There is NO Historical Evidence for Jesus

[Thrillobyte]

I think Christians would not still BE Christians if they believed that Jesus was only a mythical figure. Most Christians really believe that Jesus was as depicted in the gospels, lock, stock, and barrel.

Most Christians would enter that state of denialism Windwalker spoke about if they were confronted with the truth. The cannot admit to themselves that the Jesus portrayed in the gospels was a myth because their carefully designed world revolving around Jesus, their church fellowship and their belief in being happy with Jesus in heaven would completely crumble. Their psyche would be so damaged it would destroy them.

 

[Trailblazer]

Most Christians would enter that state of denialism Windwalker spoke about if they were confronted with the truth. The cannot admit to themselves that the Jesus portrayed in the gospels was a myth because their carefully designed world revolving around Jesus, their church fellowship and their belief in being happy with Jesus in heaven would completely crumble. Their psyche would be so damaged it would destroy them.

Christians have been confronted with the truth many times over by the knowledgeable atheists on this forum.

The reason they enter denialism is because as you said - they cannot admit to themselves that the Jesus portrayed in the gospels was a myth because their carefully designed world revolving around Jesus, their church fellowship and their belief in being happy with Jesus in heaven would completely crumble. Their psyche would be so damaged it would destroy them.

It's all psychological. I don't have to think hard to understand why they cannot relinquish their beliefs but it helps that I have an MA in Psychology.

 

[Sgt. Pepper]

Most Christians would enter that state of denialism Windwalker spoke about if they were confronted with the truth. The cannot admit to themselves that the Jesus portrayed in the gospels was a myth because their carefully designed world revolving around Jesus, their church fellowship and their belief in being happy with Jesus in heaven would completely crumble. Their psyche would be so damaged it would destroy them.

You were once a believer, weren't you? Speaking for myself as a former Christian who liberated herself and detoxed from years of Christian indoctrination, I can say with absolute certainty that realizing and acknowledging that your Christian beliefs are bogus and incompatible with the reality of life can have a profound negative effect on your emotions. To be honest, the guilt, shame, fear, and confusion that go along with this transitional time from believer to unbeliever can mess with your head. I'm not sure I would have survived the emotional turmoil I went through if it hadn't been for my husband's support.

 

[URAVIP2ME]

Indeed, the same can be said for those other religions, and I believe it can be said for the same reason. They all originated from God.

The religion of ancient Babylon did Not originate from God - Genesis chapters 10-11.
Ancient Babylon's religion originated with the man Nimrod (Gen. 10:8)
As the people migrated away from ancient Babylon they took with them their man-made religious ideas and practices and spread them world wide into a greater religious Babylon or Babylon the Great.
This is why we see so many similar or overlapping man-made religious concepts and practices spread throughout even today's religious world.

After all, most people are born into a religion, even the religion of their country ( Italy for example )
One's birth place is just a geographical accident, so what is needed is research because an inquiring mind wants to know.- Acts 17:11
Even within Christendom's 40,000 (?) versions the inquiring mind wants to know: what is it that God thinks.
Matthew chapter 7 speaks of producing 'fruit ' so, we have the fruit of human teachings and the fruit of Jesus' teachings.
If they don't match, it is Not the fruit of Jesus' teachings that is corrupted. There is that little word " if " found at John 8:31-32.
The religious truth that Jesus taught is what sets a person free from what is religiously false from either within or without of Christendom.

 

[Thrillobyte]

Say we assume for the sake of argument this is true. How do you explain how Christianity survived, persisted and even thrived to the present, and has now has a billion followers?

Very simple. Two people: Emperor Constantine and his mother Helena. Helena converted to Christianity before Constantine became emperor and she persuaded her son, now emperor to make Christianity the official religion of his Roman empire. Once the churchmen were in power they set about to destroy all other religions within the empire and murdering all those religions' proponents. That's a historical fact. By 500 CE the RCC had total power over the religious life in Europe which they held for the next 1000 years until the Reformation of 1500 CE. They had immense wealth and were able to dictate their will to kings. Read the story of Henry IV in the 11th century.

Gregory first excommunicated Henry IV, head of the Holy Roman Empire, from the Roman Catholic Church because he had gone back on his word and refused to follow the pope's orders. In one of the most dramatic events of the Middle Ages, Henry journeyed on foot to meet Gregory at Canossa in the winter of 1077 and stood barefoot in the snow in camelhair and humiliation seeking forgiveness as a penitent sinner from the pope.

