Quote: Surely if you make a statement like that, you are required to prove it? So... go for it.
*Sighs*
Well if I have to.
There was Flavius Josephus, the jewish historian, who wrote an account of the life of Jesus but since Josephus was born AD37 his account is really only heresay and not actual proof. Let me see... *thinking*...ah okay, here is an excerpt from J.P Holding's The Reliability of the Secular References to Jesus (
http://www.british-israel.ca/tacitus.htm)
"Here is a full quote of the cite of our concern, from Annals 15.44. Jesus and the Christians are mentioned in an account of how the Emperor Nero went after Christians in order to draw attention away from himself after Rome's fire of 64 AD:
But not all the relief that could come from man, not all the bounties that the prince could bestow, nor all the atonements which could be presented to the gods, availed to relieve Nero from the infamy of being believed to have ordered the conflagration, the fire of Rome. Hence to suppress the rumor, he falsely charged with the guilt, and punished Christians, who were hated for their enormities. Christus, the founder of the name, was put to death by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea in the reign of Tiberius: but the pernicious superstition, repressed for a time broke out again, not only through Judea, where the mischief originated, but through the city of Rome also, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their center and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind."
There is no proof about the Nazarene's existence that cannot be refuted by someone, so maybe he did not live, but I am inclined to believe he did. I am inclined to believe that there is enough evidence that he did live according to Roman records that cite him as a nuisance
What I do not believe however is that he is the son of god (not anymore than anyone else), that he created a new religion (we can all thank the troublemaker Paul for that), that he turned his back on his religion (born a mosaic jew died a mosaic jew), or that he gave a diddly-squat about anyone who was not a jew.