Ok, seriously now, lads. What evidence is there for a historical

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We have a decent amount of evidence for his existence, but it's a lot of very disappointing evidence desu. Before I begin however, I want to point out that Jesus should be held to a higher standard of proving his existence than either Alexander the Great or Gene Shalit. Christians often whine that Jesus is held in an unfair amount of doubt, but then forget that Jesus was claiming to be God and currently enjoys a fanclub of over 2 billion followers. Higher demands made by a guy, demand even higher proofs for his existence. Religious figures should always be held to a higher standard than other men of history.

Now how do we know Jesus exists? The first non-Christian accounts were written by the Jewish historian/race-traitor Josephus in 93 AD. Now most do agree that one part of the "Testimonium Flavianum" was heavily edited by medieval Christians, long after Josephus died; but Josephus also mentions James the Just "brother of the so-called messiah", and John the Baptist, both men who were executed by their fellow Jews. And if we take the controversial third part of Josephus' testimony, and remove all the parts that a life-long, devout Jew would never say:
>About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man. For he was one who performed surprising deeds and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. And when, upon the accusation of the principal men among us, Pilate had condemned him to a cross, those who had first come to love him did not cease. And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared.

>>2325882
There is also the testimony of Tacitus in 116 AD, written by a patriotic Roman who saw Christianity as nothing more than yet another faggy new-age "flavor of the month" from the east.
>Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judæa, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind.
Now it should be pointed out that Tacitus probably got his information on Pilate from Christians he interviewed (Pilate was a prefect in reality, not a procurator as most Christians believed). But his testimony shows how quickly the new sect traveled in just 30 years after starting.

>>2325900
>>2325882

Stop replying to this troll thread, he makes it once a week

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The thousands of manuscripts and historical writings?

There is more evidence for Jesus than there is for Caesar, Alexander or Hannibal.

>>2325905

Heh

>>2325900
Mara bar Sarapion, a stoic pagan, wrote a letter between 73-3rd century AD to his son about how unjust punishment of righteous men will lead to future destruction of those responsible. He mentions:
>the murder of Socrates, the burning of Pythagoras, and the execution of "the wise king" of the Jews.[63][64]
These three injustices were implied to have directly lead to the downfalls of Athens, Croton, and Jerusalem, respectively.

>>2325905

Thousands of copies of the same thing made hundreds of years later does not make the source text more reliable in terms of the events it claims to narrate.

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>>2325905
That's not what historical attestation means. It means we have a much better chance of recreating what the first Gospels actual said, than we do for recreating the original writings of Homer or Plato.

Historical attestation is a facile attempt at dick swinging, by people who don't realize just how unimpressive the notion is.

>>2325905
>let's compare totally irrelevant qualities of some cherry picked items
I love it when /his/ tries to /sci/

>>2325944
>5366 copies
Complete copies, parts, fragments?