Fine, I'll parse it. He'll just ignore it like all the others, but I'll do it for the exercise.
You obviously have not read all of this thead because I have pointed out the following which is from Geisler's book (pg. 223) cited in post # 1 of this thread. All of the following facts were derived collectively from "Non-Christian" sources. These sources include such people as Josephus, Tacitus, Celsus etc.
1) Jesus lived during time of Tiberius Caesar.
The time frame in which the Gospel stories are set is indeed during the reign of Tiberius. So what? The time frame of Harry Potter is presumably during the reign of Queen Liz II and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was set during Nixion's presidency. You point is?
2) He lived a virtuous life.
Hold on a second tiger, just because some character's story is set during the reign of a known ruler, doesn't mean that that character actually exists. Even if we assume that the Big J existed, some of the stories in the propaganda about him isn't favorable.
3) He was a wonder worker.
Well, here you have two tasks. 1) Define "wonder" and 2) Show that they can actually happen.
4) He had a brother {some say cousin} named James.
Ok, I know the difference between a brother and a cousin. Being unclear reduces credibility, not increases.
Even if your sources do agree that he had a male relative, that doesn't mean that either a) existed or b) did the things as described in the NT.
5) He was acclaimed to be the Messiah.
Lot of people were acclaimed to be the Messiah. It was a popular title to claim there for a while. Hell, Wikipedia has an entire list of people who
claimed to be the Messiah, and we all know how much you like Wikilists.
6) He was crucified under Pontius Pilate.
Ok, we know that PP lived. We even know that he was Prefect of Jerusalem during the time frame when Jesus was said to do his thang. What we don't know is, if PP actually ever met this Jesus character. There's no extra Biblical contemporary source for that.
7) He was crucified on the eve of the Jewish Passover.
According to the stories yes. There is no extra-Biblical contemporary sources for it though.
8) Darkness and an earthquake occurred when he died.
As someone else pointed out, how the hell did the Romans miss that? Seriously? An earthquake? Goes unrecoreded by everyone but this obscure Jewish sect? Riiiiiiiiight, what's a cubit?
9) His disciples believe he rose from the dead.
WOOHOO!!!! People believe all manner of crazy stuff. There's a lot of folk out there there that believe that they can find water by holding two sticks.
10) His disciples were willing to die for their belief.
Un-huh...and? So, they were stupid is what you're saying?
11) Christianity spread as far as Rome.
ALL THE WAY TO ROME?????!!!!!!!oneleventy!!!!!!! Wow...
ETA: Jerusalem to Rome is about 1400 miles. It's a similar distance from Boston, MA to Omaha, NE.
12) His disciples denied the Roman gods and worshiped Jesus as God.
Uh-huh and the Jews denied the Roman gods and worshiped Gunderscored. The Zoroastrians denied the Roman gods and worshiped Ahura Mazada. The Gauls denied Roman gods and worshiped...um, well, Gallic gods.
Remember these are all facts that can be found in "Non-Christian" independent sources.
No they're not. Granted, there is a little about Christians existing in Josephus (and that's most likely forged), and some others that repeat rumors that they've heard about Christians. There's no contemporary Pliny saying that any of that happened.
Note: Actually I haven't been able to verify #8 yet. Phlegon talked about darkness and there was some talk of an eclipse but Origen disagreed with him that it was a solar eclipse. So fact #8 is a little confusing and the time line of the eclipse is not clear.
So...you once again snipped a list from elsewhere, presented it as, excuse the pun, gospel and didn't bother to verify any of it...good, good. Nice to see your usual standards of excellence are being upheld.
(43 at the time of posting this)
