Did Jesus exist at all?

[Minimalist]

It's probably a forgery. The problem with Tacitus....other than the fact that no one else in antiquity ever heard of that passage... is that he used an anachronistic term for Pilate's office.  Pilate was a praefect.  The passage in Annales 15:44 calls him a procurator which title was not used until after the death of Herod Agrippa I.

A minor problem to be sure.

The fact that no writer, xtian or pagan ever heard of the passage is far more significant.

[Pat Mustard]

Tacticus, a Roman Historian wrote of the Christians and of Christus, who was crucified for crimes by Pilate. He didn't say Pilate was a governor though.

He didn't talk about Christos either, but Chrestus, which was a common name and title during the early Principate. The rcc later changed every copy of the Annals to make the e an i so that it looked like he was talking about Jesus. He may have been, but we don't know.

[robvalue]

Haha, forgeries. They needed to make forgeries just to try and make the case that the most important man who ever lived even existed at all.

[JesusHChrist]

Of course he did.

There is plenty of evidence in Israel to suggest so.

Please present it.

We'll wait...

Well, there is all that archaeological evidence! The Roman records! The commentaries from contemporaneous philosophers! The inscriptions on stone! The video!

/sarc

[downbeatplumb]

G-C has bought the bullshit story, hook, line and sinker. 

It's sad that a grown man can be such an infant.

 If you knew what I do you would be crawling on your knees to God.

GC

Yet you find this knowledge extremely hard to put into a cogent and convincing form. If anything seeing your words has convinced me more of the illogicalness of the Abrahamic god.

[Minimalist]

Tacticus, a Roman Historian wrote of the Christians and of Christus, who was crucified for crimes by Pilate. He didn't say Pilate was a governor though.

He didn't talk about Christos either, but Chrestus, which was a common name and title during the early Principate. The rcc later changed every copy of the Annals to make the e an i so that it looked like he was talking about Jesus. He may have been, but we don't know.

And... in this case "every copy of Annals" means the single manuscript that we have.  Yes...for some reason this very valued and unique work of history was ignored by the very monks who were supposed to be saving this shit.  I wonder why?

[Crossless2.0]

 If you knew what I do you would be crawling on your knees to God.

GC

Yet you find this knowledge extremely hard to put into a cogent and convincing form. If anything seeing your words has convinced me more of the illogicalness of the Abrahamic god.

Poor GC: He claims to have the syrup but can't pour it (paraphrasing Gertrude Stein on a lesser poet).

[robvalue]

Jesus exists because:

1) It's written down in a book
2) There are obscure references in highly suspicious later documents
3) Anyone who disagrees isn't a real historian
4) We shouldn't expect there to be any proper evidence
5) Other historical figures exist

[Aractus]

If he did exist, then obviously he was so minor that either 1. Nothing was written about him when he was alive or 2. Very  little was written about him when he was alive but all those writings are  lost. 

That's not correct, we have exactly the amount written about him we would expect given his influence. Put it this way, most historians think that he probably only went around preaching for a year at most. He was executed by the Romans, probably for disrupting the peace (the incident where he goes to the Temple and overturns tables and makes a lot of noise would have been all the reason the Romans would need to execute him for being a threat to the public peace). Given that to the Romans he was a nobody, and they executed 10's of thousands of people in those years, you would not expect any official record from the Roman authorities. The biggest lie perpetuated is placing the blame for his death on the Jews - there's no way they could have influenced the Roman authorities to carry out executions as depicted in the Bible. This lie came about from the early Christians trying to come to terms with the loss of their leader. Instead of accepting that Jesus had been tried and found guilty by the Romans, a plausible alternative story began being told in which Jesus was betrayed by one of his disciples.

[Mudhammam]

If he did exist, then obviously he was so minor that either 1. Nothing was written about him when he was alive or 2. Very  little was written about him when he was alive but all those writings are  lost. 

Again?
Yes. Of course. No serious historian doubts that Jesus existed.
Next question.