Good post
Outside the faith that Jesus was the Son of God is the question of where is the documentation that shows Jesus existed?
Romans were known to document key events in their history
A mere Carpenter like Jesus would not have drawn much attention. But a “King of the Jews” like Jesus would have been documented somewhere. Jesus drawing thousands of the faithful would have been reported by the Romans. As would his crucifixion.
Where are the written histories that corroborate what is reported in the Bible?
No such documentation exists
Virtually all scholars of antiquity accept that
Jesus was a historical figure, and the idea that
Jesus was a mythical figure has been consistently rejected by the scholarly consensus as a
fringe theory.
[7][8][9][10][11] Scholars differ about the beliefs and teachings of Jesus as well as the accuracy of the biblical accounts, with only two events being supported by nearly universal scholarly consensus:
Jesus was baptized and
Jesus was crucified.
Roman historian Tacitus referred to "Christus" and his execution by
Pontius Pilate in his
Annals (written c. AD 116),
book 15, chapter 44.
[80] Robert E. Van Voorst states tha
t the very negative tone of Tacitus' comments on Christians makes the passage extremely unlikely to have been forged by a Christian scribe[73] and the Tacitus reference is now widely accepted as an independent confirmation of Jesus's crucifixion.
Tacitus was Pro-Roman, did not like Christians or their Cult - no reason for him to make any of that up.
Whether you believe in the Biblical Jesus is one thing but the vast majority of historians state that there was a person named Jesus in that area, he had followers, was baptized and then eventually crucified.
.
[47][48]
Contemporary scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed, and
biblical scholars and classical historians view the theories of his nonexistence as effectively refuted.
[8][10][49][50][51] Robert M. Price, an atheist who denies the existence of Jesus, agrees that his perspective runs against the views of the majority of scholars.
[52] Michael Grant (a
classicist and historian) states that "In recent years, no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non-historicity of Jesus, or at any rate very few have, and they have not succeeded in disposing of the much stronger, indeed very abundant, evidence to the contrary."
[10] Richard A. Burridge states, "There are those who argue that Jesus is a figment of the Church's imagination, that there never was a Jesus at all. I have to say that I do not know any respectable critical scholar who says that anymore.
Then there's the criterion of embarassment - the idea that it wouldn't make any sense to "invent" the story of Jesus as it happened because it would not benefit early Christians (the opposite actually - got them persecuted and killed) nor would it benefit The Catholic Church, especially once it became the religion of Rome because crucifixion was regarded as one of the most shameful ways to be executed. (Rome put this man to death by shame but now has become the religion of the empire?)
The assumption of the criterion of embarrassment is that the
early church would hardly have gone out of its way to create or falsify historical material that embarrassed its author or weakened its position in arguments with opponents. Rather, embarrassing material coming from Jesus would be either suppressed or softened in later stages of the
Gospel tradition. This criterion is rarely used by itself, and is typically one of a number of criteria, such as the
criterion of dissimilarity and the
criterion of multiple attestation, along with the
historical method. The
crucifixion of Jesus is an example of an event that meets the criterion of embarrassment.
This method of execution was considered the most shameful and degrading in the Roman world, and advocates of the criterion claim this method of execution is therefore the least likely to have been invented by the followers of Jesus.
The
Alexamenos graffito (also known as the
graffito blasfemo, or
blasphemous graffito)
[1]: 393 is a piece of
Roman graffito scratched in plaster on the wall of a room near the
Palatine Hill in
Rome, Italy, which has now been removed and is in the
Palatine Museum.
[2] It's often called the earliest depiction of Jesus. It is hard to date, but has been estimated to have been made around the year 200 AD.
[3] The image seems to show a young man worshipping a crucified,
donkey-headed figure. The Greek inscription approximately translates to "Alexamenos worships [his] god,"
[4] indicating that the graffito was apparently meant to mock a
Christian named Alexamenos.
[5]
en.wikipedia.org
As you can see, making up the story of Jesus made zero sense for Christians at the time and made even less sense for the Roman Empire - to incorporate Christianity as the official religion of the Empire - the idea that "Mighty Rome" would adopt a religion (as being official) who's leader was a man who practiced peace, spoke about loving enemies, was anti establishment and was put to death in a fashion that Romans would mock - well, that makes no sense whatsoever - anyone with the least amount of common sense can see that.
And obviously whether you believe the Gospels literally or not isn't relevant - the fact is that the Gospel of Mark is dated to 70 AD - long before most people knew about Jesus. What motive would an early Christian Cult have inventing the story of Jesus? The story was an anti-establishment story - that went against both Jewish teachings at the time as well as Roman Laws.
"Let's make up a story so that we can be outcasts among Jews and killed by Romans - and let's spread it all over the empire so our followers can be outcasts and killed as well"
