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Did Jesus really exist?
Recently I met a cool guy who likes a lively debate an as such the topic of religion came up. I am agnostic, was raised in a secular family and I have come to believe that Jesus was not an actual historical person and that the Bible in general is a work of fiction.He was raised in a fundamentalist christian family and firmly believes that Jesus was real and while he maintains that the bible should not be taken literally he credits this as his main source for his believe in the historical Jesus. My counter argument to this is that I have never seen any other historical source for the existence of Jesus (though he claims he is able to provide some)and that I only have other people's word to go on that the bible in fact describes a real person. I showed him the first part of Zeitgeist to help strengthen my argument. He countered with 'do you believe that Socrates existed?', to which I replied yes, 'based on what?', to which I replied 'based on Plato's account of him'. He replied 'so you only have a secondary account of the real man?', to which I replied touche.
So now I wonder did Jesus really exist and what evidence can you cite for either argument? A heavy topic I know, but it's really bugging me now.
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