Roman Catholicism - Early Church, Sacraments, Doctrine

Roman Catholicism - Early Church, Sacraments, Doctrine: During the thousand years of the Middle Ages, from the fall of Rome to the Renaissance, the papacy matured and established itself as the preeminent authority over the church. Religious life assumed new forms or reformed established ones...

www.britannica.com

At will the RCC could order the extermination of large swaths of pagans. Read the story of Pizarro massacring the Incas in the 16th century as well as the RCC's role in the massacre of one MILLION Rwandans.

Historically, the RCC was a corrupt religious organization and remain so today except that they have lost the power to order the deaths of those who oppose them.

 

[Thrillobyte]

You were once a believer, weren't you? Speaking for myself as a former Christian who liberated herself and detoxed from years of Christian indoctrination, I can say with absolute certainty that realizing and acknowledging that your Christian beliefs are bogus and incompatible with the reality of life can have a profound negative effect on your emotions. To be honest, the guilt, shame, fear, and confusion that go along with this transitional time from believer to unbeliever can mess with your head. I'm not sure I would have survived the emotional turmoil I went through if it hadn't been for my husband's support.

You were lucky to have a very supportive husband. I did it on my own over a very long period of several years from my 60's to my 70's. I read everything I could on the Internet about the mythology of Jesus and the corruption of the early church--the propaganda, the lies, the deceit in establishing their avatar man god Jesus as the figurehead of their religion. It took a long time to get over the idea of burning in hell for eternity. I went from fundamentalist to universalist to deist to atheist and it was my rational nature that finally broke the hold of religion over my life when I learned Christianity was a complete sham built on a foundation of propaganda and deception. All this of course is my own subjective opinion based on what I have read from authors who have written the same.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I'm going to propose that scholars of antiquity know a fair bit more than the non-scholars. This, for me, should be the end of the debate and anyone convinced they can overturn the opinions of "virtually all" the relevant scholars should sumbit their work to an appropriate journal.

Scholarship is a relatively new concept. To be a scholar involves critical reasoning. Early clerics were mostly believers and not scholars. Believers want to believe. Scholars want to know. That is a significant difference. That is why letters are not assumed to be by Paul always and some of them have been shown to be highly unlikely to be by him. The same applies to the authors of the gospels and authors of other epistles and works in the Bible. The only one that we are fairly sure of the author are some of the letters by Paul.

 

[Yerda]

Scholarship is a relatively new concept. To be a scholar involves critical reasoning. Early clerics were mostly believers and not scholars. Believers want to believe. Scholars want to know. That is a significant difference. That is why letters are not assumed to be by Paul always and some of them have been shown to be highly unlikely to be by him. The same applies to the authors of the gospels and authors of other epistles and works in the Bible. The only one that we are fairly sure of the author are some of the letters by Paul.

Sure but this seems tangential to whether there is historical evidence of Jesus.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Sure but this seems tangential to whether there is historical evidence of Jesus.

What was demanded was secular evidence of him. Now the Josephus quotes do appear to have been manipulated. Words were probably added, but he still likely mentioned him. And though he does not mention Jesus, Tacitus another historian mentions Christians and "Christus":

But all human efforts, all the lavish gifts of the emperor, and the propitiations of the gods, did not banish the sinister belief that the conflagration was the result of an order. Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judæa, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind.

Tacitus on Jesus - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

There are definitely no contemporaneous writings about Jesus. From either secular or religious sources. But that does not mean that a person did not exist.

 

[Yerda]

What was demanded was secular evidence of him. Now the Josephus quotes do appear to have been manipulated. Words were probably added, but he still likely mentioned him. And though he does not mention Jesus, Tacitus another historian mentions Christians and "Christus":

But all human efforts, all the lavish gifts of the emperor, and the propitiations of the gods, did not banish the sinister belief that the conflagration was the result of an order. Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judæa, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind.

Tacitus on Jesus - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

There are definitely no contemporaneous writings about Jesus. From either secular or religious sources. But that does not mean that a person did not exist.

Why do you think almost all scholars of antiquity apparently feel that the evidence favours a historical Jesus? Edit: See the wiki page quoted from by @PearlSeeker.

