Was Jesus of Nazareth a religious loon?

[Abaddon_ire]

Jerusalem was a small village?

The Massacre of the Innocents was set in and around Bethlehem, which was a small village.

All works of fiction have a setting. What's your point? Spiderman is set in New York. New York is real. Therefore jesus is real because the storybook is set in the levant and that is a real place.

Translate: 'If there is no evidence it happened.'

Matthew is an evangelistic document that needs to be treated carefully when discussing historicity neutrally, but we have tools for doing that and it is a perfectly normal and valid historical source when used in that way. We therefore do have evidence.

The gospel of matt the prat is written by...not an eyewitness. Not matthew either. Nobody knows who composed it. The only thing we know for certain is that it was not the Disciple Matthew who wrote it. Therefore it is mere hearsay.

I can't follow this, but this is always the problem when trying to parse treble negatives.

I mean that the arguments used to justify the claim that the Massacre is a fiction are also weak.

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Are the above events historical?  If not, why not?  Or, why so?

The Infancy Gospel is generally dated to the mid to late 2nd century AD, so it's value as a historical document is extremely limited. That's not to say that it has none at all, but it's particularly weak evidentially.

So what? Do you know when Matthew is dated to?

Furthermore, there is a lack of consistency with various central aspects of Jesus' ministry, such as the lack of a Kingdom declaration in the miracles which make the bulk of the narrative.

So no.

BS. First, the canon was decided by committee. Second, you are apparently entirely unaware of which of the apocrypha almost got included.

Lucky for you, some of us are and can share that information. Unluckily for you, you are so committed to the superstition that facts will not matter to you.