Originally posted by CaptainNemo
All these are fictional people. Yeshua (Jesus) was a well documented person.

I think you need to define "well documented," for Buddha was well documented and so were many other demi-gods and heroes. When you investigate the documents outside of unreliable Christian literature, you find, as the great New Testament Scholar Prof. Bart Ehrman found; That only Tacitus and Seutonius mention him and they only refer to the religion of Christianity in the 2nd century, well after Jesus' alleged life and death.

Jesus is not well documented at all, in fact he is very poorly documented and the evidence for his existence is very thin.

In the words of Eric Cline, Prof. Biblical Archaeology and Ancient History at Washington University;

"Archaeology has not yet been able to shed any direct light on the birth, life, or death of Jesus. That is to say, there is not yet any archaeological evidence for the historical Jesus—or any of the apostles for that matter…. However, the failure of biblical archaeologists and pseudo-archaeologists to provide confirmatory evidence of the life of Jesus and the apostles has not been for lack of trying"

Further referring to the Encyclopedia of World History:

"First of all, there are no contemporary archaeological or epigraphic remains that prove Jesus’ existence. What research has found corroborates the background of the New Testament but does not confirm its hero. Second, there are two literary records—the Talmud and Josephus—that speak about Jesus from a Jewish perspective, but both of these have been called into question."

I could go on and on, as I have researched this matter quite alot from the point of view, that if the evidence is convincing I should beleive at least he was a real person, but if not, then it is more than likely a fiction! Remembering that we are dealing with 2 seperate issues; One, the historical person, Yeshua/Joshua Ben Yoseph, and 2; the doctrines of faith claiming that this character was in fact the son of the Jewish Deity Yahweh!

All too often these issues become confused!

Originally posted by mikesherlock

Originally posted by EricD
No, not even close. There is no 'official Christian' reply to this claim, but if there were it would most likely be, 'please provide sources for your claims that come from scholarly sources and not Acharya S".

When you track down the sources behind the claims that have popped up about the so called similarities between Jesus and other religious figures, you find that they are superficial at best. And those are the ones that are accurate. Most are due to poor scholarship.

Eric

Dig a little deeper!

Into what?

Claims for the copycat theory are usually fabricated and without original sourcing (like a lot of the Budha references). How do you dig deeper into something that doesn't exist?

Other claims that have some basis in fact, have no relevance (like the date of Dec. 25th, which Christians do not believe is the birth date of Christ and has no Biblical backing).

Eric

A better question is how many times will people read this and still believe it even though it has been debunked time and time again.

Why would God send his one and only Son down to just one obscure Roman occupied territory? Why not send him down in different incarnations to many different people around the world at different times?

if this is a thread about Jesus Christ you found him, i AM YOUR ANTICHRIST, i was the original link for who started any telepath there ever was, im not just Jesus but Alexander the Great, Zues and King Arthur, i wont be on this site for long, the song Donovan Universal Soldier, describes who i am,like when he says "he's 17 but im really 31" im 22 but im really 26, i was alexander the great at the age of 4 born in our time,things i know, Zues is GodHimself, and i was declared devil himself, Neron was also a past life, he was the old devil and i just came up 2 years ago, the thrown of hell is mine now and Neron rules with me.i created life in 2009, i have 5 teachers in life, telepaths i talk to include Biggie Smalls and Tupac, there both in there coffins along with everybody else who ever died, im Jesus and a girl from my town is Mother Mary, i like pussy, past the point...if you know how to make copies of your self, you know how ghosts are created, when Jesus was 18, he killed the biggest man back in his day in a fight, so its hard to believe but Jesus did kill a person, im a telepath i talk to all the gods and kings, i can call all of them in i have the highest frequjencey, no body can call me in, i call, i have the same body as king tut, i seen a sculptur a year after i found out i was king tut and it looked just like me, my dads Lucifer straight up, you wouldn't guess it though the morning star sittin g in the next room, watch me as Jackal the rap star, Eminem signs me in 2 years and when my album Claiming The Kingdom comes out everybody with know my name, plus katy perry's my wife somedAY, THATS ALL I HAD TO SAY TODAY ON ABOVE TOP SECRET, WHAT I WROTE IT THE REALEST #