Did Jesus exist?

[Brian37]

No, he did not. The Romans were apt census takers, and there had been an upstart blaspheming their polytheistic traditions you would have seen out side the bible, during the alleged period the bible claims, evidence of his existence. No contemporary evidence exists outside the bible during the claimed existence. The gospels were written after the fact and the real authors are unknown, and are also second hand hearsay. Tactus and Josephus don't count.

Now having said that, even if we found the bones of a man named Jesus and extracted DNA and proved he existed, he still would have been a mere man who managed to convince others to start a new religion. There still is no such thing as magic babies with super powers, and humans do not survive the death story as the bible would have you believe.

A movement did happen otherwise Christianity would not exist today. But so what, all that means is a group of people got tired of the old ways and took stories from old traditions and started a new religion based on that. 

There are newer attempts by "archaeologists" whom are really not objective, but apologists, who point to grave sites with family names on them. But since Joseph and Mary were common names, that is meaningless, and still even if, that would not make the claim of a baby being born without a second set of DNA true, much less a being that goes through it's entire life preforming magic tricks.

Actually the whole census narrative was shoehorned in pos hoc to get Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem for the birth (to fulfill prophesy). First of all in the period in question Iudea was a tributary state rather than a Roman province, and the Romans didn't conduct censuses in tributary states. Second, outside of the bible itself there is no record of anybody having to go to their ancestral home in order to be ennumerated in a Roman census. The whole story smacks of a late rewrite.

Of course you've also the problem of Joseph supposedly a member of the preeminent royal house in Israel being a menial worker, an extremely unlikely event. But that is another problem.

Doesn't matter what that specific location had as far as real laws, the bible claims he caused a ruckus throughout Israel in the alleged characters life as the bible claims. If that had happened, the Romans would have taken notice. The fact they do in the bible, where as in real life nobody said shit during the real time frame, as you said, says to me some writers decided to create a new myth after the fact.

And again, still wouldn't matter, still no such thing as magic babies born without a second set of DNA, and nobody survives death as the myth of the death story would have you believe. Still crap, no matter which way you slice it.