People might find this interesting:
http://gdj.50megs.com/Table.html.
It's a bit complicated at first glance but it's basically an electronic search of early Christian writings to look for words such as Gospels or Jesus. The result was that nothing was found until the early-mid 2nd century.
I have read that there is what you might call a religious instinct of sorts among some people. People who have cytosine in a particular locale in the vmat2 gene tend to be more spiritually oriented than those who don't.
On the contrary Lew, I have spoken with so many religious people who have very little interest in their present life. Their only goal is to die and be with their gods. Go and have a look at web sites like 'Rapture Ready'. The people on there can't wait to be 'raptured' and openly say so.
The...
Lew,
The article you posted is by Prof. Graham Stanton, a Prof of Divinity at Cambridge University. In other word, he is a CHRISTIAN and therefore biased. He has also written a book called "Jesus of Nazareth" and is apparently unaware that Nazareth did not exist until the 3rd century CE.
That's the point I was making MrT. I was being asked to go to a Christian web site to find 'evidence' that Jesus existed, which is about as much use as going to jesusneverexisted. com to get 'evidence' to prove that he didn't.
Now just why would I want to research a Christian apologist web-site? I might as well tell you to go and look at www.jesusneverexisted.com
As I suspected Lew. You may have done some research but unfortunately it's all come from Christian sources and Christian apologist sources. Hardly unbiased...