Did Jesus Exist?

I'll give you one word for why constantine made it an empiral religion, control being that a lot of the make up of the stories were co-oped from other religions, while having the chance of eternel life wouldn't you want it, to most of the people back then it didn't matter if jesus was real, though i doubt many people thought he wasn't question buz, do you realize that the emperor could change the religion at his whim? so if he started to believe in christ so does everyone else i'm not sure it was about convertion more than about other religions being dissatifactory, plus the christians from what i understand were causing a ruckus, such as telling people this world is not important,the kings don't matter,etc

its questionable whether josephus wrote all of that, I don't see an orthodox jew remotely calling jesus the messiah, it looks more like it was added - like many historians most likely recording about christians, not jesus people do look at josephus as significent, but not to provide evidence of jesus as a real person, but of jewish history
Buz - its really sad to see someone take pot shots at evos when its purely off topic and uneccisary

so you have evidence outside the bible to back this up? thats how we know its history! you have to have something other than the bible to conferm the bible as history, or it is circular reasoning

the thing is rand, its not about whether jesus stands up to being questioned, so much as does the thing that the believer points to as evidence of jesus stand up to questions - namely the bible, if jesus did exist he only seemed to exist within the bible historically, we have plenty of evidence about many figures, such as john the baptist and paul,caeser, but notice we never argue over if they existed, because there is evidence for them (not sure so much about paul need more information)but, jesus is not found outside the bible, nothing that people would consider real information, just some stuff thats presented but can't stand up as evidence
by the way what does this have to do with the topic? if you believe he's up there now its a non-issue

nonsense, you have no understanding of how history collection works, you don't just use one document to verify history so its by one author when you want it to be, and more than one when you want it to be?
which is it? if its by more than one author they contradict each other and which is the right one then?, I think james and thomas should be in the bible since they are both more right than any of them, but they are all part of the religion so, I'm asking for existernal evidence

historians who lived during that time wrote about john, and yet not about jesus that should tell you something, it eather means jesus never existed or didn't matter as a personthe signature shows that the authors wouldn't think wise people would believe in something like that i guess, so they don't convert people who question - or it just shows more of the bibles anti-intellecualismThis message has been edited by ReverendDG, 01-08-2006 02:50 AM