(August 5, 2011 at 1:17 pm)frankiej Wrote: Well, I have been away for about a month and I suppose it is about time that I get back to bashing those Christians... Anyway, I am currently debating online with a friend of mine about the existence of Jesus. He claims there is evidence outside the Bible but I can't seem to find any and he won't give me any. God damn typical.
I tried to look some up, but they just ended up quoting the Bible.
Anyone got evidence?
Min and I had an extremely informative discussion on this very topic a few months ago. It's only 5 pages and it is fairly in depth.
Mythic Jesus discussion
To answer your question, yes there is evidence of Jesus, but not everyone is in agreement on whether it's reliable or not. If you check modern scholarship on the subject a fair majority of people, both secular and Christian, will agree there was someone named Jesus the writers of the NT are basing there stuff on. Of course there are still people who do not think that is the case, usually called the "mythic Jesus" camp.
Bart Ehrman is quoted as saying, "I don't know any serious historian that doubts the existence of Jesus." He goes on to say that the Mythic Jesus position is problematic and sometimes sensationalistic. He also does a great job of explaining the historical practices related to studying the past. Bart Ehrman is of course, not a Christian, so this is just him talking as a historian. You can listen for yourself here: Bart Ehrman supports historical Jesus
The interview explains a lot, and the post I listed goes into a lot of detail as well. Let me know what you think.
