(May 1, 2011 at 7:06 am)Napoleon666 Wrote: My question is this, what evidence can you provide me with, OTHER than the bible, that jesus existed?What are you referring to by the word "Jesus"? By your exclusion of the Biblical (i.e. New Testament) documents, do you mean to imply that they provide evidence for Jesus' existence or not?
Quote:Does anyone here know about Josephus in more depth?What do you want to know about Josephus?
Quote:What i really would like is for someone to provide me with some physical evidence, like what he actually wrote, or a tomb or a piece of carpentry he made (he was a carpenter afterall). Otherwise i guess in arguements against Christians i can just use the line 'prove it'?We sadly don't have archaeological evidence for most ancient people, which is just the nature of ancient history. We do not have any writings of any rabbis in the first century (apart from possibly the Apostle Paul, who would be a rather unique case anyway). A piece of carpentry with the name 'Jesus' on it would really prove very little, since there were doubtless plenty of people called Jesus (which was a common name in 1st century Palestine) who were also carpenters. The closest kind of evidence we have would be an ossuary claimed to be that of James, the brother of Jesus. Even if it is an authentic first-century ossuary, it is quite possible (though perhaps unlikely) that there existed some other James whose brother was Jesus and whose father was Joseph.