You are a hopeless case but others might like to consider the totality of Greco-Roman authors comments on christianity. It won't take long.
In his Annals, Cornelius Tacitus (55-120 CE) writes that Christians
"derived their name and origin from Christ, who, in the reign of Tiberius, had suffered death by the sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilate" (Annals 15.44)
Two questions arise concerning this passage:
Did Tacitus really write this, or is this a later Christian interpolation?
Is this really an independent confirmation of Jesus's story, or is Tacitus just repeating what some Christians told him?
Point #2 makes the most sense as by the time he was writing (early 2d century) there certainly were christians....but that does not answer the basic question of whether or not there was a historical Jesus or if Tacitus was merely repeating what his 'followers' told him. This argument is buttressed by the fact that Tacitus clearly was not working from Roman records as Pilate's title was prefect not procurator and the Romans would have been unlikely to make such a mistake.
Next up is Suetonius:
In his The Lives of the Caesars, Suetonius, writing around 120 CE, states:
"Since the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus [Emperor Claudius in 49 CE] expelled them from Rome." (Claudius 5.25.4)
Some christian fanatics suggest that the name Chrestus is a mistranslation of christus, which ignores the fact that Chrestus was an actual Greek name and that Jesus would have been dead for at least 12 years prior to 49 AD since the claim is that he was killed when Tiberius was emperor and Caligula's reign intervenes. Thus, unlikely he would have been mucking around in Rome itself stirring up trouble.
#3:
Thallus and Jesus
In a lost work referred to by Julius Africanus in the third century, the pagan writer Thallus reportedly claimed that Jesus's death was accompanied by an earthquake and darkness. However, the original text is in fact lost, and we can confirm neither the contents of the text or its date. It is possible that Thallus was merely repeating what was told to him by Christians, or that the passage which Africanus cites is a later interpolation. Outside of the New Testament, no other references to earthquakes or unusual darkness occur in the contemporary literature. This is very surprising, given the effect these sorts of events would presumably have had on the populace.
Again lost works written centuries after the events in question have no more historical reliability than the gospels themselves.
#4
Pliny the Younger and Jesus
Pliny the Younger, writing near 100 CE, corresponded regularly with the emperor Trajan. In these writings, Pliny specifically mentions and describes the beliefs and practices of Christians in Asia Minor, and asks Trajan's advice about what action to take against them, if any. However, Pliny's writings provide no independent confirmation of the events of the New Testament, but merely show that there were indeed Christians living in Asia Minor.
Again, no one argues that there were christians but the fact that people will believe any silly old tale that comes along (other cults worshipping Mithras, Apollonius of Tyana and Isis, among others were flourishing at the same exact time) does not prove the underlying facts. For that, you are back to the gospels and they don't even agree with each other in many cases.
Finally, #5, Josephus. For those who do not know, Josephus was a Jewish commander in Galilee during the early phase of the Great Revolt. When Titus Flavius Vespasianus' army advanced into Galilee, Josephus took one look at them, crapped his pants and defected to the Romans leaving his men to their fate. He himself became a devoted admirer of Vespasian in the manner of Tokyo Rose: A propagandist and publicist for the Romans who were in the process of slaughtering those Jews less inclined to self-preservation than he. Thus Josephus is a coward and a traitor but under the patronage of the Flavian family he was able to write histories.
Josephus and Jesus
The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, writing during the second half of the first century CE, produced two major works: History of the Jewish War and Antiquities of the Jews. Two apparent references to Jesus occur in the second of these works. The longer, and more famous passage, occurs in Book 18 of Antiquities and reads as follows (taken from the standard accepted Greek text of Antiquities 18:63-64 by L. H. Feldman in the Loeb Classical Library):
About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was one who wrought surprising feats and as a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Messiah. When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing amongst us, had condemned him to be crucified, those who had in the first place come to love him did not give up their affection for him. On the third day he appeared to them restored to life, for the prophets of God had prophesied these and countless other marvellous things about him. And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared.
This passage is called the Testimonium Flavianum, and is sometimes cited by propagandists as independent confirmation of Jesus' existence and resurrection. However, there is excellent reason to suppose that this passage was not written in its present form by Josephus, but was either inserted or amended by later Christians:
The early Christian writer Origen claims that Josephus did NOT recognize Jesus as the Messiah, in direct contradiction to the above passage, where Josephus says, "He was the Messiah." Thus, we may conclude that this particular phrase at least was a later insertion. (The version given above was, however, known to Jerome and in the time of Eusebius. Jerome's Latin version, however, renders "He was the Messiah" by "He was believed to be the Christ.") Furthermore, other early Christian writers fail to cite this passage, even though it would have suited their purposes to do so. There is thus firm evidence that this passage was tampered with at some point, even if parts of it do date back to Josephus.
The passage is highly pro-Christian. It is hard to imagine that Josephus, a Pharisaic Jew, would write such a laudatory passage about a man supposedly killed for blasphemy. Indeed, the passage seems to make Josephus himself out to be a Christian, which was certainly not the case.
Origen lived from 185-232 AD and wrote about Josephus one way while Eusebius ( c 260 - 341) seems to have written after the forgeries were made, doubtlessly by some overly excited monk who wanted to pad the historical record.
In my copy of Josephus the passage in question is considered so historically reliable that it is not even included in the text but rather appears "for historical interest" as an appendix!
For those who would like to read the sordid story of early christian forgery for themselves, here is the link. Don't worry arch, you won't burn in hell if you click on it!
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/ ... ojfaq.htmlSomething is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
-- George Carlin
You say you won't believe anything that hasn't been witnessed by someone. Ok, how about atoms? No one's seen them so I suppose you don't think they exist either.