It is perpetually disappointing the extent to which so many people who claim to be Christians fail to understand even the CliffsNotes version of the Gospel.
Jesus' arrest was probably bound to happen sooner or later though. As noted Biblical scholar Andrew Zaltzman has often pointed out, Pontius Pilate was a law and order administrator, and Jesus was absolutely guilty under the law at the time.
Also, without Jesus' arrest and crucifixion, he wouldn't have died and been resurrected, saving everyone's souls. So shouldn't Marjorie be thanking Jews for that?
And when the flying spaghetti monster flew out of his butthole and pasta for our sins we were saved a second time. Making humans the most saved beings in this universe at least.
Virtually all scholars of antiquity accept that Jesus was a historical figure, and the idea that Jesus was a mythical figure has been consistently rejected by the scholarly consensus as a fringe theory.
Scholars differ about the beliefs and teachings of Jesus as well as the accuracy of the biblical accounts, with only two events being supported by nearly universal scholarly consensus: Jesus was baptized and Jesus was crucified
To call this "Historical Jesus" is misleading at best. It is reasonable to say DOZENS of people fit that description.
Let's try the same argument today...
"A preacher named John was baptized and later was convicted of serious crimes and sentenced by a judge." How many fit this description? Isn't it more likely true than false? What does that prove?
This whole argument tries to equate mundane statistics with miracles. It adds nothing to any reasonable discussion outside of post-hoc theological justification.
The thing is that people are basing the magical sky wizards manifesting himself as his son as this “Jesus” character they’ve made up and have decided existed in the way they pretend because there is some tangential corroboration somewhere.
I’m leaving this one to the experts. If you don’t believe the them that’s up to you to prove. I personal don’t believe either of us is more informed than they are.
Check the talk page on that (and similar) articles. There are some very zealous editors making sure that they come down harder than the sources really support on the "everyone definitely agrees that he existed" side of the argument...
The earliest set of Pauline epistles have a consensus dating around 50, 20 years after the nominal death of Jesus.
The gospel of Mark has consensus dating to 70, 40 years after the nominal death of Jesus.
Multiple Jewish and Roman historians wrote about the existence of Jesus, who weren't all getting their information from the Bible. There is a long and well-sourced Wikipedia article on this.
...and Pontius Pilot was one historical figure we can prove exists. In letters from Rome telling him to stop genosiding so many Jews. We are supposed to believe that if this really happened, such a guy cared what the Jews thought, and would give them a choice on who to kill? Really? He would have killed Jesus, the other guy, and the crowd for good measure.
It's clearly written to absolve Rome of any guilt since they founded the religion and all of the source material is more likely attributed to Mithra and Simon Magus.
I feel like the stigma of sin is vastly overplayed when it's just an element of being human. Adultery and murder are the same as existing? Alrighty, almighty!
Valhalla seems pretty chill, I'll look forward to seeing you there... or maybe I'll go chill with my pa in the sky people's city. Honestly, I think I'd probably want to be an afterlife tourist... I wonder how early I need to book that.
You all can have your little LARP and potluck, but kindly leave the rest of us the fuck out of it. I get that the world sucks and thinking someone will give you cookies for taking all the shit rich folks pile on you day after day is appealing, but it's just excusing your own exploitation. I'm not about that life.