Please. People are willing to kill each other over soccer matches.

I mean logic maybe? The persecution under Nero was in CE 64. 64 years isn't a lot of time - people would still be alive when Jesus allegedly was (only 30-some years had passed since he died). So there were enough Christians in Rome by then for Nero to use them as scapegoats and slaughter them. Thus, people who had…

Probably because it was mixed with another point - namely arguing that "Jesus didn't exist" is silly, unless you plan on just rejecting tons of what we think we know about classical history. It's also unnecessary if all you're arguing is that the evidence doesn't support his divinity. Sorry for the confusion there.

I think my point is that, "Jesus didn't exist therefore Christianity is dumb," is far less logically or historically sound than what you just said. Jesus's existence has only the tiniest bit of relevance to whether he was God. Unless apologists also think that the existence of Augustus shows that we should be burning…

I'm not sure why you're arguing with me about whether it proves Christianity is "true". I don't think it does, if that makes you feel better. The only "proof" would be obtained through, I guess, time travel?

Plato was his follower but he's still reliable? And the stories about him definitely matter about how he was viewed. Was he really a noble iconoclast or was he a seditious danger to society who needed to be executed?

Yes I do. But Jesus is a fascinating figure. Think about it. There was numerous apocolyptic "mystery religions" floating around. Lots around messianic "wizard men". Why did Christianity take off when it was illegal? Why isn't "the cult of Isis" (enormously popular at the time) still dominant when joining it meant not…

Why are the people in the Bible (like Peter) not considered "actual people."? Which other people saw Socrates and reported on it?

Roman emperors were also supposedly gods. And surrounded by prophecy and omens and portents. I don't believe that, but they are still interesting.

We do have preserved documents though. We have Paul of Tarsus's letters in which he refers to other stories circulating around. We have exactly what you'd expect - a tiny collection of documents copied and recopied.

Agreed. I'm just pointing out that ancient history is a foggy business and acting like Jesus is somehow especially implausible is as silly as acting like the Bible is absolute proof that everything in it is true.

Yeah. But I was responding to someone arguing he wasn't real. And I'm not sure why Paul of Tarsus's stuff isn't lumped in with evidence too. Being in the Bible doesn't give the documents leprosy anymore than being there proves divine revelation.

Yeshua works well. I've seen Jesus of Nazareth used for that purpose too.

Is it odd? We have enormous gaps in the literature and written history from that era because the stuff is just lost (burnt, rotted etc) and THAT was written by and for people who actually mattered so there were lots of copies. Jesus was a tiny blip. Who but his followers would have bothered to write and then make…

Or historical Jesus happened and a lot of stories attached to him after he died.

"The Bible" didn't exist when he existed. It's s collection of documents made at different times. Since it's purpose was to collect what disparate people said about him in one place (and he didn't matter to very many people for a long time), that's not much of an argument.

Fair enough. Sorry for the snottiness.

Obviously. But plenty of people don't differentiate between the two.

True. But even for Romans, we often rely on historians writing long after their deaths. Ancient history is a hazy field. Paul of Tarsus is enough for me to think that there was a Jesus who accumulated followers around a Messianic mystery religion.

That's the actual evidence for most historical figures from that era.