their family jewels because you're in love with titles as if they actually mean something which they don't they're technically certificates of manipulation and biased if you want my opinion on what a scholar is



Yeah, you see, you keep mentioning my Christian beliefs again and again and this debate is not about the truth of Christianity but about the historicity of Jesus, and I find that very strange. Not once have I tried to proselytize my beliefs to you, not once have I made any religious claim. As stated earlier the offense your beliefs gives to me is historical in nature and not religious. I don't care what you believe about Jesus at the moment (I do but its not pertinent here) I only care that you accept well substantiated historical facts. Disbelief in Jesus as a historical person is a very fringe theory. The scholars that hold to it can be counted on one hand (and I very much suggest that you actually read some scholars rather than what dubious websites on the internet say scholars believe because ya' know... they're lying to you). It's considered to be up there with believing the earth is flat.

>>>Now, you go on about being unbiased in every way<<<

I make no such claim and I would not be so foolish to think that I'm completely 100% unbiased in any way that's an impossible thing for any human being to be however I strive to try to be and to break all the indoctrination that is poured on all of us from birth.

>>>even thought your rhetoric is filled with broad sweeping generalizations about Christians <<<


well if every single Christian I've ever talked to or heard on TV or in a book all do the same thing then I think I'm justified to then say that Christians usually XYZ if that's all I've ever experienced Christians doing. if it's not justified then I have no idea how on Earth any human being could be justified in making a claim.

>>>You mention my Christianity when it is not pertinent to the conversation<<<

do you really think that your Christianity doesn't have anything to do with the conversation? are you serious? it has everything to do with this conversation specifically more so than if you were Jewish or anything else because salvation is through Christ alone according to Christianity therefore you claiming to be a Christian leads me to assume you are in favor of Jesus existing am I correct? therefore it matters in this conversation that's a fact case closed.

>>> you cannot take seriously anything a Christian says regardless of the evidence he gives you.<<<

that's what you're not understanding is that what you're giving me is not real evidence it's indoctrination confirmation feel good fake pseudo evidence based in circular reasoning.


>>> You act like this whole thing is settled and you know everything and the only reason someone may disagree is that they're brainwashed by religion.<<<<

well not exactly I mean I'm pretty confident with the amount of time I've put into this topic I have not found any evidence nor has anybody else that's non-Christian because there is none there is no chatter about him despite the apparent crazy things he supposedly did and claimed there's nothing we don't have any records despite the fact we have Pontius pilate's tax information yet zilch about a man named Jesus being crucified and we don't have any documentation anywhere else either so that to me instills a little confidence personally,

and by no means do I claim to know everything and we're not seven so stop saying that I think like that because I don't



>>>Well it is settled and it's settled in the other direction from your beliefs.<<<

of course you would say that because if you actually accepted the truth then that would mean your world would crumble and you'd have to start from scratching I found very few people willing to do that in this life so I don't expect you to.


>>> It has been settled by actual scholars.<<<

there you go with your passionate love for scholars ignoring the fact that in order to graduate they have to pass in school and that's really hard to do holding the kind of mindset that I hold but if you hold a narrative mindset it makes your life a hell of a lot easier not to mention the very powerful influence the church has over information and if Jesus didn't exist the church would crumble and it would lose all their power and money and that's not going to happen anytime soon so yeah they will and have manipulated history more than once in their benefit.

>>> The thing is, reading your posts it seems you had a bad experience growing up as a Christian and you seem to despise them for it.<<<

not the slightest bit I've done my shadow work kid. what I had was an extremely in depth religious childhood that required me to eat sleep and breathe the Christian faith to make sure that I knew it like the back of my hand because my life depended on it, which is what most cults teach their people, and even after running away I still remained religious for another 15 years because I loved it it was my identity and only once I branched out and started researching other religions and other cult groups is when I realized the massive amount of indoctrination I was under and just how impossible it is for the Bible to exist in the way that it claims to exist and so I unfortunately and reluctantly had to give my faith up.

but there's no bitter hate, I know what it's like to be enslaved to an ideology and I know what it feels like to not be enslaved by an ideology and it's so much better to not be that it's kind of like if you have a defibrillator in your hand and you walk by a person that just had a heart attack and died who wouldn't stop and try to save them?

>>>Well, I hate to tell you, that is a blatant bias on your part. It shows with every post you make<<<

OMG do not bring up biased go check the mirror for that massive red cedar jammed in your eye.