The Time Problem With A Mythical Jesus

Whie I don't beleive that Jesus was purely fictional the situation is not quite comparable to the situation in a modern first-world country.Firstly transport is a lot worse. People did travel long distances but it was slower than car, aeroplane or even modern ships. Doing the checks would be more effort than most people would be prepared to (or could afford to) do.Secondly people in general did not live so long. There would be fewer old people who could remember events.Thirdly records were not so well kept. You couldn't expect to find a birth certificate. The best you could hope to find is a record of the execution order.Finally - and most importantly - the region had gone through a major rebellion ending in 70 AD. Jerusalem itself underwent a long seige until the Romans stormed it. In terms of both paper records and human memory the effects of the revolt would make it much hardr to find any evidence.

Well why would these other religions do that sort of investigation ?What would a failure to find anyone who personally had hear Jesus speak show ? Believers would just say "you didn't look hard enough"And of course there's no guarantee that evidence that Jesus didn't exist would be preserved. Anti-christian writings from antiquity are not well-preserved.Finally if you really think that the sort of conclusive proof needed to convince believers and "end" Christianity in the 2nd Century could be easily found then you are being very naive. (Not that producing Jesus and all twelve disciples all swearing that it was a hoax would necessarily be enough to really end Christianity by then).

Well lets look at your "verifiable claims""He was born in Bethlehem."How would you verify that ? Especially when you don't know when he was supposedly born, if it was under local rule or Roman. (I personally beleive this to be false - Jesus was more likely born in Galilee)"He preached sermons to thousands."How would you verify that ? Perhaps by produvcing witnesses. Well were witnesses produced ? Was it ever verified ? (I personally believe Jesus' preaching to be exaggerated there's not much record of his preaching in non-Christian sources)"He healed people, gave sight to the blind."Standard stories about faith healers. How could that be verified and is there any record that it was ? (I don;'t beleive that one either)."He was crucified."Probably true but was it ever verified ?"He was buried."Probably - although there's a good chance it was in a common grave and not a tomb. How woudl you verify that ? Today you could maybe dig up mass graves and DNA test all the remains but not back then."That he was raised from the dead and seen by hundreds of other people."Except that the "hundreds of people" don't seem to appear in any of the Gospels or in Acts. If it refers to an actual event it is likely just a vision. And how would you verify that he had been literally raised ?

I suspect that you are confusing "verifiable" with "falsifiable".Either way your argument is in trouble.It is worthless to states that a claim is - or rather was - "verifiable" - if that is what you meant you need to show that it was actually verified. Saying that if somebody looked they MIGHT have found evidence tells us nothing of use.And while the location of Jesus' birth might be verifiable it certainly need not be falsifiable. How could you prove that Jesus was not born in Bethlehem ? We don't even know if Jesus was born under a (nominally) Jewish administration (Matthew) or under Roman rule (Luke). You would think that if the Gospels had reliable information on Jesus' birth they would agree on WHEN he was born.