Shit. What The Hell. Jesus Never Existed

[Aractus]

Ok.  You took the time to give an honest answer so I'll tone it down.

Here's the problem.  You are speculating.  We both know what the book says.  It is right there for everyone to read if they so desire.  Just like the absurd census of Augustus serving as the need for Joseph and Mary to go to Bethlehem it is a literary construct to get Paul to go to Damascus where he has his "flash" in the road.

No that's not accurate. You're comparing apples with oranges. Think of it this way, if I told you a story about my childhood and my friends told you the same thing you could be inclined to believe it. But actually I made it all up. It's very hard to corroborate childhood events, which is what the nativity is speaking of, whereas Paul's conversion is something contemporary and the author of acts either knew Paul personally or was a close associate of Luke who did know Paul personally.

But there is no source that says other than that Paul was going to Damascus to drag recalcitrant jews back to jerusalem to be punished by the Sanheddrin.  Remember, this is the same bunch of schmucks who just a few years earlier couldn't even punish a blasphemer without Pilate's permission....or so the story goes.  You need to face the fact that anything other than what is on the page is something which you just invented.  We can call it the Gospel of Danny, for short.  Who knows?  In 2,000 years they may make you a saint.

No, they did practise stonings etc. According to the gospels the Jewish authorities couldn't stone Jesus to death because he hadn't breached a law that required it - it had nothing to do with whether they were capable of doing it. However, as you would well know, I don't agree that the Jews were responsible and neither do most scholars.

You need to face the fact that anything other than what is on the page is something which you just invented.  We can call it the Gospel of Danny, for short.  Who knows?  In 2,000 years they may make you a saint.

Well that's not true, there is other evidence that suggests that in some respects the gospel accounts of the death of Jesus are not entirely accurate. That doesn't alter the fact however that most scholars agree the overwhelming evidence shows that Jesus was killed by Roman crucifixion. Every ancient text contains at least some factual errors in it, that doesn't mean none of them are useful for understanding history.

I have the same problem with Josephus.  In 250 AD we have Origen quoting from Book XVIII of Antiquities of the Jews and he does not know shit about the Testimonium Flavianum.  Never mentions it in spite of the fact that it would have nailed the point he was trying to make.  C. 325 we have the TF in Eusebius in all its glory.  In fact, not one to waste a good thing Eusebius used the TF in two other works of his.  Understandable, Handel was especially known for taking a rollicking good tune from one opera/oratorio and inserting in to another.  But.  Between Origen's conspicuous silence and Eusebius' over-the-top bullshit we have a vast chasm and this is not lost even on modern apologists who can't pretend that Eusebius' oeuvre could have been written by a first century jewish aristocrat.  So they try to scale it down so that it does not look like such an obvious forgery but the basic problem remains.  We do not have it - or a reference to it - from any xtian or pagan writer prior to Eusebius.  And, as noted, when it appears it is with trumpets blasting in all its 4th century xtian panoply of all things jesus.

Testimonium Flavianum refers only to Ant.18.3.3. Ant.20.9 and Ant.18.5 are viewed as genuine by most historians. Again just because 18.3.3 specifically is a fraud doesn't automatically make any other part of it fraud Min. I don't think we can distil absolute truth from 18.5 and 20.9 but at least they do corroborate the facts that Jesus had lived and that James the Just and John the Baptist were martyred (killed as a result of their religious beliefs). I'm sure you would agree that a person's religious beliefs are not a reason to persecute and kill them.

Note that 18.5 and 20.9 both contradict the early church (2nd cent. accounts) to some extent. Not entirely but in the details. If it was a Christian alteration you would expect it to agree completely with the Christian accounts. In particular the death of John the Baptist's death is quite different and if it was a Christian alteration it would have been more in-line with the Christian account. But the facts that are the same are the time-frame he was killed in and the reason.