Have you been giving this some thought or just every once in a while for some reason something pops in your head for no reason that gets you thinking?

Off topic - do you know about BelAire?

Seriously dude? Seriously?!

If you have to believe something and cannot accept the possibility of it being wrong, DONT JOIN A DEBATE ABOUT IT. You have NO PROOF that the crucifiction even happened! Also, Jesus was crucified with a theif and another poor bastard, meaning that it wasn't exactly a special event...

I never claimed that there never was a guy called Jesus! Keep up with the conversation please. I claimed that the Bible probably has not accurately recorded whatever this Jesus fellow actually said as it was written much later and from poor sources. Understand??

And yes, philosophers and historians alike are fully aware that Plato's use of Socrates may not be an accurate or even truthful representation of Socrates. So go figure what historians think about Mark, a guy who never met Jesus, worked in bits of the Odyessy, and oral accounts of events...

Surely that would go to the most followed religious figure? And I think you'll find that's Buddha.

And Buddha actually existed too. Bonus!

Now I think you're actually reasonable (except for the last sentence which is a little presumptuous).

I just have to protest a little that you're moving the goal-posts from making a big issue about the "Bible compiled 300 years after" and Constantine's involvement. With that out of the way I have no problem discussing the topic you present here - how to interpret the Gospel authors in the context that they're not first-hand accounts.

The approach to this topic is complex though (no matter if you're a historian or a Christian). You have to keep in mind things like:

* the context after the death of Jesus, the situation of the early Church in the decades after the death of Jesus. What if they were busy surviving and spreading the word rather than writing an official account of the life of Jesus? Most likely they had memory notes here and there but apparently not a universal document.

* analyze the text - are there internal evidence (dates, places, Herod, Augustus, Pilate)? What's the style? Does it seem to be written by someone with an agenda? Is it down to earth and not afraid of specific details or hyperbole and allegorical?

Just an example: if Jesus was more or less a myth (and Paul this myth's main architect), why are the Gospel writers accurate and in agreement on all the theological themes but often contradict each other on lesser things that a typical eye-witness several years after the events would be unsure about (such as: did Jesus hold 'the sermon on the mount' on a mountain or on the road near a mountain? who saw the resurrected Jesus first, Peter or the women?)?

In the 30 years between Jesus death and the writing of the Gospels there undoubtedly was room for some errors and contradictions to creep in, but the essential themes seem to be very well preserved and trustworthy.

I am not an expert on the historical reliability of the gospels and I'm not good at presenting it but whenever I study the topic I discover an ocean of evidence and methods to approach it.

Btw, I've never heard of the Mark vs Homer relationship, but I can say that in general when I've studied the claims that Christianity is largely derived from Greek philosophy I haven't found any convincing arguments for it.

I really hope you are this cynical about everything... Especially evolution from single celled organisms and the big bang theory.

I'll clarify now as a lot of people seem to be mistaken on what I am saying:

A guy called Jesus most likely existed. However, we don't accurately know what he actually said, and therefore to attribute someone who we don't really know what they said as being the most influential human being is absurd. 

Well as for the Gosepl writers it looks like Matthew & Luke both used Mark as a source, ergo they are going to agree to a large degree with him...The Gospels weren't written 30 years after his death, but about 40, and that was just Mark. 

Mark: ~AD 70
Matthew & Luke : ~ AD 75-100

To give it some pespective, imagine asking someone in 1985 about WWII, who was most likely a relative of someone involved in it, prior to photos, large postal systems etc...

It really is a throughly interesting topic and I'm not trying to dismiss the Bible, but just acknowledge what is, or more preceisly is not, known about it. Many Greek stories share similarities with Biblical stories:

Homeric tradition. Some stories, such as that of "Legion" in Mark 5:9 ^[20] (paralleling Polyphemus ^[21]) and that of the woman with an alabaster box of ointment in Mark 14:3-9 ^[22] (paralleling Eurycleia ^[23]), may be based on Homer’s Odyssey according to Dennis R. MacDonald and Richard Carrier. ^[24]

Same goes for the Garden of Eden and Prometheus. 

Yep. And science holds true for them and has done more good for hummanity than anything else, and will continue to do so until the end of time. Which science has proven will happen. How awesome is that?

