Why don't Theist's admit that there's no evidence for God?

[1robin]

Prove it.

Well I guess I know what claim you wish proven at this point. I will look up my sources and provide them. However it will probably be tomorrow (remind me if I forget) I am on my way out at the moment.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

No, they're not really Gospels, but that is what they are named. The Gospel of Philip, The Gospel of Thomas, The Gospel of Bartholomew, The infancy Gospels, and a whole bunch more.

That isn't necessarily what they are named, and more importantly it is almost certainly not what the canonical gospels were named. The problem is that by the time we have full manuscripts, we're already some 300+ years after Mark was written. But we still have odd titles. They aren't called Mark, Matthew, Luke, etc., nor are the called the gospel of Mark, the gospel of John, etc. Rather we find ΚΑΤΑ ΛΟΥΚΑΝ, ΚΑΤΑ ΜΑΡΚΟΝ, etc. The noun "gospel" ("το εὐαγγελιον") is unique to the NT, and is not what they were called but mostly likely derives from Mark's opening line. Not until almost a full century after Mark do we find "the good news" to mean "gospel" (i.e., the idea of a narrative type or genre known as "good news" didn't exist until then).

Likewise, we refer to "gnostic gospels" and "Gnosticism" and so forth, yet this term is derived from one Greek text and applied to "gnostic literature" well over 1,000 years after the "gnostics" wrote whatever we mean by this. The term includes groups with contradicting beliefs, groups that some people include as gnostics and others do not, and is in general nothing but an inadequate umbrella term that we use because
1) It's hard to stop a tradition that was so influential the term agnosticism was coined based on the conception of a singular group of gnostics"
2) We don't have anything better to replace it with
3) As an umbrella term, it is easy enough to break down when needed into references to Sethians, Valentinians, etc.

If we call the "the gospel of Judas" a gospel because that was it's title, or that's what it was called from the beginning, then we have no reason to call the canonical gospels "gospels". Because these were written when "good news" was singular and referred to actual tidings/a message.

I don't really have a problem using the term "gospel" to refer to non-canonical texts anymore than I do with the term "gnostic". So long as the problematic nature of such nomenclature is evident, fine. The main issue I have is with the popular notion about "forbidden books" or "lost gospels" or any number of other terms that make it seem as if a 4th century text that's barely comprehensible would have been considered as possibly canonical by anyone when even Revelations was dicey (and made it into the canon for the wrong reasons). Then there's the issue I referred to earlier about historical evidence. Opinions, of course, differ, ranging from very skeptical beliefs about the veracity of any NT texts to those who argue that they are evidence of the resurrection, but the vast majority fall somewhere in between and regard at least the synoptics and usually to a lesser extent (as sort of supportive evidence) John & Thomas as containing historical information about Jesus.

I read the Elaine Pagels book about the Gospel of Mary Magdalene.

I didn't know she wrote a book on the gospel of mary. I know Karen King did, and I know Pagels wrote The Gnostic Gospels (among other things), but I didn't know she wrote a book on that.

I'd go on but this isn't really what this thread is about.

True. Although what the gospels and the NT (as well as a few other texts) are and are not evidence of seems to be relevant.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Prove it.

[youtube]WUQMJR2BP1w[/youtube]

At about 4:35: "we have more evidence for Jesus than we have for almost anybody from his time period".

Let's compare evidence that noted skeptic and ancient historian Richard Carrier deems worthy enough to take as granted in his 2008 doctoral theses Attitudes toward the natural philosopher in the early Roman Empire (100 B.C. to 313 A.D.)

It's a treasure trove of credulity, carefully colored depiction of "evidence", ignorance, and worse, all designed to fit Carrier's conception that religion is awful and when it doesn't really exist as an institution or when science flourishes. So, for example, he notes that "there were no laws passed that opposed or hindered scientific research or speculation, and no outraged mobs tearing scientists limb from limb. The astronomer Hypatia would not suffer that fate until the early 5th century" (p. 26).

