Reply to Quake reveals day of Jesus' crucifixion, researchers believe

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[quote=Anonymous]In 2000 Van Voorst gave an overview of proponents of the "Nonexistence Hypothesis" and their arguments, presenting seven arguments against the hypothesis as put forward by "Wells and his predecessors":

"Arguments from silence" are to be rejected, because "it is wrong to suppose that what is unmentioned or undetailed did not exist". Van Voorst further argued that the early Christian literature was not written for historical purposes

Dating the "invention" of Jesus around 100 AD is too late: the Gospel of Mark is generally considered to have been written around 70 AD.

The "development [of the Gospel traditions] does not necessarily mean wholesale invention, and difficulties do not prove nonexistence".

Wells could not explain why "no pagans and Jews who opposed Christianity denied Jesus' historicity or even questioned it"

The rejection of Tacitus (Annals) and Josephus (Antiquities of the Jews) ignores the scholarly consensus.

Proponents of the "nonhistoricity hypothesis" are not driven by scholarly interests, but by anti-Christian sentiments.

Wells and others do not offer "other, credible hypotheses" for the origins of Christianity.

In 2003, Van Voorst added an eighth "final argument"—that Wells had since accepted the "historical basis for the existence of Jesus".

Regarding the lack of contemporaneous records for Jesus, Ehrman notes that no comparable Jewish figure is mentioned in contemporary records either and there are mentions of Christ in several Roman works of history from only decades after the death of Jesus.

He adds that the authentic letters of the apostle Paul in the New Testament were likely written within a few years of Jesus' death and that Paul likely personally knew James, the brother of Jesus. Ehrman writes that although "our best sources about Jesus, the early Gospels, are riddled with problems ... written decades after Jesus' life by biased authors", they "can be used to yield historically reliable information". He adds, "With respect to Jesus, we have numerous, independent accounts of his life in the sources lying behind the Gospels (and the writings of Paul)", which he says is "pretty astounding for an ancient figure of any kind".

According to Ehrman, mythicism has a growing appeal "because these deniers of Jesus are at the same time denouncers of religion". According to Casey, mythicism has a growing appeal because of an aversion toward Christian fundamentalism among American atheists.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_myth_theory
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