Here's a citation from the references:

In a 2011 review of the state of modern scholarship, Bart Ehrman (a secular agnostic) wrote: "He certainly existed, as virtually every competent scholar of antiquity, Christian or non-Christian, agrees, based on certain and clear evidence." B. Ehrman, 2011 Forged: writing in the name of God ISBN 978-0-06-207863-6. pp. 256–257

What do you make of this?

 

[nPeace]

There is NO secular historical evidence for Jesus, son of God or the apostles, period. Despite all the propaganda Christians put forth about there being so much evidence for Jesus in the historical record, it is just disinformation disguised as truth to keep Christianity afloat. The truth is there simply is no secular historical evidence an avatar god man named Jesus as described in the gospels ever lived--nor did the 12 men he supposedly gathered around him and walked with them for 3 years before being crucified. NONE of this is supported by historical fact. No historian mentions all the supernatural events that the gospels claim occurred after Christ's supposed crucifixion, even though the Gospels claim Jesus' fame spread far beyond the borders of Israel. There may be a possibility an ordinary man who was a Jewish zealot was crucified by the Romans for sedition against Rome but again no historian mentions one.

The two passages by Josephus so often cited by Christians as mentioning Jesus are so mired in controversy that they are dismissed by mainstream historians as having little to no value in trying to prove Jesus existed. Here are some pertinent facts that Christians should consider before they try to pass off these passages as proof of Jesus:

* The Testimonium Flavianum is never quoted by anyone until the 4th century (c. 324), when Bishop Eusebius begins quoting it. Scholars believe it was Eusebius who doctored the passage with references to Jesus' supernatural nature.

* It is impossible that this passage is entirely genuine. It is highly unlikely that Josephus, a Jew working in concert with the Romans, would have written, "He was the Messiah." This would make him suspect of treason. Indeed, in Wars of the Jews, Josephus declares that Vespasian fulfilled the messianic oracles. Furthermore, Origen, writing about a century before Eusebius, says twice that Josephus "did not believe in Jesus as the Christ."

* Josephus is on record that the Emperor Vespasian was the messiah and had fulfilled prophecy.

* The second passage of Josephus, "The brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James.” is a scribal interpolation. There are several indications that the sentence fragment “who was called Christ” was not original to the text.

Here is a link to some research that will help to clear up the controversy surrounding the Josephus passages:

Josephus and Jesus: The Testimonium Flavianum Question

The gospels were NOT written by the apostles or anyone connected to Jesus or the fictional apostles. The gospels were written 50-100 years after Jesus purportedly was crucified in 30 AD by anonymous Greek scholars who couldn't have known Jesus and certainly were not familiar with Israel's geographic terrain as evidenced by the numerous errors they made about towns' proximity to each other and to other natural terrain. The Romans were excellent record keepers of their trials but a trial of Jesus ben Joseph or similar name who was crucified under Pilate's order simply doesn't exist. The name Yeshua ben Joseph or Yeshua Moshiach (Jesus Christ) doesn't appear anywhere in the historical record. A few historians like Tacitus made reference to a man referred to as "Chrestus" but we have no idea who that is nor can we know or reasonably ascertain if they were referring to Jesus, the son of God or another Chrestus who had a following. What we Do know is that Christians are constantly trying to pass off this passage and similar ones using the term, "Christ" as proof secular historians mention Jesus. But they don't. There were dozens of "Christs" in Jesus' time. Any of them could lay claim to being the Messiah.

If God had wanted us to believe Jesus is his divine son sent to earth to die for our sins, God would have left a mountain of evidence proving this that would be so compelling that no one in their right mind could argue otherwise.

But God left no such compelling evidence. The proof for this fact is truth No 1 above. That would mean the Christian god, if he even exists, doesn't give a tinker's damn whether or not we believe in Jesus. God, if he exists, shows himself to not interfere or participate in human affairs. Thus, he could not have left any evidence for this Jesus fellow and this is exactly what we see in the secular historic record--NO mention of Jesus or the apostles.

An unassailable truth: prayers do not get answered, in contrast to what Jesus promises in the gospels. Millions upon millions of people pray every day for their sick loved ones to get well and their loved ones do not recover. If a person recovers it is usually on the order of 10% and here is the key thing: it occurs across all demographics with the SAME rate of frequency. Thus, a small percentage of Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and atheists all recover from serious illness at exactly the same rate. This proves without a doubt that praying to God has nothing to do with it; some humans are going to recover from their illness but ALL terminally ill people are going to die at some point in the near future. No one is cured as a result of prayer. Study after study has borne this fact out.

