Shit. What The Hell. Jesus Never Existed

[Aractus]

The evidence is:

1. The Gospels and Book of Acts.
2. The Writings of Paul.
3. The other New Testament writings with clear multiple authors from the first century.
4. The so-called heretical writings about Jesus.
5. Other non-church writings from the likes of Josephus, Pliny the Younger, Tacitus, Suetonius, etc.
6. Modern academic publications including peer-review publications, and academic books and chapters.

Does that mean that everything within those documents is true? OF COURSE NOT and that's a strawman argument I've seen YOU and others make on many occasions. No ancient document is ever taken to be literal truth. It doesn't need to be 100% true to be evidence. In fact what the New Testament and so-called heretical documents show you is what the early Christians' beliefs about Jesus were. They believed that he had risen from the dead and had appeared to the 12. Now, that's not to say that the 12 believed that - because we don't have any authentication writings from the original 12 that say it, but it says the next generation or the one after believed that. Just as people believed all kinds of farcical things about Ned Kelly just 20 or so years after his execution; and yet those same documents also tell us truths about the man. They not only tell us facts, for want of a better word, but they also tell us about what some of the rumours and folklore had started.

Herodotus convinced historians that the Egyptian pyramids were built by slaves for over 2000 years - that was their only evidence. Does that mean we throw out every other peice of writing he made because of one monumental cock-up? NO.