First, what evidence is there for this "astronomer"? Well, although Carrier has sneered at biblical scholars for their credulity and poorly equipped ability to deal with historical methodologies, apparently he doesn't have the wherewithal to equal a mathematician's capacity to read sources: "Of her life we know much less than we would like. Not a single piece of writing that can certainly be credited to her survives. Our three most important sources for her biography are brief, not wholly consistent with one another, and not certainly accurate." from Hardy Grant's "Who's Hypatia? Who's Hypatia do you mean?" Math Horizons 16(4): pp. 11-15
See also:
Hypatia and Her Mathematics

Basically, we know crap about her. She's called a mathematician, a philosopher, even a witch, but as we have scant mention of her at all in any source, who knows? Apparently Carrier, the "ancient historian" who's going to settle the historical Jesus debate once and for all by misusing math he doesn't understand, thinks our sources adequate to call her an astronomer.

But Hypatia is an open book compared to others Carrier relies on. For example, we read (p. 44) of "a certain 'Lucius Manneius'" who is described in a bilingual inscription "as a 'medicus' in Latin, into Greek with the phrase 'and, by birth, Menekrates of Thralles, son of Demetrius, a physikos oinodotes,' or 'a winegiving natural philosopher.' This Menekrates may have been adopted or freed by a Roman citizen and thus taken a Roman name, inscribed here in Latin."

Really? For skeptical Carrier, four texts akin to (and argued by many to be) ancient biographies, the letters of Paul, the Didache, other epistles, so many quotes from later literature that we could put together the gospels without a single manuscript, and more is just not good enough evidence of anything. However, an inscription is plenty to speculate about the origins of a physician based on the word "physikos" which is among the many terms Carrier argues mean things like "applied scientist" vs. "theoretical scientist" and other garbage, when the only the we know about the guy is one line that says he's a quack whose medicine is wine. And that "ince Menekrates chose physikos instead of iatros, this suggests that he understood the overlap between the roles of doctor and natural philosopher, and regarded the latter as more worth communicating to Greek readers." Right. Not that iatros, which means healer/physician, was perhaps not what whoever this guy was, but that we can infer from an inscription his familiarity with natural philosophy (science) and medicine and that his familiarity dictated a particular choice that we don't know he made.

Much the same is said of two other inscriptions and a certain Diogenes Aristokleides whom we know nothing of except through a single, scant inscription.

Carrier relies heavily on Diogenes Laertius, a biographer who wrote (we think) in 3rd Century CE. But that doesn't stop Carrier from using him to understand a treatise written by "the Cynic Menippus" some 400+ years earlier.

We get a list of natural philosophers who are mentioned often only once by Pliny the Elder, but are enough for Carrier to understand these individuals as one or another kind of scientist. He cites Cicero's On Divination to support the claim that it "was common for the physicus not merely to study nature but to embrace nature as a central philosophical principle" (p. 50). A text on divination becomes science somehow.

Amazingly, he even uses Eusebius' Preparation for the Gospel in order to say of some Atticus, a Platonist, that he "wrote that a philosopher must study all branches of philosophy, and of these 'physics' is 'the knowledge of things divine and of the actual first principles and causes, and all other things that result from them'. In such a fashion, theology was sometimes subordinated to physics" (p. 56)

He goes through literally hundreds of names we don't even know are necessarily different people, let alone have any evidence for other than a mention here or there, yet from such mentions Carrier turns diviners into physicists, quacks into doctors, religion into science, all to support that religion and science don't mix.

That's the type of information we usually have: almost nothing. And sometimes we have good historians who are willing to say that a single line or inscription isn't much to go on. And sometimes more credulous historians read into everything to get what they want. Carrier is one of these. His entire work is nothing but speculation based on an inadequate knowledge of modern sciences and the use of as close to 0 evidence as one can get without actually having 0 evidence in order to make his chosen time period a golden age of religion-less empirical & theoretical sciences.