There is no reason for people to believe in Jesus as the savior son of God when we haven't a single entry in the secular historic record testifying that he is. People who choose to believe in Jesus as their savior are doing so in ignorance of all the above, or they are doing it on pure faith without any evidence for Jesus. It's a crying shame that people can throw their lives away so carelessly for a myth, but it's a free country and people are permitted to squander their lives on anything they want, even the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

View attachment 77669

I thought it was a known fact that much of the historical sources, from historians can't be trusted.
I don't know of Christians who depend on outside sources, when the strongest evidence is the internal evidence, which is often found to destroy secular sources.

 

[nPeace]

Why do you think almost all scholars of antiquity apparently feel that the evidence favours a historical Jesus? Edit: See the wiki page quoted from by @PearlSeeker.

Here's a citation from the references:

In a 2011 review of the state of modern scholarship, Bart Ehrman (a secular agnostic) wrote: "He certainly existed, as virtually every competent scholar of antiquity, Christian or non-Christian, agrees, based on certain and clear evidence." B. Ehrman, 2011 Forged: writing in the name of God ISBN 978-0-06-207863-6. pp. 256–257

What do you make of this?

Because the evidence turns up in support of the internal evidence, critics have no choice but to accept it.
They accept John the Baptist, on the basis of evidence also.... as well as Paul.
Denying one leads to problems, so their choices are cut off.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Why do you think almost all scholars of antiquity apparently feel that the evidence favours a historical Jesus? Edit: See the wiki page quoted from by @PearlSeeker.

Here's a citation from the references:

In a 2011 review of the state of modern scholarship, Bart Ehrman (a secular agnostic) wrote: "He certainly existed, as virtually every competent scholar of antiquity, Christian or non-Christian, agrees, based on certain and clear evidence." B. Ehrman, 2011 Forged: writing in the name of God ISBN 978-0-06-207863-6. pp. 256–257

What do you make of this?

I have already said more than once that I do not dispute his existence. I can understand why some do. I merely pointed out the relatively poor evidence for his existence. As to why old "scholars" believe it is because they were already believers. At that time they did not allow input from nonbelievers which actually hurts the credibility of those beliefs.

 

[nPeace]

Christians think they have a direct line with Jesus. I don't think they'll listen to historical evidence from secular sources.

If it were a matter of objective evidence than salvation would be extremely difficult to obtain. They consider it to be a matter of listening to the Holy Spirit. The spirit bearing witness to all that the Christ story is true.

So talking human evidence and human reason isn't even on the table.

I would not say that is the case.
As seen in the Gospels, the followers of Christ all went by evidence - evidence from what Jesus said, and did, and based on the scriptures they had, which told them what to look for (the Messiah).
Even Thomas did not believe until he saw evidence.
You know this.

No Christian ever believes without evidence.
Hence why Christians will always point to the timeless superior wisdom found in the Bible, its reliability where history, and prophecy are concerned; It's power to change lives for the better - something man fails to achieve, no matter how hard they try, and many other things, we can mention.
That's quite a lot of objective evidence.

In fact, many persons, because of seeing that evidence, have changed from arms and drug-dealers; violent protesters and militants; atheists and skeptics... you name it, to being lamblike Christians.
Even prison guards who engaged in torturing prisoners were moved by the evidence that people of all tribes, races and nations can be united as one international brotherhood in love, and beat their sword into plowshares, and spears into pruning shares.

Certainly, those who claim that evidence and reason are not what Christians hold to, are simply... either greatly mistaken, or are trying to paint Christians as irrational and gullible. Something far from the truth.
I hope, in this case, it's the former.

 

[YoursTrue]

I only go by the historic record, True. It's all we have. I discount the New Testament as an accurate historic record because it is an accepted conclusion among Bible scholars (sans Christian ones of course) that the New Testament is NOT an accurate historic record, it is a theological statement of faith:

"After centuries of analysis, many biblical scholars now tell us that the gospels cannot be taken as gospel. Why is this so?


First, scholars explain that the gospels were created as documents of faith, not documents of history. They were not written as accurate historical biographies of the human Jesus who lived and died in the first century of the Common Era (CE). The gospels are more a record of the early church’s beliefs about Jesus than a true historical record of what Jesus actually said and did. They were written to present the message of the early church—its teaching and preaching about Jesus—and to give an overview of Jesus’ life and death to people who already believed that Jesus was the son of God and savior of the world.


