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Originally Posted by hannukah harry
at the moment, to the best of my knowledge, the only written 'evidence' for jesus (not his real name by the way) having actually lived in the area that is modernday isreal during the first century AD is the new testament. of which none of it was written less than about 30 years after his death, and doubtfully written by anyone that actually knew him, by the people whom the gospels say they were written by. i think there's good reason to think that jesus never existed and is nothing more than a myth.
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Well...not quite.
There is evidence outside of the NT. Josephus writes of Jesus in his work Antiquities.
Paul writes 1 Thessalonians in the late 40's, early 50's. That's about 20 years after Gogoltha. Granted, it's a hearsay account, but he does create a working record of there being a Christian community at that time for whom it is meaningful to talk of a man named Jesus.
We can argue over whether or not any of the Gospel writers knew Jesus directly. Mark is written shortly after the revolt in 70-2 AD. Frankly, i think its quite likely that the author knew Jesus directly...
Simply, i don't think that it's a very tenable position to deny that Jesus existed. beyond that, it's certainly more contested. but it seems to me to be a pretty thin argument to claim that he did not exist at all.