Hi, I'm a Christian. Help Me Disprove My Religion!

[Aractus]

In the first century no one anywhere in the world had EVER written a novel. If you have evidence to counter that statement then produce it.

I posed a question, a few posts above...
Here is the answer:

Taken from http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/lostc...lantis.htm

The story of Atlantis comes to us from Timaeus, a Socratic dialogue, written in about 360 B.C. by Plato. There are four people at this meeting who had met the previous day to hear Socrates describes the ideal state. Socrates wants Timaeus of Locri, Hermocrates, and Critias to tell him stories about Athens interacting with other states.

[...]

And now for Plato's account of Atlantis as translated by Benjamin Jowett.

   Many great and wonderful deeds are recorded of your state in our histories. But one of them exceeds all the rest in greatness and valour. For these histories tell of a mighty power which unprovoked made an expedition against the whole of Europe and Asia, and to which your city put an end. This power came forth out of the Atlantic Ocean, for in those days the Atlantic was navigable; and there was an island situated in front of the straits which are by you called the Pillars of Heracles; the island was larger than Libya and Asia put together, and was the way to other islands, and from these you might pass to the whole of the opposite continent which surrounded the true ocean; for this sea which is within the Straits of Heracles is only a harbour, having a narrow entrance, but that other is a real sea, and the surrounding land may be most truly called a boundless continent. Now in this island of Atlantis there was a great and wonderful empire which had rule over the whole island and several others, and over parts of the continent, and, furthermore, the men of Atlantis had subjected the parts of Libya within the columns of Heracles as far as Egypt, and of Europe as far as Tyrrhenia.
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If this is not fiction... I know not what fiction is...

It doesn't matter if it's fiction or fact, what I said is that no one had written down anything (besides poetry) that was fiction and presented it as fiction. Plato didn't do this. Herodotus didn't do it either when he wrote "the pyramids were built by slaves". He based it on contemporary (at the time) information he was given. We don't read that inaccuracy and say "he was writing a novel". Historians say that Herodotus was a serious historian. Luke claims to have based his gospel on pre-existing information also. I've already mentioned - many times now - how legend can develop quite quickly and find its way interwoven to historical events. This happened with Ned Kelly, for example.

We know that embellishments were written down in the Bible - I'm not saying they weren't. But that doesn't mean that Jesus didn't deliver the Sermon on the Mount.