Quote from TM_Direct:
1) You ask for one shred of evidence.
2) I provide a shred of evidence ( shroud of turin, disciples and first hand witnesses)
3) You say you do not approve of my evidence of cloth.
....but im being childish?????? I provide a shred of evidence and you have now taken the stance that only LKH can decide what is acceptable or not as evidence.....so how can one argue with somebody who is judge and juror and asking open ended question of which they will not accept any answer because their mind is already made up?
The childish part is this" "whatever happened to Pluto??????LOL..". You try to deflect your failure to come up with credible evidence outside the bible that Jesus even existed with childish strawman arguments.
"2) I provide a shred of evidence ( shroud of turin, disciples and first hand witnesses)"
The shroud of turin fails as evidence because almost all scholars say it is a fake and even if it were real there is no evidence that the man was Jesus. Your other evidence comes from the bible so is excluded since the request was for evidence outside the bible.
It would seem to me you should be interested in actually researching this subject. After all you claim you are in posession of "fundamental truth". Dont you think it is strange that no one has ever found any evidence that Jesus existed? If i were to believe that i posessed fundamental truth i would at least want to know what the truth was.
I will save you the trouble. In my search for answers i have done extensive research on this subject:
There is no outside evidence that Jesus existed outside the bible writings. The closest thing we have as any kind of evidence are the writings of a man called Josephus written about 60 years after Jesus was thought to have died. It is second hand information since Josephus is simply saying he has heard of a man called Jesus. He has no direct knowledge and much of what he wrote about Jesus has been proven a forgery added by later christians to "fit" the story:
http://www.religiousstudies.uncc.edu/jdtabor/josephus-jesus.html
Josephus' Testimony to Jesus
(Testimonium Flavianum)
Josephus, Antiquities 18. 63-64
The words in ALL CAPS are likely interpolations added by Christian copyists over the centuries in an attempt to make Josephus support faith in Jesus as the Christ. We have only three Greek manuscripts of this section of Josephus, all from the 11th century. These phrases, added rather clumsily, appear to be rather obvious additions even to the modern reader in English. Once restored to its more original reading Josephus offers us a most fascinating reference to Jesus. Indeed, it is the earliest reference to Jesus outside the New Testament, and its rather matter of fact, neutral reporting, makes it all the more valuable to the historian. It is worth noting that in his earlier work, The Jewish War, written shortly after the revolt under the auspices of the Emperor Vespasian, he mentioned neither Jesus, nor John the Baptist, nor James, while in Antiquities, written in the early 90s C.E., he mentions all three. For an excellent discussion of this text see John Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus (Doubleday, 1991), Vol I, pp. 57-88.
Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man IF IT BE LAWFUL TO CALL HIM A MAN, for he was a doer of wonders, A TEACHER OF SUCH MEN AS RECEIVE THE TRUTH WITH PLEASURE. He drew many after him BOTH OF THE JEWS AND THE GENTILES. HE WAS THE CHRIST. When Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, FOR HE APPEARED TO THEM ALIVE AGAIN THE THIRD DAY, AS THE DIVINE PROPHETS HAD FORETOLD THESE AND THEN THOUSAND OTHER WONDERFUL THINGS ABOUT HIM, and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day (Antiquities 18:63-64).
Professor Shlomo Pines found a different version of Josephus testimony in an Arabic version of the tenth century. It has obviously not been interpolated in the same way as the Christian version circulating in the West:
At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus, and his conduct was good, and he was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. And those who had become his disciples did not abandon their loyalty to him. They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion, and that he was alive. Accordingly they believed that he was the Messiah, concerning whom the Prophets have recounted wonders.
