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These scholars are applying a standard for Jesus that they don't apply to other people mentioned in non-biblical sources.

And rightly so!

For two reasons: a) The "other people" didn't routinely perform miracles; and b) The other people didn't ask us to fundamentally change our belief systems.

See my tagline!

Example: If your newspaper boy mentions to you that you have a new neighbor named Joe Brown from Georgia, you are justified in assuming that he is telling the truth. However, if your newspaper boy tells you that he saw Joe Brown raise the dead, that he was born of a virgin birth, that he held conversations with the Devil in the desert (who else was there to report on that, by the way?), and that you should give your money to the paper boy so that you can save your soul and so that he can go out and spread the word...

Regards,

Your logic is flawed. The question is does this person exist, not is the description of this person believable to me.

Would I believe the newspaper boy just on his say so, probably not. That’s why people require more evidience and in the case of historical persons, more witnesses.

But the article does not state that “most scholars” don’t believe in the miracles of Jesus but that they don’t believe the person Jesus existed. In that sense the standards we use to determine if any historical person truly existed must be applied to Jesus as well. They have not done that but are demanding far more proof.

However, if your newspaper boy tells you that he saw Joe Brown raise the dead, that he was born of a virgin birth, that he held conversations with the Devil in the desert (who else was there to report on that, by the way?), and that you should give your money to the paper boy so that you can save your soul and so that he can go out and spread the word...

Actually, our Lord Jesus doesn't want anything from us. You can keep your money, you don't have to go out and spread the word, you don't really have to do anything.

The only thing the our Lord Jesus would like is for us to sincerely acknowledge that we are sinful and we need His help to fix our lives. That's it. That's all He wants. One can do this in the quietness of their bedroom and they don't even have to tell anyone about it. And, if we sincerely acknowledge our sinfulness and our need for His help; He will help us and our lives will never be the same.

But it is so hard for people to do.

“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”

Reason and science can make no claims as to what is extraordinary and what is not....only the pre-biased mind does that! The pre-biased mind contaminates reason and logic by declaring that those assertions not immediately testable must always be considered false, preposterous,and therefore “not worthy” of further consideration!

It is ironic that you speak of a “newspaper” boy since Christ is referred to in John 1 as the “word” made flesh who brought the “good news”(or Gospel) of salvation to man!

Western language,idioms,proverbs and traditions are so chockfull of Judeo Christian themes that even you can’t escape them...not even the Rulers of the Earth as referred to in Psalms 2(Why do the nations so furiously rage, why do the people imagine a vain thing? ...the kings of the Earth rise up, the rulers take council together against the Lord and his Anointed...saying..”Let us break their bonds asunder let us cast their yokes from us....”). It is ironic that men should struggle against such a yoke when Christ has promised that his yoke “is easy and his burden light” that it would bring us peace and into Fellowship with God!

There is no escaping God and the intense reality of His Being...at least once in their eternal experience, all men will encounter it; some to their shame and some to everlasting life. You have a choice now to experience it to the good of your soul!