Did Jesus Exist? by Bart Ehrman

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No. It is more evidence for it but not definitive. If anyone presented me with contemporary, historical evidence for the Jesus dude or anyone like him, I would reconsider my position. Not change but reconsider.

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The fact that you make unreasonable demands for evidence doesn’t make you right.

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Please explain your logic.

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At least here, Jesus Mythicism is asserted without evidence. You can work out the rest.

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It's never unreasonable to ask for evidence

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It’s asking for evidence that is likely to be absent (regardless of the truth) as an excuse for rejecting the evidence we do have. Like a creationist insisting on having a complete set of transitional fossils before accepting an evolutionary relationship.

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We have a very similar situation with the upland regions and the world's ocean floors. We wish there were ocean floors older than 200 million years to explore, but there aren't because they all subduct eventually. We wish the fossil record of upland life wasn't woefully incomplete, but it is, because uplands are areas of net erosion. We can't, as the religionists do but shouldn't, say, "The evidence is incomplete but we'll just reach conclusions anyway."

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You think that we don’t come to conclusions regarding phylogenies just because the evidence is incomplete? Look up “ghost lineages” some time.No, the people who use incomplete evidence as an excuse for rejecting evidence they don’t like are the creationists.

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It's always ok to ask for evidence.

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But it isn’t asking for evidence. It’s just an excuse for rejecting evidence.

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The lack of good evidence is not a reason for dismissing weaker evidence; that's done independently. If it's weak it's weak and what we have for a real Jesus is objectively weak - hearsay, not even witness evidence

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There’s a lot I could say about that, but the important thing is that the argument doesn’t rely on even the Gospels being witness evidence for Jesus. And even though Josephus is a secondary source - the correct term in a historical context - he’s a pretty good one for that period. Our best source for Alexander is a secondary source - Arrian - and no historian considers that a problem (even if Christian apologists have been known to disagree).

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Mythicism is the natural default

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No, it obviously is not.

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There is no evidence for a historical Jesus.

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That’s already been shown to be wrong. That’s why you started adding qualifiers so you could discount the evidence that we do have.

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I cannot provide evidence for no evidence other than ask for evidence.

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Yes, you can’t manage anything better than pretending that the evidence doesn’t exist.

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Are they? Despite they being apocryphal?

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Literally, none of them are apocryphal :-)

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I would think veracity is in question. Do scholars accept sources of questionable veracity?

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Historians pretty much have to - though they make the effort to sift the truth from the falsehoods. Ancient documents are often biased, exaggerated or credulous (and the Gospels and Acts are all three).But, while we should certainly not accept that Ananias and Sapphira were literally struck down by God why should we balk at the idea that Peter was living as a cult leader sponging off his followers? And getting very angry if they failed to deliver all he wanted? (Acts 5).

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IMHO, you define evidence too loosely. None of these are evidence

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Evidence is defined very loosely. Anything that makes a conclusion more likely is evidence for that conclusion. That leads to some uncomfortable edge-cases but that’s the way it is defined.The fact that 1st Century Christians were claiming that their religion was founded by a Galilean called Jesus who was crucified by the Romans is evidence that such is the case. And since that much is a plausible story we should accept it as a likely possibility unless there is a better explanation of why they are telling that story. (There is more, of course, but that is the basic thinking here).

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What is your back ground in historical research?

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Obviously better than yours.

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All the books of the Bible are apocryphal. We do not know who wrote them, when or their provenance. We do know some of the Pauline epistles were written by a dude named Paul. That is pretty much all we know about him. He states that everything he knows about Jesus is by revelation. He clearly says he did not know an earthly Jesus or ever met anyone that has met an earthly Jesus

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I don’t ignore it, so far as it is true. That’s just something you made up (and really why are you calling books in the canonical Bible “apocryphal”?)

And the first sentence of that article says:

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Because you reject the Ananias and Sapphira story from the same source. You reject the one story as being apocrypha. The other is fruit of the same tree.

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The two things are from the SAME STORY. Which really demonstrates your attitude to the evidence. Not that your response would be sensible anyway.Sorry, but historical analysis is not searching for excuses to throw out evidence you don’t like.

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Cherry-picking definitions again?
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The definition of apocryphal spans more than your one meaning.

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It seems that you are the one cherry-picking and expecting others to agree with your choices. Wikipedia expands in the definition you offer: Which is more in line with the way I’ve seen it used. Check out the examples offered by Merriam Webster.

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I actually have training in historical research. Damn, I have a relevant Masters.

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I’m pretty sure that unthinking denialism is not accepted as a valid method of historical research.

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So Paul does not say what he knows is by revelation alone?

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That’s where he got his teachings. It’s certainly not where he gets his ideas about the things he personally did. But you’re throwing those out, too.

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It is not unthinking denialism.

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It certainly is.

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It is looking at the lack of evidence and coming to a conclusion.

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I don’t think that pretending that the evidence doesn’t exist counts as looking at it.

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Where does Paul talk about achieving knowledge about Jesus from other people?

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Who says that he needs to? I mean I invoked Paul’s Epistles as evidence that Christianity preceded Paul’s conversion - and that he identified James as Jesus’ brother. Neither of these require him to have much knowledge of Jesus, nor would they be counted in the teachings he got from revelation.

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None of the evidence you think you have produced stands up to historical enquiry.

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More mindless denialism. If that’s your idea of “historical enquiry” you have a problem.

I’d suggest that you try it, but you’re obviously not ready for college. But carry on with this joke all you like, I’m still laughing.

Christian apologists spout outrageous falsehoods. Hardly a surprise.The evidence for the Resurrection is incredibly weak and no rational court should accept it.