(January 3, 2015 at 10:19 pm)Pickup_shonuff Wrote: Right. Because one (Plato---Socrates is more disputed) is substantiated by other evidence, such as his contemporaries, his critics, other historians, all with reputations, archeological excavations, and analogy with events we witness throughout the world, today and in times past. Jesus Christ is not. Jesus was a figure with very little historical importance until the author of Mark's Gospel placed Christian theology in a specific time and location, probably in response to the Docetics, and also because that's how revered teachings of figureheads, mythical or not, were recorded.
You do realize it makes zero difference whether or not Plato was an actual person, though, right? When Christians can say the same about Jesus, their arguments for historicity will start to look more credible.
I don't know of any archaeological excavations that reveal the existence of Plato. How many historians from Plato's time write of his existence? The oldest surviving manuscript of any of Plato's works dates to 895 AD. That's about 1,300 years after his supposed lifetime. Yet virtually everyone believes he did exist. Most historians today believe that Jesus did exist. The manuscript evidence for Plato's existence doesn't hold a candle to the manuscript evidence for Jesus, of which the earliest copies date to one to two hundred years after his lifetime.
