Is Accepting Christian Evidence Special Pleading?

[Astreja]

What? How did Rome get involved?

Oh, come on, now!  Do I really have to remind you that in the Gospels, the Romans -- who were occupying Jerusalem -- were the ones who supposedly executed Jesus?

Why would a philosophy writer from another country (which did not have even one Christian church) who died a decade after Jesus know of or feel the need to comment? We don't even have all of his works. Not going any further down this rabbit trail.

At the time that Jesus supposedly lived, no country had a "Christian Church."  Alexandria did indeed have a Christian faction in later years; in fact, it was Christian monks who murdered the mathematician Hypatia.

Philo of Alexandria was a historian who was regularly in Jerusalem, and in contact with people in the Herodian dynasty.  If any of the Gospel events described in the run-up to the crucifixion  -- massive crowds in support of a miracle-working rabbi who was at odds with the local religious establishment -- had actually happened, Philo almost certainly would have written something.

Either there never was a Jesus for Philo to notice, or Jesus was just too insignificant for Philo to bother writing about.