Jesus has close to zero evidence of existence and his staying power is solely the result of zealots (so to speak) who can not see that in their god-blindness.
Naw homie. As mentioned earlier, many of the leading antiquities and NT scholars are not religious in any sense of the word.
Even at the beginning, the whole reason why Christianity and subsequently Jesus became prevalent in the first place was because a person, who was in all likelihood a non Christian, felt as though the religion was important for a variety of reasons, most of which not related to zealous reasons or "God Blindness".
Good luck with that - it doesn't exist. I said that there was no contemporary evidence of Jesus - which resulted in a huge whining rant from Legion about what 'contemporary'means. So far no such evidence has been presented. I never 'set the standard', I just said that there was no contemporary evidence.
And as Legion pointed out to you already, Paul was a contemporary of Jesus, so anything he wrote was contemporary, regardless of you own personal opinion on "who or what" he was actually writing about.
All of the Gospels save for John were originally compiled by contemporaries of Jesus. Look at the dates of original composition. They all fall within the timeframe of what, you yourself qualified as "contemporary" which was 40 years from the event.
Dating the Bible - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Josephus was a contemporary of Jesus as well, as he was born within a decade of the events as well. This is where you missed what Legion was saying to you. Just because the document was recorded a generation after the events doesn't matter. What matters is that the person who composed the document lived during the time period where people were still alive to give first hand accounts of the events.
Josephus on Jesus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Josephus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Both points are factual. And have yet to be countered with any evidence - just a lot of posturing and tantrums.
For all your talk about things being "factual", you do throw the word around a lot about things that are not actually "factual".
What do you mean? We have them because they were preserved - what are you asking?
Why were they written? Either A, they were written to document the life of a man, to celebrate his life, and possibly to begin a new religion centering around this man and his life, or they were written about a man to express a code of morals, or for some other cause.
OR
They were written as a fictional story to entertain, begin a new religion, express morals, or for some other cause.
I don't see there being any other options, unless you would like to present one.
You are misrepresenting my position again. I did not say that later documents do not count as evidence for the historicity of Jesus. All I said was that there are no CONTEMPORARY ACCOUNTS. The later (2nd century) documents do count as evidence for historicity - just not very persuasive or reliable evidence. Few if any of them are of known origin.
First, I was talking about documents being written in the early 2nd century that question Jesus' existence, not ones that support his existence.
Secondly, as mentioned numerous times, all of the gospels save for John were proposed to be written as early as 25-30 years after the events, and John, 40 years after the events, all by people who lived at the same time as Jesus. The same goes for Paul regardless of your personal opinion of who he was writing about.
So sure - there are no contemporary references to say that this stuff did happen - but you demand contemporary evidence that it didn't happen.
As stated numerous times, there are.
So you can not prove that it did happen - but for some presumably magical reason I must prove a negative where you can not evidence the positive.
No, I said there are early documents that say it didn't happen, but they are not contemporaneous. But yes, I would expect more than one document to arise within a century of the Jesus' life stating that he was not actually a living person. Especially considering the view of Early Christianity within Rome. I would expect that more than 1 anti-Christian writer, which there were many in the first and second century, to write something along the lines of:
"These Christians are so dumb, they believe this guy was the son of God, when the guy never even really existed."
If I were to start a religion tomorrow stating that Bob Christ was the son of God, that he really existed, and he died in a car wreck so that we can live in paradise forever when we die, and the religion actually caught on amongst the masses, would you not expect for people to write and/or say stuff denying that this Bob guy did in fact exist?
About time you actually read what I was claiming.
Or maybe it's about time you actually started stating your argument more clearly? Or even better yet, how about it's about time that you switched your argument to something that you could defend easier?
More like 7 Billion at this point in time.
No if he was the son of god through a virgin birth, he can not also be the son of Joseph.
No one said anything about a virgin birth. But it's not totally impossible for Jesus to be both the son of God, and Joseph's son as well. At least not impossible from the concept of a child having two fathers, not from the point of view that God can actually impregnate a woman. Extremely unlikely, but not impossible.
https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20130727072105AANWbsR
I guess I do not really understand the idea of putting a percentage value on a binary phenomena, either he was ... or he wasn't. I have trouble dealing with the statistical expected value of Jesus' little toe having existed ... but nothing else.
It's just like the probability in science. If we have one experiment demonstrating evidence for the cause of one phenomenon, while another experiment demonstrating evidence that something else is the cause for the same phenomenon, then we say there's a 50% chance that one reason is the cause for the phenomenon, and a 50% chance that the other reason is the cause for the phenomenon.
This is of course a very rudimentary example and things like study design, bias, and numerous other factors would come and to play. Also since we can't test a hypothesis, we are relying on evidence that already exists. So, through analytical methods, Archeological, anthropological, cultural, etc. etc. We determine a probability of an event happening this way or that on a sliding scale of percentages.
It's not the same as in science, but it is similar, save for the repeated testing of hypothesis.
How is Paul evidence for historicity? He dreamed of Jesus, but never met him.
Is dreaming of dragons evidence for the historicity of dragons? A: No.
This is your own personal opinion of what a person's intent, who in reality, you really have no idea of the culture, literary style, or anything else in regard to the culture in which Paul wrote in order to make any sort of case for knowing the intentions of what he wrote.
In other words, you have no idea what Paul's intent was when writing what he wrote, and people much more versed in what he might have meant have generally expressed opinions in stark contrast to the one you express.
