Ok, atheists, all due respects there's something I can't get past with SOME of you...?

The answer: yes

How do you know that he wasn't just some fairytale passed along over the years and later mistaken for truth? Maybe he was a real person, but did he really have special powers? I think not. Its like a rumor that gets passed on for a while and eventually that rumor begins to evolve and change into something dramatically different. Do you know how many tines the bible has been rewritten? Tons! And I doubt that any of those authors actually witnessed Jesus, so how do they know that it wasn't just a myth. There is absoluteley to proof of that. People like yourself, set there sole reason for believing in jesus as faith. I personally, just don't have faith that he ever existed or that he was the son of "god."

why would follow someone who claims to be the sun of god? if someone said that today, you'd say the person was either insane or had such an inflated ego they needed a swift kick in the ass. Why didn't the bible come until a couple of generations after jesus? why do the bible stories follow the same outline as countless other stories? why is valentines slaughter celebrated every year? Because, people are dumb, people are ignorant, and people don't want to have their ideas changed

Feel free to provide some of this evidence to which you refer. I am particularly interested in any contemporary historical documents regarding the supposed census during which Jesus was born and the mass murder of every male child under the age of two by Herod. Surely the Romans would not have allowed such a widespread horror to go unrecorded?

Thanks.

"This makes the rest of your group look really bad."

I don't do group therapy.

"Can you admit then that Jesus of Nazareth was a historic figure whose basic details of ministry and death are credibly and historically recorded?"

No.

“There's no reliable evidence that Jesus even existed. The story of Jesus is just a myth bolted together out of prophesy and stories from the Old Testament and previous myths -- created in the 40's and 50's by Paul of Tarsus (who exhibited evidence of epilepsy and had delusions of Christ talking to him), the other apostles, the unknown authors of the gospels in the 70's or later, and many other people. The reliable evidence for this is overwhelming.

Paul and the other epistle writers don't know any biographical details of Jesus' life, or even the time of his earthly existence. They don't refer to Bethlehem, Nazareth, Galilee, Calvary or Golgotha — or any pilgrimages to what should have been holy sites of Jesus' life. They also don't mention any miracles that Jesus was supposed to have worked, his virgin birth, his trial, the empty tomb, his moral teachings, his disciples, or even when he existed. To them Jesus was largely a sky-god, who existed in the spiritual past.

If Jesus had actually existed, Paul would have written about his life, disciples, and teachings. Paul did not write about any of this.

If Jesus had actually existed, the gospels would have been written in first person format. Instead, they were written in third person format like a Harry Potter story, with Matthew and Luke extensively plagiarizing from Mark.

If Jesus had actually existed, at least one of the approximately 30 local historians of the first century would have written about him. No historian of the first century wrote about him or his disciples.

Therefore Jesus didn't exist.”

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AND

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I have yet to research the following…

Which one ?

There was Jesus ha-Notzri executed by Jannaeus in 76 BCE

Jesus ben Pandira executed by Marcelus 67CE

or Jesus ben Stada executed in Lod in 78 CE

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I have never once said "Jesus of Nazareth" does not exist.

In fact I studied him in an Arab regional study class.

But Jesus as Christ the Christian's claim that he was a God I full well disagree on.

Save goes for Muhammad and Moses and other "prophets" I don't doubt many of them existed, just the fact that the communicated with a "God"

Do you refer to the stories of Odin and Wotan as Myths?

Why?

Because there is no evidence for them proving what is written about them?

That answers your first question.

Second question:

"Can you admit then that Jesus of Nazareth was a historic figure whose basic details of ministry and death are credibly and historically recorded?"

No. I do not accept the bible as an historical document, no more than I accept the Harry Potter books as historical documents because they happen to take place in a real location, London.

****Additional Details

"do you know anyone who believes that Odin and Wotan as NOT myths?"

Not NOW, but REMEMBER: AT THE TIME OF THE WRITINGS OF ODIN AND WOTAN, THEY WERE NOT CONSIDERED MYTHS.

But, that was not why I brought them up.I asked you WHY you think they are myths.

See? It's there, in my answer...the word "WHY", which brings me to your last point:

"Please, respectfully, read carefully before answering?"

My point is that the evidence for both of them is just as strong for Jesus, which is, other than stories, none.

"Let's stick to what people believe as true?"

Ok, let's.

"Also, I'm talking about verifications that are outside the Bible?"

I assume you will bring up Josephus, a 1st century Jewish historian born in AD 37 (about the time Jesus reportedly died.) who only wrote about what he was told from other people?

or Tacitus, the Roman Historian who wrote (approximately AD 116) of one whom he refers to as "Christus" and other things people told him?

or Pliny The Younger, who wrote about the spread of Christianity in A.D. 112. and never spoke of Jesus directly?

But if this is what you call evidence, then you do not know the definition of the word.

If he is so truly credited historically, then why is his death near 20-30 A.D when AD stands for after death.

Sounds like a huge historian flaw right there.

I don't care how many historians believed the guy existed because in reality there really isn't much to go off of whether he existed or not. It really doesn't matter to me though because there is no reason to believe he was anything more than a man.

"This makes the rest of your group look really bad."

Why, when the evidence for an 'historic Jesus' is all circumstantial and open to interpretation? It's not conclusive by any stretch of the imagination.

I think you just put yourself in the category that makes believers look stupid. Got some sources? I mean with all those resurrections in Palestine, SOMEONE must have written it down. Even a note from Lazarus would be something!