Well, first of all I am not using any unusual definition of the term “evidence”. See the typical dictionary definition below for example.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/evidence
Evidence.
1. A thing or things helpful in forming a conclusion or judgment: The broken window was evidence that a burglary had taken place. Scientists weigh the evidence for and against a hypothesis.
2. Something indicative; an outward sign: evidence of grief on a mourner's face.
3. Law The documentary or oral statements and the material objects admissible as testimony in a court of law.
tr.v. ev·i·denced, ev·i·denc·ing, ev·i·denc·es
1. To indicate clearly; exemplify or prove.
2. To support by testimony; attest.Idiom:
in evidence
1. Plainly visible; to be seen: It was early, and few pedestrians were in evidence on the city streets.
2. Law As legal evidence: submitted the photograph in evidence.
Note that all these dictionary definitions, although they do not always spell it out in their ultra brief single line explanations, actually require that what is claimed as “evidence”, always implies that a physical examination of the claimed information is available to be checked & confirmed at least in principle.
For example, above where the definition talks of a broken window - the assumption is that a jury (or anyone) could, if they wished, check the claim of that “evidence”, ie check the “testimony”, by verifying that it was actually true that the window was indeed broken. If you cannot check and confirm that, at least in principle, then that testimony offered as “evidence” is not reliable in any credible way at all.
The same applies to seemingly less directly tangible things such as a witness saying (for example, as in the definition above) a claim or testimony saying there were few pedestrians on the streets at the time of the incident. That is only a claim of a particular item of evidence, but it is a claim which has to be supported by external confirmation where others can confirm that they too were present at that time and agreed that the streets were clear. If you cannot confirm such claims, even in principle, then what is offered as “evidence” is not reliable in any known measure at all. In court (for example), you might be allowed to claim such evidence before a jury, but in that case the jury consider it only as an unconfirmed unsupported claim, and the opposing lawyers will always emphasise that to the jury.
If a witness (such as Tacitus or the bible writers) offers unsupported and unconfirmed claims like that (ie offers it to us as his “jury“ trying to decide what is reasonable, reliable and credible evidence of that which is being claimed in respect of Jesus), but only offers it, not as what he himself ever saw or knew, but instead only as hearsay obtained from someone else, then as you should know, that is rarely allowed to be presented to a jury, precisely because it has been proved in past legal cases to be extremely unreliable and likely to mislead a jury (ie us in this case) into seriously mistaken conclusions. However, if in addition, that hearsay comes from unknown unnamed anonymous sources that are never produced and even cannot be produced (eg because of a passage of time by which any such person, if they were ever real at all, would be long since dead), then any suggestion of that being fit to put as claim before any jury is never allowed, for the very obvious reason that such claims, far from being truly evidence of what they say, are not remotely credible or reliable in any measure at all … ie, absolute zero credibility as the claimed evidence“, and absolutely never admissible as a claim of any such evidence at all.
And before anyone makes the very silly objection that we are not in a court and that different rules apply either here on this forum, or that different rules apply to bible historians when they make claims of having evidence - nobody has said that we are in court! … but the same rules of “evidence” most certainly do apply. And the reason for that is - what is allowed in a jury trial as admissible “evidence” (ie testimony offered for the jury to consider whether it is actually evidence of that which is claimed), are rules that have been very carefully established over more than a century of extremely detailed examination at the highest and most expert level possible, to decide what truly is presentable as genuine “evidence” for anyone’s consideration in the act of deciding what is the likely truth of anything. And certain types of testimony are most definitely NOT admissible before any jury in any such case of anyone trying to decide what is reasonable to accept as “evidence” of the witness claims about anything the witness says … and those types which are so unreliable and so likely to mislead and jurors (ie us in this case) inc. hearsay in general (which is rarely allowed, and never without clear warnings from the judge), and anonymous hearsay which is absolutely never allowed.
If anyone here continues to say that sort of legal precedent and legal finding will not apply to us when we act as jurors tying to asses the testimony offered as evidence by a book such as Tacitus or a book such as the bible, then what they are claiming is that special rules and special pleading now apply in the case of bible-scholars and their subject of the historicity of Jesus. Rules already “proven” in court to be wholly and completely unreliable, to such an extent that they must never be put before the jury at all … because it is not, and cannot be, really “evidence”! What it is, and what the courts have established it to be as a matter of legal ruling, is unsupported and unconfirmed claim and testimony (not “evidence”, but claim and testimony) of a type so inherently unreliable as to be of no use at all in any responsible consideration.
That’s not to say you cannot rely on such testimony as the bible and Tacitus, Josephus etc. You most certainly can claim that as your evidence if you wish. Because there is no judge here to rule it out of consideration. But what it means is that you are relying upon a type of testimony which has already been proved by the courts to be so unreliable as to be unworthy of any responsible consideration at all.
And if you say (as I think others have done) that ancient history only ever has that sort of “evidence” to work with, and hence if we ruled that out of consideration then all of ancient history would collapse, then first of all that is not true - it would not all be collapse at all. And secondly, that is not, and never could be, any sort of excuse for attempting to draw positive conclusions from such completely discredited wholly unreliable testimony as anonymous hearsay presented only centuries after the claimed events by even more anonymous self-interested religious copyists.