 

[nash8]

There is much historical evidence for Christ beyond the Bible. In fact there is many more times as much as in it. Christ is the most textually attested figure in ancient history but it does not stop there.

I'd also be interested in seeing these sources.

They do. The majority of NT scholars on either side agree on several facts.

1. Christ came on the historical scene with an unprecedented sense of divine authority.
2. He was killed by the Romans through crucifixion.
3. His tomb was found empty.

You can't quite get a messiah from that but you can easily get a historical Jesus.

What? I'd love to see sources for the majority of NT scholars on either side agreeing on any of these "facts" except that he was killed by the Romans, and even his death by crucifixion is debated by scholars is it was not neccesarily a "common" form of death penalty issued by Roman's, but it's use would fit for Jesus from what I understand.

And how do you get historical Jesus from an unprecedented sense of divine authority, and an empty tomb? Crucifixion by the romans, maybe, but the other two, you gotta be kidding me lol.

The main issue I have is with the popular notion about "forbidden books" or "lost gospels" or any number of other terms that make it seem as if a 4th century text that's barely comprehensible would have been considered as possibly canonical by anyone when even Revelations was dicey (and made it into the canon for the wrong reasons). Then there's the issue I referred to earlier about historical evidence. Opinions, of course, differ, ranging from very skeptical beliefs about the veracity of any NT texts to those who argue that they are evidence of the resurrection, but the vast majority fall somewhere in between and regard at least the synoptics and usually to a lesser extent (as sort of supportive evidence) John & Thomas as containing historical information about Jesus.

How did revelations get into the canon? What were the reasons? I've always wondered how that happen. It's so different from the other books of the Bible, and it reeks of gnostic type symbolism and language. And it seems to me that is the kind of thought that the mainstream church sought to oppress since, essentially the beginning of an established Christian church?

Well I guess I know what claim you wish proven at this point. I will look up my sources and provide them. However it will probably be tomorrow (remind me if I forget) I am on my way out at the moment.

Yes, I would love to see the extra-biblical sources for Jesus as well.

 

[I.S.L.A.M617]

[youtube]WUQMJR2BP1w[/youtube]

At about 4:35: "we have more evidence for Jesus than we have for almost anybody from his time period".

Let's compare evidence that noted skeptic and ancient historian Richard Carrier deems worthy enough to take as granted in his 2008 doctoral theses Attitudes toward the natural philosopher in the early Roman Empire (100 B.C. to 313 A.D.)

It's a treasure trove of credulity, carefully colored depiction of "evidence", ignorance, and worse, all designed to fit Carrier's conception that religion is awful and when it doesn't really exist as an institution or when science flourishes. So, for example, he notes that "there were no laws passed that opposed or hindered scientific research or speculation, and no outraged mobs tearing scientists limb from limb. The astronomer Hypatia would not suffer that fate until the early 5th century" (p. 26).

First, what evidence is there for this "astronomer"? Well, although Carrier has sneered at biblical scholars for their credulity and poorly equipped ability to deal with historical methodologies, apparently he doesn't have the wherewithal to equal a mathematician's capacity to read sources: "Of her life we know much less than we would like. Not a single piece of writing that can certainly be credited to her survives. Our three most important sources for her biography are brief, not wholly consistent with one another, and not certainly accurate." from Hardy Grant's "Who's Hypatia? Who's Hypatia do you mean?" Math Horizons 16(4): pp. 11-15
See also:
Hypatia and Her Mathematics

Basically, we know crap about her. She's called a mathematician, a philosopher, even a witch, but as we have scant mention of her at all in any source, who knows? Apparently Carrier, the "ancient historian" who's going to settle the historical Jesus debate once and for all by misusing math he doesn't understand, thinks our sources adequate to call her an astronomer.

But Hypatia is an open book compared to others Carrier relies on. For example, we read (p. 44) of "a certain 'Lucius Manneius'" who is described in a bilingual inscription "as a 'medicus' in Latin, into Greek with the phrase 'and, by birth, Menekrates of Thralles, son of Demetrius, a physikos oinodotes,' or 'a winegiving natural philosopher.' This Menekrates may have been adopted or freed by a Roman citizen and thus taken a Roman name, inscribed here in Latin."

