What Stathei said.  I, too, hope that you all had an enjoyable Easter.  Or vernal equinox celebration.  Whatever.  

Quote from: Deep Thought

There was no body, SJ, because there was no Jesus.

On what grounds do you make that claim? Enlighten me.

DT, perhaps one of the best arguments against the historicity of Jesus is to be found in Earl Doherty's The Jesus Puzzle.  That web site also has lots of other interesting material on the possibility that Jesus never existed as a historical person.  Whether or not a real person who formed the basis of the Jesus story did exist will probably never be proven or disproven.  There are just too many centuries between us and the original events.  And the evidence has gone through centuries of sifting through the Christian sieve.

DT, have you found my threads about Jesus' existence yet?

Arguments against the very existence of Jesus are frankly a crock of excrement.   They can only be maintained by imposing a historical standard against Jesus that is beyond the pale.  All Christians ask on the matter is that you use the same historical standards in relation to Jesus' existence as you do anything else.  For that matter, Christianity is rooted in one particular event in history- the resurrection.   We only ask that you apply the historical method fairly to that, too.

Not wishing to dive into it full strength in this particular thread, DT, let me just submit to you how incredibly weak this counter-argument is by pointing out that if anyone would have known that Jesus never even existed, it would have been the followers of Jesus' enemies.  And they knew how to write, man.  They knew how to write.  As Christianity was exploding onto the Roman empire, no Jewish opponent of Christianity had the sense and sarcasm to offer the ULTIMATE rebuttal to Christianity.

That is, if the ultimate falsification of the resurrection is the production of Jesus' body, the ultimate rebuttal of it all is to have said that there was no evidence at all that the man ever existed.  

As the Christian church was perceived as no more than a Jewish sect for quite a long time, arose within the Jewish community, and made use of Jewish texts to prove their case, the Jews would have had every incentive to counter Christian claims.  Let's remember that we are talking about people who would stone folks who blasphemed.  Yet not a peep suggesting that Jesus didn't exist?

Nothing.  Zilch.  The Toledoth Yeshu, which I referenced, is a 5th-6th century document by a Jew, and it contains not even a hint that Jesus never existed.  Origen against Celsus didn't have to deal with any allegations (200-300 AD).  

Josephus makes a highly disputed comment about Jesus 'hardly a man,' but he makes an undisputed comment about James the brother of Jesus... in 90 AD.

Setting aside Cop's silly 'sieve' remark, consider this:  While it might be true that many centuries have passed between now and the time of Jesus' alleged existence, there was a time when it had been no more than days, months, and decades.  It would not have been 'centuries' for them.  There was no Christian sieve, then.

As you begin your study into the matter (which I sincerey hope you'll do), you would do well by examining the nature of the Jewish community at that time to decide whether or not the Jews were stupid friggin morons who would not have thought to mention the obvious and without any motive to protect the purity of their Law against interlopers.

I had marshmallow bunnies and thankfully no pancakes on top of them either. (I justed sassed the sasquatch)

The average american male only lives to be 72.  So what makes you think it couldn't be the second or third generation. And since women got married about 14 it could have been more than that.

Hey!?!?!?

Who cut and run here?!!??!