Jesus is another perennial one. Like the other subject, define the Jesus you are talking about.

Let me start by saying if it is not a Jesus in the Christian literature I have no idea what you are talking about. This includes all the 43 gospels and dozens of epistles. As there is no surviving record of any selection criteria for picking those in the new testament collections we cannot make up reasons for the ones included.

So any limitation to just the currently popular NT collections is arbitrary but does set limits to make the discussion more manageable.

Most everyone agrees Mark was the basis for Luke and John. Mark recounts a man who spent a year preaching and died from crucifixion. Some unknown source added the resurrection passages to the end of Mark so they are not part of the foundational account of Jesus.

If that is your Jesus it is difficult to imagine anyone could make an issue of whether or not he lived. He teaches nothing new or special. He has some followers. He dies and that is the end of it.

The contention is over a person who is more than Mark.

So the problems center upon how much more than in Mark.

Let me suggest some points of common sense.

If this character did think his resurrection was of importance then he certainly did nothing to make and issue of it. I mean like "because EVERYTHING I SAID hinges upon my resurrection there will forever be a column of light over my three day tomb." If on the other hand nothing hinges upon this resurrection the absence of any physical evidence is easy to understand. Believers in a risen Jesus must explain why they think it is more important than he did.

Another point is why did he specialize in the same tricks wandering preachers were doing long before he lived, were attributed to even Roman emperors and which can be seen on GodTV even today? OK, raising from the dead is different but why detract from raising the dead by doing such cheap and common tricks? Instead of an impermanent withered fig tree why not turn it into Wolverine Diamantine whatever? Why look like doing parlor tricks? It made him look like a cheap con artist.

And besides, raising from the dead only takes an accomplice. Imagine Lazarus trying not to vomit and look dead with all the rotten meat around him waiting for Jesus to show up and bring him back to life.

Which leads to if you want this guy to have been god then the Wolverine trick is trivial. If you want him less than that then who gives a rat's ass about him and why? Islam would have him a prophet but it is unclear what he was trying to accomplish. He said nothing new and it is unclear why a god would want him to repeat old human ideas.

Then there is the playing coy and faith without evidence is required. Hell! I cam make that claim and I want you to believe god wants you to party and make love to thy neighbor. Have faith that is what god wants of you without any evidence from me that I am here to tell you want it wants. It is a meaningless position.

There were a few other positions back between being limited to Mesopotamia by Byzantium and disappearing into Islam a few centuries later. They have so few exponents I am not going to go into them here.

Note other than not thinking the resurrection important there is no suggestion that the presence or absence of physical evidence matters in the least.

Tertiary indications like having followers and religions appearing do not discriminate between Jesus, Mohamed, Joseph Smith and L. Ron Hubbard. One assumes no one is going to push such things these days now that the persecution of Christians has been exposed as very exaggerated. And then ask Smith's LDS about persecution. (Catholics second and Jews not even in the running as far as the US was concerned.)

So really what is the point of the disagreement? If you go to the max of being god and conquering death he clearly didn't care if anyone took him seriously. And if you want something less than that, who would care and why?

---

Unvarnished
Haaretz
Jerusalem Post
The origin of the Yahweh Cult

Define Jesus.....that's easy he was the ancient ancestor of this guy.....

Jesus at work

---

Define Jesus.....that's easy he was the ancient ancestor of this guy.....

Jesus at work

Meh, give me a few bits of steel rod and a welder, i'll levitate on the side of anything you like. Shame the bus couldn't steer a little too close to a lamp post, then we'll see how magical he really is.

Define Jesus? Here's all you need!

---

Life on earth is the global equivalent of not storing things in the fridge.

Jesus is another perennial one. Like the other subject, define the Jesus you are talking about.

How absolutely ridiculous.
Terms are defined.
People, dead or alive, real or not, are not terms.
At best, a person could be described, not defined.

Gooba gabba!
"Maize 'that'!"