Really? For skeptical Carrier, four texts akin to (and argued by many to be) ancient biographies, the letters of Paul, the Didache, other epistles, so many quotes from later literature that we could put together the gospels without a single manuscript, and more is just not good enough evidence of anything. However, an inscription is plenty to speculate about the origins of a physician based on the word "physikos" which is among the many terms Carrier argues mean things like "applied scientist" vs. "theoretical scientist" and other garbage, when the only the we know about the guy is one line that says he's a quack whose medicine is wine. And that "ince Menekrates chose physikos instead of iatros, this suggests that he understood the overlap between the roles of doctor and natural philosopher, and regarded the latter as more worth communicating to Greek readers." Right. Not that iatros, which means healer/physician, was perhaps not what whoever this guy was, but that we can infer from an inscription his familiarity with natural philosophy (science) and medicine and that his familiarity dictated a particular choice that we don't know he made.

Much the same is said of two other inscriptions and a certain Diogenes Aristokleides whom we know nothing of except through a single, scant inscription.

Carrier relies heavily on Diogenes Laertius, a biographer who wrote (we think) in 3rd Century CE. But that doesn't stop Carrier from using him to understand a treatise written by "the Cynic Menippus" some 400+ years earlier.

We get a list of natural philosophers who are mentioned often only once by Pliny the Elder, but are enough for Carrier to understand these individuals as one or another kind of scientist. He cites Cicero's On Divination to support the claim that it "was common for the physicus not merely to study nature but to embrace nature as a central philosophical principle" (p. 50). A text on divination becomes science somehow.

Amazingly, he even uses Eusebius' Preparation for the Gospel in order to say of some Atticus, a Platonist, that he "wrote that a philosopher must study all branches of philosophy, and of these 'physics' is 'the knowledge of things divine and of the actual first principles and causes, and all other things that result from them'. In such a fashion, theology was sometimes subordinated to physics" (p. 56)

He goes through literally hundreds of names we don't even know are necessarily different people, let alone have any evidence for other than a mention here or there, yet from such mentions Carrier turns diviners into physicists, quacks into doctors, religion into science, all to support that religion and science don't mix.

That's the type of information we usually have: almost nothing. And sometimes we have good historians who are willing to say that a single line or inscription isn't much to go on. And sometimes more credulous historians read into everything to get what they want. Carrier is one of these. His entire work is nothing but speculation based on an inadequate knowledge of modern sciences and the use of as close to 0 evidence as one can get without actually having 0 evidence in order to make his chosen time period a golden age of religion-less empirical & theoretical sciences.

I ask for evidence of Jesus and you give me a smear of Carrier... Informative as it was, it does absolutely nothing to answer my question.

 

[nash8]

I ask for evidence of Jesus and you give me a smear of Carrier... Informative as it was, it does absolutely nothing to answer my question.

What evidence do we have for any person that lived around his time period?

 

[I.S.L.A.M617]

What evidence do we have for any person that lived around his time period?

Hell if I know. I'm not the one claiming the evidence exists...

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

I ask for evidence of Jesus

You didn't.

Christ is the most textually attested human in ancient history of any kind.

Prove it.

You asked for "proof" that "Christ is the most textually attested human in ancient history of any kind". As I don't know what that means precisely (for one thing, parsing it yields both "human...of any kind" and "ancient history of any kind"), I supplied you with a specialist who, until his latest book, was cited ad nauseum on websites everywhere.

I'm not a historian, but I would like to think that the sciences, in which experiments can be repeated to test hypotheses (unlike history) is somewhat at an advantage from an epistemological standpoint. Yet the sciences don't deal with "proof", and unless you are asking for a logical derivation or a mathematical proof, even the most "hard" sciences do not have anything to offer you. There are no "proofs" because the external world is not a world of closed discourse (the way formal systems are), and both historians and scientists study the external world.

