Do you think jesus christ existed

[Aractus]

1. there's no serious historian who doubts that Jesus was an historical figure

Richard Carrier.

That carries about as much weight as saying "David Irving". As I said, extremist views require extreme evidence.

Ordinary claims, cross-referencing, textual evidence... and the textual evidence provided by Paul is that Jesus did not exist and was a conceptual device.

It's sad that you are repeating extremist views - that have no evidence - and as I already mentioned that you need evidence for said views, I see you are not producing any. All you're producing are wild theories. There is (perceptively speaking of course) and unlimited number of theories that are possible, but it's impossible for every one of them to be right.

Not what I heard.

Well, I'm telling you that there is. We have at least 8 different New Testament authors ("Mark", "Matthew", Luke, John, Peter, James, Paul, Jude). Then you have Josephus, then you have Gnostic texts, and then you have early church records that go right back to the beliefs held in the first century, and recorded as early as the first part of the second century.

1 Corinthians as mentioned by Ehrman is universally accepted by modern scholars to have been written by Paul. It contains an early Christian creed in 1 Corinthians 15 that predates Paul's writings, and goes all the way back to when Paul was first converted to Christianity.

• For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.

If you doubt that this message was preached to Paul, then you may as well doubt absolutely everything. Where does it stop?

Again, in Romans 3:

• For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.

Romans 6:

• Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

Galatians:

• I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.

This is repeated in 2 Corinthians 11.

Romans:

• Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations,

1 Corinthians:

• I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. For it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there is quarrelling among you, my brothers. What I mean is that each one of you says, “I follow Paul,” or “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Cephas,” or “I follow Christ.” Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one may say that you were baptized in my name. (I did baptize also the household of Stephanas. Beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.) For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

There's yet another disinterested comment for you in there:

"I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one may say that you were baptized in my name."

There's a few problems here. What we consider history and historical is not what the ancients considered. Our modern concept of history is just that - modern - and before the 1800s most would just take claims at face value.

This isn't true. Historians today largely still take most things at face value; however (and here's the interesting part), even when this is the case there is usually room for argument and discussion, and it's difficult to find facts that are completely universally accepted, but it's easy to find facts that are consensus or "largely" accepted among historians.

Herodotus visited the Egyptian pyramids c. 450 BC and he was told that they had been constructed by slaves, and he wrote this down. For the next 2400 years historians believed this "largely" as consensus, but there was always those who doubted and had other theories, and it was never a "universally accepted fact" held by an overwhelming majority. But that said, if you can’t take the word of Herodotus – a serious historian – then who’s word can you take? He wrote down what he believed to be true, no one thinks he invented his story even though he had been mistaken.