God???

[Mr. Clandestine]

Neither of these are exactly primary sources and they both focused on his followers and not necessarily the man Jesus. I say they aren't primary because both were born after the death of Jesus, meaning, neither scholar could have firsthand knowledge of anything other than the followers of Jesus. Although, they had more sources and eyewitness accounts to go by, we can't say for certain how accurate the accounts are.

The point is, there's very little dispute over the sources... primary or otherwise. Let me ask you a question; Have you ever read a biography written about Julius Caesar, Constantine, Napoleon Bonaparte, Alexander the Great, Christopher Columbus, William Shakespeare, etc.? None of the biographies are word-for-word accounts of the subject's lives, and each biography that you'll find today was almost certain to have been written sometime in the last 100 years. Is there any reason to believe that the authors would embellish the facts about those historical figures? Probably not, they'd rely on written historical accounts that were available to them, and probably relied only on the most credible and non-biased sources for their own work. It's highly unlikely that they'd even list aspects about the lives of the historical figures that are considered controversial or heavily disputed. They'd just list the facts. But since some of these biographies were written hundreds (even thousands) of years after the lives of their subjects, should we then discard everything said about them since it's not a "primary source?" Of course not!

Why, then, should anyone discount what was written by Tacitus, which was written not even 100 years after the death of Christ? Tacitus, after all, was as secular as secular historians could get, and was meticulous about listing the facts that he either read or was told by actual eyewitnesses during that time period. Same goes for Josephus, who may have happened to be Jewish, but had absolutely no reason to fabricate an entire story about Jesus Christ if the man never actually existed.

I agree however, it does appear a man named Jesus lived around the time theological Jesus is based on. I don't think there is evidence to support actual miracles though.

Granted, the only evidence for His miracles is what has been written about them. Josephius, the Jewish historian, actually wrote about the miracles performed by Jesus... but, like I mentioned to killerweed420... I have no intention of derailing this thread even further with the actual quotes. (Some of them are quite detailed.) Still, they're widely available in books and probably several websites, if you want to look them up for yourself. Again, I didn't jump into to this thread with the intentions of converting anybody, and while I am a Christian, I'm definitely not trying to force my beliefs on anyone. I was only responding to the claim that there is no historical evidence concerning Jesus Christ's existence, when there's actually plenty of evidence available. Whether or not a person wants to believe in the divine aspects of Jesus' life is another matter entirely, and isn't something I'm trying to push... at least not here.