That's why there's no "proof" of evolution despite that not mattering in the slightest and despite the fact that it is not a theory but a field in which there are many fields and many specialists to the extent that were evolution false, pretty much the sum total of human knowledge and empiricism would come crashing down. Yet there is no proof, simply because one cannot prove anything unless one is working within a system in which all the rules and properties are agreed on ahead of time and nothing can exist outside that system. Mathematics has such systems. History and the sciences do not.

and you give me a smear of Carrier

I gave you a specialist who was interviewed about what evidence there was. I have you the type of evidence that historians of antiquity deal with. I gave you examples of conclusions in the historical scholarship of a bona fide "ancient historian" and showed how even so allegedly logical and critical a historian as he suddenly is so credulous, ill-informed, and largely unable (probably due to his focus on applying a method he can't use when he really needs to produce scholarship) when it comes to actually having to deal with the sources available.


If you want evidence for Jesus, you have to have a basis for comparison. By modern standards, there were no historians in the ancient world. There were story-tellers of different types. Of course, no actual historians think this, as they are familiar with what ancient historians and biographers wrote, and familiar with what myth, novels, and similar writings looked like.

You are not. So it is impossible to simply show you evidence because you cannot recognize what evidence is. This is not a fault of your own, but simply a consequence of being unfamiliar with the context necessary to evaluate historicity and veracity in sources we have available to us. I tried to demonstrate the typical sources available, and you called it smearing Carrier. Well, that's partly true. I tend not to like liars and hypocrites and I have him on record showing that he is both. But he also provides an excellent example of at least what sources are typically available, even if his approach is hypocritical and inept.

If you asked me for evidence that Attic Greek had a weakly developed modal verb system in addition to modal prefabs and mood, making it (contra Palmer) rather unique in the construal of modality, how would I show you this? I could give you the evidence, but could you evaluate it? This is no different. If you lack the context to evaluate the historical value of ancient sources, then it is impossible for anybody to show you evidence. All evidence can be denied simply because you cannot properly evaluate it (which, again, is not a slight upon you in any way, as this is true of us all for an infinite number of topics).

I can take any claim you make about our knowledge of ancient history and, by subjecting it to modern "mythicist" idiocy, demonstrate that these methods will eradicate any possibility of determining anything about antiquity. I can show you what historians from diverse backgrounds and fields say about the historical Jesus, but this requires you to have some faith in specialists.

Or you can say that no matter what you won't be convinced because you aren't interested in accuracy or truth but in dogma. I don't know if that's true, mind you, but there are only so many possibilities you have available to you.

 

[I.S.L.A.M617]

It's as simple as saying "this many people wrote about Jesus, and this many people wrote about (insert ancient historical figure)... I highly doubt more historians have written about Jesus than they have about ANYONE else from around his time period...

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

It's as simple as saying "this many people wrote about Jesus, and this many people wrote about (insert ancient historical figure)

60,000 academics wrote about Jesus in the 19th century. I seriously doubt that's what you were asking.

Every single Attic dramatist wrote about the Greek gods, yet this says nothing about their historicity.

However, here's a comparison for starters. There is a contemporary (and miracle-worker) of Jesus called Apollonius of Tyana. Basically the only source for him is Philostratus, who wrote a century or so after the guy was dead. For Pontius Pilate, we have a few mentions in Josephus, Philo, and Tacitus. For the Emperor Nero, we have about as many sources. For John the Baptists, we have the NT and Josephus. For Paul, we have Acts and Paul's letters. For Socrates, we have several centuries of the "Socratic Problem". For Pythagoras, our first "biography" appears nearly a thousand years later.

For Jesus, a contemporary wrote about him who knew his brother and who knew his followers. We have four biographical-type works within a few generations, Josephus, Tacitus, Suetonius, Pliny, Thallus, Mara bar Serapion, Lucian, & Celsus. We also a host of references within the kind of evidence that historians usually work with (pseudepigrapha, off-topic references, a sidebar here or there, etc.). Now, of the non-Christian references, Josephus and Tacitus give use more evidence than for most people we know about. For the others, like most are like the typical evidence we have and make judging anything other than mere historicity difficult.

