So, give me reason to believe Jesus existed. Simple, right?
Seems the original poster is not available at the moment to clarify.
I could say why I think a historical Jesus could have existed.
That would be from reading Josephus who was chopped up a bit in the Apostolic Fathers thread. The High Priest was one John Hyracanus and he had an Idumean general, Antipater. He was of the Hasmonean dynasty that comes from the family of Judas Maccabeus. He(John) was pronounced king of the Jews four times by either the Roman Emperor, a future emperor, or the general of the Roman army. He was gifted with supernatural powers (being the Messiah priest/king) such as the ability to see things out of range of normal vision, could foretell future events, and heal people by touching them. His dynasty had a problem in his future son in-law, Herod, who was the son of Antipater. He decided to systematically eliminate possible ascenders to the throne, to take it for himself.
Jesus as told in Luke, was of the high priestly order of Levites through his mother's family. He may have somehow been of the proper lineage to be a priest himself. By the time he would have been old enough to, the position had been co-opted by the Caiaphas dynasty of high priests who retained it through political influence. There is a break in it when Pilate would have arrived, for one year, of the position being held by an otherwise totally obscure person. Then it went right back into the Caiaphas line. Rightfully, the high priesthood would be a lifelong appointment so whoever that person was, may have still considered himself the rightful messiah. Of course he would have wanted that identity kept secret to prevent premature assassination.
Once he started his ministry, he began to exhibit those miraculous powers that his predecessor had and saw his future disciple praying under a fig tree trying to decide if he was going to join up.
So the point of all this is that there may well could have been such a person. It seems reasonable to me that given the circumstances, his followers would have really been thrilled to be let into his secret. Also, speaking of Iscariot, who may have been a priest himself, you see him making deals with the head temple priests. The thirty pieces being from the book of the prophet the annual pay for being the shepherd of Israel. It may have been a deal to have Judas become some sort of important priest.