The author of John’s gospel states plainly that his purpose is faith, not history."

documents of faith, not history

Following Jesus calls us to become troublemakers, revolutionaries, seekers of change, and agents of transformation for justice and peace in the world.

followingjesus.org

If the gospels were written not as history then it stands to reason that its authors were primarily concerned with converting people, not with getting the details accurate. Otherwise the scholars would be saying, "The gospels are historically accurate testimonies of faith." Would you agree?

Regardless of what some scholars say, these were records in many cases of eyewitness accounts. Furthermore the historicity of Jesus is there. The gospel accounts themselves speak of the controversy of Jesus, leading to his death.

 

[Truthseeker]

There is NO secular historical evidence for Jesus, son of God or the apostles, period. Despite all the propaganda Christians put forth about there being so much evidence for Jesus in the historical record, it is just disinformation disguised as truth to keep Christianity afloat. The truth is there simply is no secular historical evidence an avatar god man named Jesus as described in the gospels ever lived--nor did the 12 men he supposedly gathered around him and walked with them for 3 years before being crucified. NONE of this is supported by historical fact. No historian mentions all the supernatural events that the gospels claim occurred after Christ's supposed crucifixion, even though the Gospels claim Jesus' fame spread far beyond the borders of Israel. There may be a possibility an ordinary man who was a Jewish zealot was crucified by the Romans for sedition against Rome but again no historian mentions one.

The two passages by Josephus so often cited by Christians as mentioning Jesus are so mired in controversy that they are dismissed by mainstream historians as having little to no value in trying to prove Jesus existed. Here are some pertinent facts that Christians should consider before they try to pass off these passages as proof of Jesus:

* The Testimonium Flavianum is never quoted by anyone until the 4th century (c. 324), when Bishop Eusebius begins quoting it. Scholars believe it was Eusebius who doctored the passage with references to Jesus' supernatural nature.

* It is impossible that this passage is entirely genuine. It is highly unlikely that Josephus, a Jew working in concert with the Romans, would have written, "He was the Messiah." This would make him suspect of treason. Indeed, in Wars of the Jews, Josephus declares that Vespasian fulfilled the messianic oracles. Furthermore, Origen, writing about a century before Eusebius, says twice that Josephus "did not believe in Jesus as the Christ."

* Josephus is on record that the Emperor Vespasian was the messiah and had fulfilled prophecy.

* The second passage of Josephus, "The brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James.” is a scribal interpolation. There are several indications that the sentence fragment “who was called Christ” was not original to the text.

Here is a link to some research that will help to clear up the controversy surrounding the Josephus passages:

Josephus and Jesus: The Testimonium Flavianum Question

The gospels were NOT written by the apostles or anyone connected to Jesus or the fictional apostles. The gospels were written 50-100 years after Jesus purportedly was crucified in 30 AD by anonymous Greek scholars who couldn't have known Jesus and certainly were not familiar with Israel's geographic terrain as evidenced by the numerous errors they made about towns' proximity to each other and to other natural terrain. The Romans were excellent record keepers of their trials but a trial of Jesus ben Joseph or similar name who was crucified under Pilate's order simply doesn't exist. The name Yeshua ben Joseph or Yeshua Moshiach (Jesus Christ) doesn't appear anywhere in the historical record. A few historians like Tacitus made reference to a man referred to as "Chrestus" but we have no idea who that is nor can we know or reasonably ascertain if they were referring to Jesus, the son of God or another Chrestus who had a following. What we Do know is that Christians are constantly trying to pass off this passage and similar ones using the term, "Christ" as proof secular historians mention Jesus. But they don't. There were dozens of "Christs" in Jesus' time. Any of them could lay claim to being the Messiah.

If God had wanted us to believe Jesus is his divine son sent to earth to die for our sins, God would have left a mountain of evidence proving this that would be so compelling that no one in their right mind could argue otherwise.

But God left no such compelling evidence. The proof for this fact is truth No 1 above. That would mean the Christian god, if he even exists, doesn't give a tinker's damn whether or not we believe in Jesus. God, if he exists, shows himself to not interfere or participate in human affairs. Thus, he could not have left any evidence for this Jesus fellow and this is exactly what we see in the secular historic record--NO mention of Jesus or the apostles.

