Did Jesus exist?

[The Grand Nudger]

That is too simplistic for me. The New Testament is a collection of diverse texts, representing different views and genres. To say it's "clearly a work of fiction" is starting from a position that is both naive and on many points demonstrably rubbish. It's a larger assumption than I could comfortably make, even from the outset, but moreover, it's false. A great many aspects within these writings, such as names, titles, and locations, can be corroborated by extrabiblical and archaeological sources, which adds to their credibility when mentioning the sorts of important and useful mundane facts that you seem to only disregard, out of an unfortunately misplaced and irrational prejudice, when it concerns anything having to do with their central purpose: their religion. The entire concept of a historical novel didn't exist in the first century, so reading the texts from that vantage point, even though they might contain fictional elements, is flawed.

Too simplistic?  It is clearly fiction..unless you think that jesus drove demons into pigs in actuality?  Let's get some clarification on this point...do you think that the NT narratives aren't fictional?  Fiction is diverse, and represents different views and genres.  Perhaps -you- have a simplistic view of fiction?

Seems to be so, since you also think that there was no such thing as historical fiction at -any- point in human history.  We have always told stories.  I don;t know why you're babbling about novels, now....we're not discussing a novel, are we?  

A rational discussion doesn't involve a wholesale dismissal of every word because an author is writing to expound or propagate their beliefs, whether political, social, or religious. When we have multiple authors whose writings include a number of statements which can be verified as accurate - take the role of Pontius Pilate as he concerns the province of Judea as a single example - and not one, not ONE source makes as much as even a hint towards your thesis; not one small iota of documentary evidence supports the mythicist argument; but, on the contrary, we have many reasons to believe no sane person, especially - of all people - religious Jews, would create a new cult concerning a Jewish Messiah whom was to be worshipped as a god AND was humiliated by crucifixion - of all penalties - if they had complete determination of the narrative; this is one of many facts that you can't actually deal with in any serious way. Given this, among other considerations, it's quite easy to say that one is completely unjustified in calling your view credible, rational, probable, etc., and it is very much difficult for even moderately informed people to treat your pseudoscepticism with any more respect than would be deserving of, say, the resurrection hypothesis put forward by fundamentalist Christians.

I haven't dismissed every word, I've only dismissed your comments..and I've told you why.  You don't think that even a smidgeon of evidence supports the mythical position?  How about the fact that -in the narrative in question-, jesus is a god with magical powers....what do you think that is....."historical"..? Look, the absolute best you can aim for, with the jesus character, is legendary. Even a "historical jesus" is -still- a legendary jesus. Do you know how thin the veil between legendary and mythical is?

An obvious red herring, as the views of creationists and how they arrive at them have nothing in common with the issue at hand - well, except that they, like yourself, are "skeptical" about the evidence we do possess and the consensus of the experts who have analysed it using the methods accepted by everyone else working in the field.

They have alot in common.  Both are based on the same collections of text....and both float invalid claims and have difficulty producing evidence, but mostly they both content themselves with calling the other guy names.

I have no reason to doubt the claims about Jesus being a flesh and blood human being, born under the law, as Paul writes, shamefully put to death as numerous second generation followers describe it, and the catalyst for a movement that all of subsequent Western history reflects. I do have reasons to doubt that the miracles, or the birth narratives, or post-mortem activities, occurred as they tell it. But none of that adds weight to the notion that nothing they wrote contains any historical veracity. That, quite obviously, is not the case. And neither would you have reason to doubt it if you could see the forest for trees.

"I have n reason to doubt" is an excuse for your having failed to provide evidence or reason to accept.  

What other evidence could you possibly expect us to have?

That's not -my- problem, is it?  I would have taken a valid means of inference as well, you failed to deliver on both counts.

Well, considering that we don't have a ton of writings from the ancient world, and the Bible was written in the ancient world, it might contain some useful information about, you know, the ancient world.

OFC it does, but that;s not the question at hand, now is it?  You've failed to deliver historical jesus in evidence, and you've failed to deliver historical jesus in inference.

Why should we expect to have detailed historical information? We have scant information on the lives of countless average people who lived only a hundred years ago. I recently reviewed the lives of William Ockham and Duns Scotus, some of the greatest and most well-known philosophers of their day, in the 13th and 14th centuries, and we have very little details about them - next to nothing besides a few lists that happen to include their names. Fortunately, they wrote, and left works, and their followers give us a little more information about them decades upon decades later. But you'd expect an abundance of evidence, on top of that which already exists, for the leader of a small religious sect in the first century, whose friends were simple fishermen, and probably didn't write himself...? I mean, with all due respect, get real. 

Get real, you say, after willfully straw manning me with your first sentence..... again.  If you can't give me a historical detail about jesus, you don't have a historical jesus. QED.  

That's not "trouble" for most people who consider the historicity of the man Jesus, which is all that is being disputed here. The details are less important than the general portrait of the character, which is what they're aiming to paint anyhow... And the character that emerges is far too historical, and fits much better in the historical narrative of Christianity arising out of a Greek speaking, Jewish world, in the first-century, much better that is, than any other alternative narratives.

What man jesus?  The details are unimportant, way to excuse yourself.  If the details are unimportant, and you do not possess them, why have you been arguing with me at all?  You leaving the embarrassing details defense and falling back to the die for a lie defense now?  We already tried that, remember? The "general portrait of the character"..really..and you say we aren't talking about fiction.....................