PLINY - I don't believe Pliny directly mentions Jesus but the problems he is having with Christians as a group, but I could well be wrong on that matter.

JOSEPHUS - In 'Antiquities' Josephus references the stoning of James and his relationship to the Jesus convicted by Pilate. This seems authentic in its context and accepted by most academics in this field.

The Testimony of Flavius, however, seems to have been written by another hand. Compare this text with another section in Antiquities and you will see for yourself that they are stylistically anomalous.

It is proposed that part,or most, of this section was constructed by Eusebius to give weight to the Jesus narrative.

TACITUS - The problem I have here with Tacitus is that we don't have his sources. 'Annals' was written around 115, which is certainly after each of the gospels and countless other works on the subject. If these were his sources then, although a non- Christian work, this could be deemed circular referencing. Being as the incident reported is a very minor part of his Roman history, it seems likely that he wouldn't have dug too deeply but used the sources available.

Inclined to agree with you in the most part there Michael. We know there were a lot of apocalyptic preachers in Romsn Judea and Herodian Gallilee. Probably several called Yeshua.

Christianity certainly existed in the mid C1st as shown by the dispute between James and Paul regarding Gentiles receiving the 'Good News'

I too support Ehrman's hypotheses regarding Jesus but I haven't visited his work for a while so I may take another look.

I do believe in historical Jesus. I don't know what the real evidence for that is James the brother of Jesus.? and some people say they didn't even use the word Jesus back then? He was written about enough to be historically a person. I don't believe he was a deity incarnate. Recently I read the idea that God didn't want proof of his existence so that you would have to have faith, so doesn't that mean he has a disdain for intellectuals? No I've always said god if there was one wouldn't be afraid of the truth, the Earth is round there is about 3. 4 billion years old. The book Sapiens a brief history of humankind' by. Yuval Harari. Great book!

I want to make it clear here that I do not endorse the claims made by christians that there is a god and that Jesus was his son and that Jesus was. therefore divine. I do believe however, that there is some evidence that a person existed who called himself Jesus and probably called himself Christ the son of god. Both Jewish and Roman historians record references to Jesus Christ the so called son of god, Flavius Josephus in AD93 makes 2 references and also Pliny and Tacitus 20 years later. Acknowledging that he existed does not in any way mean that I believe the claims he made. I am a lifelong disbeliever.

Welcome!!

I don't know one way or the other if he actually existed or not.

I suspect that there may have been some guy, possibly named Jesus, and that he preached in some form or other. I wouldn't rely on any of the (later) texts to be anything more than hearsay or anecdotal.

His parentage is really the point that I have issues with.

I think Jesus was historicised.

Welcome. Think Jebus was made up

Welcome.

I think you are probably correct about the foundation of Christianity. As for me, I think Jesus was a smart, gutsy guy in some ways and I agree with a lot of what he taught, but I am definitely not a Christian in the way taught by traditional churches.

Welcome Michel, it takes a lot of guts to walk away from the Catholic Church so well done! My grandfather left the Catholic Church and became a freethinker and raised my father to think for himself. In turn my father brought my brother and me up the same way. I am so grateful to both of them as I have never experienced the curse of dogma personally. I think there is enough evidence to indicate that someone called Jesus did exist, but he was entirely human and not divine. Hope you enjoy our lively discussions.

WELCOME WELCOME WELCOME