I've read your comments you posted on this website in response to others. I see now this is a pointless conversation. Please don't send me anymore messages.

Exactly - your faith cannot withstand critical analysis of the event, or any of the events of the bible.  You are brainwashed, and you are afraid to question because you think you'll be burned alive - that is what the cult has done to you and it makes me sad.

I knew your faith couldn't handled a critical analysis of the zombie event.

No, I deleted that last post to focus this discussion because your magical thinking is going all over the place again.

This entire discussion comes down to one point, the zombie issue - the z event, as you call it.  I've explained clearly how own would rationally evaluate the text, considering that event - and you just bypassed that because your faith cannot stand up to the task.

If you agree that z never happened, then you need to justify why you believe that z never happened.  Furthermore, you need to apply that criteria to the entire text.

If you feel that z did not happen because it's a pretty wild claim, then you have to toss out all wild claims and follow the Jefferson Bible.  If you feel that z did not happen because it's a really amazing event that Roman Magistrates would have certainly recorded (and they didn't), then you need to toss out the crucifiction/resurrection as well.

So, please tell me your criteria for determining that z-event did not occur so we can apply that to the rest of the text.

The reason I feel it is justified to think that he existed is that it is difficult to explain the cult that built up around him if he did not exist at all.  I mean, did 11 apostles get together and fabricate it all, from scratch, including making up a fictitious 12th apostle who killed himself?

The reason I think that the stories about him are greatly exaggerated is that no one seemed to take note of him during his life.  If thousands of people were gathering to witness miracles like people coming back from the dead, surely some of the literate people of the time would have taken note, or written letters to someone about such extraordinary events.

The documents that we have closest to his actual life were written decades after he was dead and they tell some pretty wild tales.  You don't need to be an 'expert' to just read Matthew and see that the claims of dead holy men popping out of their graves are pretty outlandish.

I've told you what I believe about him - and it takes multiple repetitions for anything to sink into your head.  I've told you at least 3 times that I never denied that he existed.  I've told you that very little can be said about him factually.

It seems most likely that he did exist, and did die around about the time that his followers thought he died.  I have no idea whether or not he died on a cross, but I have no particular reason to doubt that - it was a common form of execution at the time.  As for all the dead holy men jumping out of their graves and prancing about town, well that seems pretty far fetched and I would require very significant evidence before I would buy something like that.

Are you aware of the legends that arose around Davy Crockett within his lifetime?  How about James Bowie?  Legends can, do, and HAVE run wild about plenty of living people - it doesn't take generations.

According to Matthew 27: ⁵¹ At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split ⁵² and the tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. ⁵³ They came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared to many people.

Now it seems very odd to me that you have many dead people coming to life, walking around talking to people, and yet not a single government official ever made a record of this.  Of all the letters that have been found written by Roman soldiers, none ever reference this event.  The ONLY place it is written is in Matthew - certainly you don't think this really happened, do you?

This is a lot different than asserting that The Illiad was written by Homer.  I mean, we don't know whether or not Homer lived, but we do have the stories and no one is betting their life on the veracity of those stories.

As far as people dying for false beliefs - have you ever heard of the Heaven's Gate cult?  What about the followers of Jim Jones?

I have never claimed that Jesus did not exist at all - and you seem unable to get that straight in your mind.  I am saying that it seems entirely preposterous that the Gospels provide us with an accurate account of his life.  Furthermore, given that Jesus is depicted as a man who subscribed to many erroneous beliefs about the planet on which we live, it is very safe to conclude that he had no divine insight.

Ok, finally, you picked a topic.

Who is Jesus?  Well, we have very little knowledge about him, actually.  We have a lot of cult writings about him; legends that were put in ink decades after he died.  As for the man behind the legends, hard to say.

Ok, if you don't want to pick a topic, I understand.  I thought you were actually prepared to engage in some sort of meaningful discussion about your beliefs but I can see now that you just want to smatter around as many fallacies as possible and move on before they are pointed out as fallacies.

Any time you want to pick a specific topic to discuss, just let me know.