MERGED: The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ (Part 1) & (Part 2)

[Esquilax]

If the historians today can use contemporary sources to draw their conclusions...then so could Jospheus...after all, he was only a historian that lived a lot closer to the time and geographical location than anyone typing in a atheist forum 2,000 years later.

But you don't know what his sources were, or even if he did use contemporary sources at all, which is exactly what you pointed out to Jenny. The difference is that while we have no indication at all that Josephus used quality sources within his own writing, you're just assuming that he did for convenience; that's a positive claim with a burden of proof.

Dude, Christianity had already reached Corinth by that time. Word of mouth had already spread. The writings came later but the belief itself was much, much earlier. So in other words, if Christianity had already spread to Corinth from Jerusalem WITHOUT written records, then what does that tell you?

It tells me that word of mouth spread. That's not a particularly controversial claim, but it also doesn't come close to addressing my point. So I wonder why you bothered saying it at all, other than as deflection because you have no real response.

But that would only backfire...you just gave a scenario of IF Jesus was actually performing miracles and questioning why wasn't the dominant religion of the time denouncing him...but IF he was, then in the midst of denouncing him, they would only corroborate what he was doing, which would do more harm than good.

What? How would denouncing him as a charlatan, or servant of the devil, or what have you, corroborate what he was doing? That's complete nonsense. To be clear, christianity did precisely the same thing to the followers of Baal later on, twisting and corrupting that religion so that Baal became Beelzebub. In fact, cultural appropriation and propaganda are just kinda what christianity did back then; how can you say it wouldn't work when it did, on a much larger scale, for your own religion?

Yeah, we've been through this before so allow me to reiterate...the Christians were the ones being persecuted during the first and second century. What you are talking about happened hundreds of years later and doesn't even have the explanatory value to explain why is there 2 billion Christians in the world today, with no armies of violence....no crusading theocratic thugs....because of the acts of one man.

Given that the claims of christian persecution back then were, in the main, nothing more than fictional "piety porn" written by christian authors with little to no corroboration, that then got adopted and exaggerated as part of the christian narrative later on... yes, it explains it quite comprehensively.

Not that your argument works at all to begin with; those 2 billion current christians exist because their religion benefits from the extended period of cultural domination and indoctrination it enjoys... because of the violence they performed in the past. Modern christianity isn't some isolated and unconnected religion that just popped up fifty years ago, dude; it is the current iteration of a continuous movement that established itself to this point via violence and dishonest cultural appropriation. Not to mention, I wasn't just talking about the armies, but the missionaries and preachers... all the other people who helped spread and maintain christianity that weren't Jesus?