We have one more advantage. Most texts from antiquity that survive in more than quotations or in simply the titles in some other work, we have a handful of medieval manuscripts. For the NT, we have ~6,000 Greek manuscripts and an enormous number of translations and citations. No text from the NT has more textual witnesses than any other text from antiquity outside of the NT itself. That much is simply fact and counting.

I highly doubt more historians have written about Jesus than they have about ANYONE else from around his time period

Then you are just wrong.

 

[Poeticus]

Pontius Pilate

Ecce homo!

 

[nash8]

60,000 academics wrote about Jesus in the 19th century. I seriously doubt that's what you were asking.

Every single Attic dramatist wrote about the Greek gods, yet this says nothing about their historicity.

However, here's a comparison for starters. There is a contemporary (and miracle-worker) of Jesus called Apollonius of Tyana. Basically the only source for him is Philostratus, who wrote a century or so after the guy was dead. For Pontius Pilate, we have a few mentions in Josephus, Philo, and Tacitus. For the Emperor Nero, we have about as many sources. For John the Baptists, we have the NT and Josephus. For Paul, we have Acts and Paul's letters. For Socrates, we have several centuries of the "Socratic Problem". For Pythagoras, our first "biography" appears nearly a thousand years later.

For Jesus, a contemporary wrote about him who knew his brother and who knew his followers. We have four biographical-type works within a few generations, Josephus, Tacitus, Suetonius, Pliny, Thallus, Mara bar Serapion, Lucian, & Celsus. We also a host of references within the kind of evidence that historians usually work with (pseudepigrapha, off-topic references, a sidebar here or there, etc.). Now, of the non-Christian references, Josephus and Tacitus give use more evidence than for most people we know about. For the others, like most are like the typical evidence we have and make judging anything other than mere historicity difficult.

We have one more advantage. Most texts from antiquity that survive in more than quotations or in simply the titles in some other work, we have a handful of medieval manuscripts. For the NT, we have ~6,000 Greek manuscripts and an enormous number of translations and citations. No text from the NT has more textual witnesses than any other text from antiquity outside of the NT itself. That much is simply fact and counting.

Then you are just wrong.

How reserved. I'm glad to see it. I was worried that you might get the boot after your pwning of that guy that caused a 1000 page thread to get locked lol.

And I still wanna know the wrong reasons for Revelations ending up in the Bible?

 

[I.S.L.A.M617]

Then you are just wrong.

Don't just state it. Prove it.

 

[Enai de a lukal]

I understand what your getting at but it doesn't make good proof.

Ok... So on the burglar example, what would count as "good proof"? And don't you think most people would disagree with you that, e.g. a lack of any missing property, would indeed count as "good proof" that one had not been burglarized? I mean, what else could you possibly require to prove that nobody stole from you?

Just cause you have ninja stealth deer in your yard that don't leave any evidence!

Right- thus the distinction between evidence and necessary evidence. The absence of evidence which is not necessary may well not be "good proof" of absence, but the absence of necessary evidence is necessarily good proof of absence.

***

On the other hand lack of evidence can also be used to show significant proof that a crime did happen.

Indeed. The moral of the story is, of course, that this "absence of evidence can't be proof of absence" canard is just that- a mistaken assumption that is patently false. Not only can the absence of evidence furnish good proof for some claim or belief, sometimes it is the only means we have for deciding what is the case.

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

And the vast majority of Biblical scholars (aka people who know what they're talking about) disagree with you completely.

As I said for the fourth time, even the 70's, 80's, and 90's dates can be said to be within the lifetime of the disciples. Even though you are wrong about this anyway, even if we grant those dates, no harm is done.

Second, these later dates don't account for the letters of Paul, which PREDATE the Gospels, and Paul's letters preach the same thing, that Jesus died, was buried, and was raised on the third day.

