Historicity Of Christ?

[Polymath257]

The existence of a wandering preacher that taught essentially the ideas of the Pharisees and was put to death by Roman authorities afraid of an insurrection doesn't seem far-fetched. In fact, we know of several other people exactly like that. The difficulty is separating the historical person from the myths that quickly surrounded him. His original followers were primarily Jewish, but after Paul got into the act, things changed drastically. The Roman take-over of Jerusalem also affected the politics between the groups.

 

[hispanicmormon]

I don't get why people automatically want to assume that some of Jesus' stories had to have been mythical. They're not that hard to believe, IMO. For example, there are magicians who have done more perplexing magic tricks than drawing enough fish and bread to feed a whole village from a few scraps leftover. And people claiming to be the son of a god was nothing new, either. Why is it so hard to take the Gospel stories at face value? The Gospels ARE historical evidence.

With that said, I appreciate scholarly debates as to the genuine historicity of Jesus. I'm not well versed in the facts presented by these debates but I understand that other historical documents contradict the Gospels. For example, according to more valued historical information, Jesus had to have been born in 4 BC, not 1 AD as my church teaches. Who knows.