An unassailable truth: prayers do not get answered, in contrast to what Jesus promises in the gospels. Millions upon millions of people pray every day for their sick loved ones to get well and their loved ones do not recover. If a person recovers it is usually on the order of 10% and here is the key thing: it occurs across all demographics with the SAME rate of frequency. Thus, a small percentage of Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and atheists all recover from serious illness at exactly the same rate. This proves without a doubt that praying to God has nothing to do with it; some humans are going to recover from their illness but ALL terminally ill people are going to die at some point in the near future. No one is cured as a result of prayer. Study after study has borne this fact out.

There is no reason for people to believe in Jesus as the savior son of God when we haven't a single entry in the secular historic record testifying that he is. People who choose to believe in Jesus as their savior are doing so in ignorance of all the above, or they are doing it on pure faith without any evidence for Jesus. It's a crying shame that people can throw their lives away so carelessly for a myth, but it's a free country and people are permitted to squander their lives on anything they want, even the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

View attachment 77669

From a scholarly point of view.

 

[YoursTrue]

I only go by the historic record, True. It's all we have. I discount the New Testament as an accurate historic record because it is an accepted conclusion among Bible scholars (sans Christian ones of course) that the New Testament is NOT an accurate historic record, it is a theological statement of faith:

"After centuries of analysis, many biblical scholars now tell us that the gospels cannot be taken as gospel. Why is this so?


First, scholars explain that the gospels were created as documents of faith, not documents of history. They were not written as accurate historical biographies of the human Jesus who lived and died in the first century of the Common Era (CE). The gospels are more a record of the early church’s beliefs about Jesus than a true historical record of what Jesus actually said and did. They were written to present the message of the early church—its teaching and preaching about Jesus—and to give an overview of Jesus’ life and death to people who already believed that Jesus was the son of God and savior of the world.


The author of John’s gospel states plainly that his purpose is faith, not history."

documents of faith, not history

Following Jesus calls us to become troublemakers, revolutionaries, seekers of change, and agents of transformation for justice and peace in the world.

followingjesus.org

If the gospels were written not as history then it stands to reason that its authors were primarily concerned with converting people, not with getting the details accurate. Otherwise the scholars would be saying, "The gospels are historically accurate testimonies of faith." Would you agree?

There is a major caveat here. It is that the early Christians were very different from the groups and sects that emerged from that time on. That was already foretold as well. People today may claim they are Christian, and may say they all blend in with the various sects, but that is hardly the truth. Otherwise, you wouldn't have so-called Christian killling another so-called Christian in political and national wars over the centuries. As well as religious leaders persecuting others. Therefore, not all claiming to be followers of Christ are really true followers. As Jesus said, the road is narrow and few would find it, while many would be on the broad road leading to -- destruction.
Matthew 7:13,14 - “Go in through the narrow gate, because broad is the gate and spacious is the road leading off into destruction, and many are going in through it; 14 whereas narrow is the gate and cramped the road leading off into life, and few are finding it."

 

[YoursTrue]

Probably because it all turns into nonsecular, if it is pro Jesus. I think it would be impossible to have secular positive historical evidence for Jesus, even if all what the Bible tells is true.

Remember, too, that many of the influential leaders of the people were against Jesus, and -- obviously their descendants are not going to proclaim the accounts about Jesus in the scriptures to be true.

 

[Thrillobyte]

Furthermore the historicity of Jesus is there.

Once again, I must ask:

Christians claim: "the historicity of Jesus is there". Not true. There is no mention of any Jesus in the historic record. But scholars, regardless, seem to think he must have existed. The question is which one:

1. the ordinary man who was likely a rabbi and zealot and was crucified by the Romans for sedition? Yes, this is the Jesus scholars are referring to when they say a Jesus existed. They are NOT referring to

2. a divine son of a god born of a virgin who was spirited away to a foreign land as a baby because a king was trying to kill him, who returned to do great thing, suffered an ignominious if strange death on a hill who then rose and ascended into heaven.

Which Jesus are you referring to?

 

[Thrillobyte]

Regardless of what some scholars say, these were records in many cases of eyewitness accounts.

Scholars outside the Christian community all concur: the gospels were not eyewitness accounts. There ARE no eyewitness accounts outside the Bible which scholars take as a testimony of faith, nothing more. Which eyewitness accounts do you refer to that are outside the Bible?