 

[1robin]

Don't just state it. Prove it.

Sounds exactly like what I have been telling you for a while now.

 

[1robin]

Well I guess I know what claim you wish proven at this point. I will look up my sources and provide them. However it will probably be tomorrow (remind me if I forget) I am on my way out at the moment.

I believe the same evidence I gave in the other thread would apply to your question here.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Don't just state it. Prove it.

As I tried to say, "proof" in whatever sense you mean requires a framework within which we can communicate. This is true even if we were dealing with fields in which proof was possible. If I wished to prove to you that configural frequency analysis is superior for handling categorical data of a particular type than is some family of classifier algorithms, we'd both need to know a lot of background. I listed some of the sources we have for Jesus and compared these with more typical sources. Thus, even the sources virtually nobody uses and many/most believe are not reliable sources at all (Thallus, the Talmud, Celsus, etc.), because they are too removed, to speculative, or for some other reason are actually about what we usually have for historical persons in and around Jesus' day period. Hence my going over what Carrier had to rely on to talk about scientists of antiquity: that's the kind of evidence that historical Jesus scholars never bother with. Even if we could say beyond any plausible doubt that Papias did know disciples of Jesus or that Celsus' familiarity with rumors about Jesus' father being a Roman soldier clearly add to the stock of evidence for Jesus, we'd gain nothing. We have a contemporary who refers to him and biographical material that is (given the average interval) extremely close to Jesus' life.

But the gospels do not appear to look at all like biographies or remotely even like history to the modern reader. How am I to prove to you that we have more evidence for Jesus than just about anybody from antiquity? List every name we know of and what scrap, inscription, colophon, etc., we have as evidence for this person? You said:

It's as simple as saying "this many people wrote about Jesus, and this many people wrote about (insert ancient historical figure)... I highly doubt more historians have written about Jesus than they have about ANYONE else from around his time period...

There are many problems here.
First, most of our evidence for historical people does not come from historians.

Second, there is the issue of what one considers to be historiography or whom one considers to be a historian. The line gets very fuzzy very often, and sometimes clearly works that are not histories or biographies are still evidence: Plato's Socrates is probably almost as much a fictional character as the Socrates in Aristophanes' plays, but that is simply because the latter used the historical person for comical reasons (and in order for these to be funny, they had to have some truth to them), and the former reveals details that have nothing to do with the dialogue and thus are almost certainly historical.

Third, there's the time lapse. One of the most prolific biographers of all of antiquity was Diogenes Laertius. Yet his subjects frequently lived hundreds and hundreds of years earlier.

Finally, there's what you want evidence of. We know lots about Cicero not because lots of historians wrote about him but because he wrote a lot and a lot of what he wrote concerned himself. Those who wrote biographical-type narratives about famous philosophers, rulers, & Jesus were not concerned with details about their subject of the type that we can pick up from a remark in a letter revealing a personality trait. Unless that trait was something remarkable or important, even if the author knew of it, it wasn't usually mentioned. Also, biographers tended to "bring out" their subjects by picking particular events/actions that exemplified (to the biographer) something of the "essence" of the person in question rather than simply stating/describing whatever it is they wished to highlight by relating the account they did.

So you tell me: what information do you want to know specifically so that you would accept as "proof" (keeping in mind what I have said about how impossible your last suggestion is)?

 

[I.S.L.A.M617]

Second, these later dates don't account for the letters of Paul, which PREDATE the Gospels, and Paul's letters preach the same thing, that Jesus died, was buried, and was raised on the third day.

Because the Christ myth existed before the name "Jesus of Nazareth" did...

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

So does Spiderman. It ACTUALLY takes place in New York and names names... Is Spiderman history?

Are people testifying to seeing a guy in a spider costume swinging around downtown New York?

Lets be serious here, the fact that you even raise this kind of objection makes me think you are a closed minded secularist and if that is the case then there is no point is discussing anything further with you....with all due respect