Did Jesus exist?

[The Grand Nudger]

Yes, but as everyone knows, we have much more attestation to the life of Jesus - in terms of early records written by multiple, independent sources - than any other citizen, rich or poor, public official, emperor, etc., so... My point was simply that such a ridiculous conclusion follows from your logic, unless you arbitrarily play by different rules when discussing different people.

Not really, but you wouldn't know that, since you've never managed to either accept or accurately describe my position despite having me relate it to you many times in many threads.  In any case, you're talking about attestation now as though it implied something, but what...we do have an explanation for why jesus is so well attested, I doubt it has anything to do with what you hope to imply by that statement.

That's certainly a good indicator of some possibly historical information,

no..it isn't...it's a good indicator of the beliefs or motivations of the author.......it's completely irrational as a comment on historicity.

especially when it comes from two, three, even four separate sources.

You also get miracle stories from two three, even four separate sources. This also, though, is irrelevant, as we know that correlation was one of the metrics these narratives were chosen for inclusion upon. You are counting the hits - intentionally arrived at out of a wider pool, and ignoring the misses as though they related to some otherwise unknown historicity rather than what we do know of how the stories came to be included....and how the character of jesus was decided upon -regardless- of it's historicity.

I'm more concerned with looking at the overall scenario - some Greek speaking Jews claim to be followers of a man from Galilee whom was, in their minds, the divinely sent Messiah, and moreover, their brand of religion centers around a kind of denial of the fact he remained dead because he was, as they all confess, crucified (by the Romans). We can observe the embellishment of details as they began reading the Old Testament in the context of his life, such as his virgin birth or the resurrection or the second coming, despite the fact that they can't hide the identity of his earthly father, or that his actual parents had other children. The anecdote about John the Baptist is another good example of information we can glean via the criterion of embarrassment, but in the end, it's a matter of putting the pieces together to form, as I said, a coherent and realistic picture of events. And given the ones mythicists put forth - comparing the situation to Zeus and Osiris, which only an ignoramus could possibly do - it's understandable that they're insulted and laughed at both in and outside of academia.

That's not actually what happened.  Some greek speaking jews claimed to be followers...of the followers...of a man from galilee...about whom a great many fantastic stories have been written, including, ofc, that he was a god.  

If he came to atone he had to be offered up somehow, you think that the crucifixion speaks to historicity but I think it speaks to theology.  Those details you see as historical are, to me, still filler content in a work of fiction - because no one has given me any reason to take the story as anything other than what it is, a story. You're putting those pieces together -assuming- there were events about which to be realistic in the first place.  You are assuming what you are being asked to demonstrate.  

You could glean just as much "history" this way as you could from reading stories about the miracle worker...and it would be equally "historical". That other historical events or personages are equally difficult to establish or, if you will, just as weak...does not make historical jesus any stronger or more well established. The reason that appeals to hypocrisy, like the one you lead with, don't work...is that they don't have anything to do with the claim. Even a hypocrite can be right.