Whatever. Please remove head from ass and try again.

For one reason, his credentials far exceed those of Kelly's. But I mistakingly  gave the wrong name. I was referring to J. P. Meier. He said what we know about Alexander the Great could fit on only a few sheets of paper ( see Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, p. 23).

Sherwin-White is not a theologian with any axe to grind. He is "an eminent historian of Roman and Greek times" (Craig, Contemporary Scholarship and the Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, pp. 89-95).

Why do you ignorantly assume that is contemporary to Alexander?  And even for the sake of argument it is, something like this would be expected of a world ruler like Alexander the Great. Placing the super high criteria for a world ruler onto a mere peasant Jewish itinerant preacher in Galilee, who suffered extreme marginality by execution, is not the way history works, and it is dishonest. We can't expect evidence to be equal for everyone who ever lived. In the case of Christ, the Jews had an agenda to discredit Him. And my point remians true and unrefuted, the first written biography of Alexander the Great was not written untill some 400 years after He lived. And there is no contemporary evidence for Alexander the Great. Everything we do have of him, is not contemporary. This is bad even for a world ruler. Jesus, on the other hand, had eye-witness testimonies  who wrote about what they saw. (see Luke 1, 1John 1, etc).

Again, something like that would be expected of a world ruler. We even have a coin of Pontius Pilate, a contemporary of Christ who is mentioned in the Gospels,and was only a governor of Judea. But we have no coins for non-political leaders.

Have a reference from a non-atheist source?

Sorry, that's all hear say evidence. Not first-hand.

 Check all my posts and see above and below. Liar.

Who said anything about Crossan? And the only "fellow" of the Westar Institute who doubts Jesus lived, is atheist Robert Price. Crossan is, according to them, the greatest Jesus historian alive. And Crossan affirms not only the historical reality of Jesus, but even His crucifiction. SOURCE ==> "Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, p. 145.

My point remians unrefuted. There is no contemporary written evidence for the existance of Alexander the Great, and the evidence you did cite, only fits on a few sheets of paper, as Dr. Meier rightly pointed out. However, with Jesus, we have over 5,700 Greek manuscripts within just a few generations from His life, and over 36,000 references to the Gospels by the early Church Fathers from the late first century on. They quoted everything except 11 verses. We also have 1Corinthians 15 which is dated by ALL NT scholars to date to only about five years after Jesus' execution. This text is based on a pre-pauline creed written in Aramaic. This is tantamount evidence for someone who was executed a criminal and was not a political figure/ world ruler. Its even more tantamount for someone who never even lived. Don't you think?

Again, this is double standard thinking. Only political leaders had coins. You set the criteria too high. And I'll give you a coin of Christ, as soon as you give me contemporary written evidence for Alexander. But we have better evidence then a coin. We have the actual nails and cross Jesus was executed with. You didn't know this did you? We also have hundreds of grave inscriptions of Christians from the first century with the phrase "IC XC" (Jesus Christ) written on them. You didn't know this did you?

Tacitus, Josephus and the Talmud are only disputed in the fertle minds of atheists. And as I referenced (EB, "Jesus", 1990), the above sources provide "independent" corroberation to the historicity of Christ. The EB dedicates no less then 20,000 words to Jesus Christ.

One passage in Josephus has been debated and theorized that it might have been an interpolation by Christians because of its original negative treatement of Christ. But most scholars today, believe the original Aramaic of Josephus is authentic. Dr's Pines and Flusser at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, are considerd the worlds greatest experts on Josephus (you can call them if you like).They have concluded the passage is authentic in the original Aramaic. Charlesworth, another noted authority, agrees. I can pull atheists out of my hat like you. It proves nothing. Look at what the leaders in their fields are saying.

Rook_Hawkins wrote:

Louis Feldman event admits to the disputed nature of the passage in his translation of Josephus' words in his Harvard Univeristy Press LOEB CLASSICAL LIBRARY edition.  Also read the book by Steve Mason on Josephus and the New Testament.  He lays out the disputes there!  

Again, Pines, Flusser, Charlesworth, etc have refuted that. Your sources are pre-investigation by pseudo-scholars. 

Because Steve Mason says so? By what law of logical coherence do you accept some fly-by-night author (Steve Mason), as opposed to the scholary and definitive source of the Encyclopedia Britanica?

Sure, but make sure theists have their vote aswell. By the way, why did you never refute my proof on the New Testament authoriship in the other thread? You are invited to come and refute all the facts and sources I listed. I won't hold my breath waiting.

 The only reason I returned to this website (I was taking a leave of absense for a while), is because I stumbled onto the Kelly/Slick debate online. I had to express my voice somewhere where I thought she could hear it. I am busy these days so I need a vacation from this site. But I do intend to come back in the not too distant future to debate the historical Jesus, the resurrection, God, creationism and evolution. No hard feelings. I know sometimes we get carried away in our posts. I hold to grudges. Peace

P.S. Read, The Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics, by Norman Geisler. Its over 800 pages, and deals with and refutes all the arguments ever made by atheists from A to Z. A must read.

Just as I was getting ready to sign off. Yeah, I believe he was born 4 years after Jesus died. So what? Josephus was an historian. Historians do not write poetry. They write HISTORY. Uhh, you people can be so annoying. Use your head!

Good grief. The Talmud mentions Jesus, the Virgin Mary, James and John the Baptist (Babylonian Talmud, vol.III, Sanhedrin 43a, 106b, Yeb. IV:3, 49a). 

Lies, lies lies! So you think the Encyclopedia Britanica made a mistake? Have you ever read Tacitus! Tacitus refers to Christ (Latin, Christus) once and to the Christians twice. He also refers to this Christus (Christ) in the very context of the Christians and Pilate, during the reign of Tiberius and Judaea where all this occured (see Annals 15.14). All of these facts corroberate the Gospel data. "Christus" is just Latin for "Christ." And he was just a few years after Jesus. The first written biography we have of Alexander the Great, was written some 400 years after his death!