Blind belief is dangerous. Analytical skepticism is not. 

Yes, I'm a Christian.  I've simply pointed out how you are wrong in your claims.  generally accepted by who? liberal scholarship?  who are these great scholars/historians that you are referring to?  People make up theories all the time, it doesn't make them true.  I don't know of a reputable Christian scholar who claims Constantine edited the bible.  In fact, due to haveing over 5,000 manuscripts, we know it didn't happen.  There were numerous manuscripts already in existence in all parts of the world before Nicaea even took place.  Evidence of an established canon wasn't even until 367 AD in Athanasius easter letter.

What are the key ideas that your referring to?  Do you know the historical setting the church was in leading up to Nicaea?  You do realize that Nicaea was used to ratify what the majority of the church already believed.  We know for a fact that Constantine didn't have anything to do with altering Christian doctrine.  There is not a shred of evidence to prove otherwise.  If Constantine had anything to do with the Nicene Creed then the christian faith would be Arian not trinitarian.  He died an Arian and his closest bishop eusubius was an ardent propent of Arianism. But it didn't triumph because the church rejected it from the beginnning, before Nicaea even started.  The Arians were in the minority by a longshot.  The dilema, as I referred to earlier was over the nature of Christ, was he ομοουσιος or ομοιουσιος?  In overwhelming support they voted for ομοουσιος, the already understood belief.  Constantine called the ecumincal council due to the controversy surrounding the issue.  He wanted the church to be unified.  All theories stating other wise are made up theories/stories and can't be proven.

Let's cut to the chase as I'm fed up of playing the fucking professor here.

As a rational human being who has hopefully been taught the scientific method, are you telling me that a book that consists of stories that were written around ~40 years after the events (and that's the first source, Mark, whereas the others were later so I'm being charitable here) from oral sources whilst being merged with other famous works at the time is a good, fair and accurate portrayal of the life and works of Jesus? 

If so explain what a bad source of information is and how the above is not that. 

Strawman much.

Who is the most influential person in the world: Oprah, or me? Everyone is going to pick Oprah.

But up some decent alternatives for most influential person and you'll get a real choice.

Obama - too recent to even see if he has a lasting influence, he is disqualified.

Greg Johnson, Elvis, shakespeare, gibson? - That's hilarious that you're even naming musicians/writers of 'for the masses' entertainment. No, entertainers are not influential.

I'm not even convinced that Franklin was America's most influential political figure, but I do not believe that at any point, the timeline of America would have been significantly altered by the removal of any one man. [Edit: Clarification, by man I meant American political figure]

Oh, and I hope you are not confusing the Muslim God (Allah) with the Muslim human prophet, Mohammad? Regardless, I think that considering all the recent superpowers have been Christian of some description (Spain, France, England, USA, Russia), we can assume Jesus is more influential


Marx? Now here's finally someone that a) has had influence on the world, and b) we can observe it. We can attribute to him the rise of soviet Russia, which of course caused the success of the allies in WW2, and then the development of the cold war afterwards. Obviously, that influence we have attributed to him is much more significant than Europe being Christian instead of Jewish or Muslim, which they would have been otherwise - if it weren't for Christianity, people would simply have latched onto whatever other story helped assuage their fear of death). So yes, assuming you believe that the Russian revolution would not have occurred, or would have occurred in a very different direction, your one decent candidate takes the gold.

So now that I've knocked down pretty much all your candidates (and seriously, it is a very annoying debating technique to strawman someone, please don't do it in the future.), who else do I think was more influential than Jesus?

Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Isaas Newton, Alan Turing all have a much more significant impact on our lives today than Jesus ever did. Arguably the same could be said for Maxwell, Planck, Faraday and some astronomers

Political figures? Hitler, Stalin, Napoleon for starters, the rise/fall of Rome was due to too many people to put someone down for that, same with Britain and the USA. Arguably Khrushchev too.

The thing is, if Jesus didn't exist, we would be sitting at our computers, discussing a thread about how "Mohammad is the most influential person ever". If many of the people I mentioned above didn't exist, we would have computers by which to have this discussion, for a few of those people (Stalin, Turing, Marx), I wouldn't be part of this discussion because I would have been executed as a homosexual, nor would there be any Jews, Black people or any other of Hitler's 'undesireables'.