Moses Hadas, a noted scholar and historian on Tacitus, stated that Tacitus was the greatest historian of ancient Rome (see Introduction, the Complete Works of Tacitus, pp. IX, XII-XIV).

Now that I have educated you on this subject, and given direct sources proving you didn't have the foggiest idea what you were talking about, you can stop lying. You can no longer claim ignorance on this subject.

 Seriously, has anybody had enough of this guy yet?  Josephus was not a historian, he was an apologist.  His opening letter says it all.  Clear as day, he wanted his works to be a defense against the attacks on his people (the Jews) both through military force and criticism.  He also says he wants his works to be numbered among the Greeks, and he indicates that he wants that - which is why he writes in Greek instead of Latin, which would have made more sense being that he was writing in Rome.  

No historian today would think Josephus is accurate on any subject, and generally he is considered with a very watchful eye.  For example, he claims that Alexander the Great was on his way to destroy Israel for siding with Persia.  God then appears to the High Priest and tells him to wear a specific outfit, and tells him to order all citizens to wear white.  When Alexander shows up, per Josephus, he falls and worships Israel's God, as apparently Yahweh told Alexander that he would defeat the Persians.  This event never happened.  We know that Alexander never came close to Jerusalem.  After Gaza he went straight to Egypt, and then to Tyre, then to Syria and Mesopotamia.  There are fictional stories ALL over Josephus just like this.  And the Josephus-Jesus passage is one of the most hotly debated passage in all of scholarship, with most siding on the side of partial interpolation.  Again, read Louis Feldman (Who is not an atheist, but a Jew - and the worlds LEADING Josephus Scholar, who you ignorantly claimed was a pseudo-scholar and another made up word of yours, which doesn't exist in scholarship.

You also claimed Steve Mason was a fly-by-night author - and then proceeded to make the outrageous claim that he wasn't authoritative like the Encyclopedia Britannica.  Steve mason is in fact a scholar, and a Christian I believe.  He is the Professor of Humanities at Vanier College in Ontario.  He's written several books on Josephus, which is his main field of expertise.  Louis Feldman recommends his book highly, and even endorses it.  

Even your sources, which you always seem to cite, including the one you mentioned above, (J.P. Meier) doesn't agree with the authenticity of the passage.  So much so he created his own translation which has been highly criticized by your bud Geisler.

I ask you for evidence of Jesus and you give me Pontius Pilates coin, like an idiot you are.  I give you a picture of the Tablet found at Egasila and you ask me like a fool, "Are you really that ignorant to think that is contemporary?"  No shit it's contemporary.  You are just too fucking retarded to do your own research and read a book other than Norman Geisler.  I'm sorry you were too intellectually lazy, yet again, to do some research on the contemporary evidence of people who mention.  Perhaps next time, you'll do as Kelly suggests and get your head out of your ass, and actually read a book instead of copy-pasting.

Every author I cited in that reply was not an atheist, yet your ignorant-retarded-ass asked me to cite a "nonatheist" and then proceded to cite ONLY apologists and Christian authors.  Are you really this INSANE that you can't realize what type of hypocrite you are, or are you just that dumb to know the difference?  I think it is a little of both.  All you do is project your lies on other people, while the whole time you LIE.  You must seriously delude yourself into thinking that by writing it on a message board, somehow your words become solidified into fact.  Or maybe you pray they will be fact, and you're so delusional about it, you think your prayers were answered.  They weren't.  You're still a flaming retard, and you're still wrong.  And the mopre you post, the more EVERYBODY who reads my sources, and compares them to yours, will realize that.  And the more anybody reads your hypocritical posts, the more they will see through you.

I'm seriously annoyed that you have the audacity to think you belong anywhere near the field of history.  You're like amnesia to a memory cell.  You fog up history and distort reality and when you're through you effectively kill whatever chance at a decent conversation there might have been.  You claim a lot of bullshit, and when facts are presented, you lie, cheat and lie some more to squirm out of being caught on being a bullshiter.  But you don't realize that we're not as gullible as you are.  We don't accept things without evidence, and see through your half-witted attempt at dodging.  

You are a menace to society, to history and to every other Christian out there who is honest with themselves enough to ignore retardic assholes like you.  Every Christian in the world should see you, see your insecurities.  They should WATCH as you dodge and squirm and hide and cower like a delusional animal that you are, and when they are through they will see the full scope of your mental retardation, and instantly leave their faith behind because they see what sort of drooling, sniveling little puss-bag faith can make you.  

The most amusing part is you're going to do the exact same sort of thing to this post.  You'll know you've been caught, know you've been found out, and instead of walking away or admitting to your failure as a human being, you'll lie, project and dodge the whole way through, and then you'll see this (because you won't read first) and have to go back up and erase, delete, and smudge because you're too anxious to copy-paste another website's shit.  And I'm going to watch it all unfold in the admin area, laughing to myself, and knowing that I had you.  And that you and I both know it. 

Well he read it and still can't refute our positions so that tells you much. 

Hanging is still hanging whether or not you try to change the meaning of the word.

http://www.studylight.org/enc/isb/view.cgi?number=T4075

Based upon what? 

I'm familiar with the concept but how does one know that in this instance it refers to cruci'fiction' while all the other times it has referred to stranglation? 

Since the argument is that the Talmud refers to Jesus and his crucifixtion then it is relevant. 

Nice, but he wasn't impaled by any Persians or Assyrians.

You have neither indicated that this Yeshua (which could very well be Joshua) is your Jesus Christ and that he was crucified.  The claim is yours, I just expect you to back it up with something more than wishful thinking.