dude, those christians suck!  they edited Josephus?

 Well I do see a lot of images of Christ on the cross everywhere, and the story of his resurrection and rebirth is a myth, as is the story of virgin birth and walking on water, etc., etc. as these are sacred stories open to interpretation, so hence the wording I used.

OMG, you are not really going to go here are you?

Tacitus wrote the "Annals" in 116 C.E., which was 80+ years after the supposed crucifixion.  That's not a historical account any more than if some writes about me 2 generations from now.

A historical account in this context is one that is written during the same time as an event.  (or at least very closely). 

Secondly, Tacitus was not witness to this "crucifixion" as he was not even born yet.  By the time he would have been an adult to make a logical decision as an adult on the subject, it would have be around 60 years after the event took place, and that's certainly not historically viable.

Lastly, and most importantly, it has been shown that his writing, at best, were questionable and were probably modified by the early church. 

So, the answer is, he didn't "lie", because he probably didn't write such things to begin with.

And how much do you know about what Constantine changed, as well as the 3 councils that determined scriptural cannon?

The Old Testament was already 100% complete by 300BC (Septuigant), so that wasn't modified at all.

Yes, Constantine's influence changed some things, but that resulted in the creation of the Catholic church. However, that doesn't preclude the fact that Catholic doctrine/praxis is different than that of Protestants.

Furthermore, I urge you to actually study the process of the 3 church councils on determining cannon. They were very strict with what was included in the New Testament, and their goals were absolutely counter to your argument of including myths.

The litmus test(s) for NT Cannon were:

• Early documents that were not written far after Jesus' death (many books/letters were canned due to this)
• Letters that were used by a large majority of churches to determine doctrine and praxis (majority rule)
• Letters that were void of mysticism/pagan practices, and false teachings (again, quite a few books/letters were canned)

All 3 points are counter to your arguments of historical accuracy - the church sought to maintain the best litus test(s) for what was defined as cannon.

And if you want - You can always read the Apocrapha, and pseudepigrapha that still exists. There is quite a bit that is intact from the 1st through 2nd centuries. Feel free to read it, but it's going to be either chock full of history (such as the 2 books of Clement, Shepard of Hermas) or very erratic in doctrine or mythos (Gospel of Timothy, Book of Enoch). I'd really love to see what you argue was included that dealt in pagan myths, given how much was written and left out of the NT in the first place.

We are talking about the new Testemant Stick, also if the councils were so stringent in avoiding the pagan myths, why did they decided to stick the resurrection of christ right in the spring? When Pagans celebrate the spring? They did that at the first council of Nicea.

"She told me that one of her little 8-year old cousins was walking around the house with an AK-47 talking about being a martyr. She was of course shocked, being that over here in the States, that would be considered child endangerment amongst other things.

One of her other cousins took her into a back room, and showed her a closet that was jam packed with rocket propelled grenades, assault rifles, and other weapons.

She said that she'd heard that kids over there started learning the ways of violence very young, but that she had no idea how serious that accusation was until she saw it with her own eyes.

Long story short, she told me that it was her first and final visit, and that she would never go back, because it was just too frightening."

ur friend is telling u that her family members are extremists and I'm telling u a family like that would never welcome anyone like ur friend and allow her to visit her because simply they wouldn't think of her as a muslim

that was my reason for not believing her , anyway you r right I shouldn't have called her a liar because she might not be ,

for that I'm sorry again,

now about the education thing , let me tell u what I know :

I have Palestinian mates living in Palestine and they are currently with me, we are studying in the same college-I'm in Egypt right now-

and I agree there are extremists families that agree on killing innocent people everywhere just like the one ur friend described -except for the weapons part because it's just not like that and it's not that easy-

they do believe that Israel has nothing to do in palestine , they do believe in fighting for freedom , they are ok with targeting Israeli civilians and think of it as a "defence and a way to free Palestine" and they hate America -for obvious reasons-  , all these things are driven by anger generated from the pain they lived through , and that anger doesn't need eductaion it's part of their lives

Palestinian kids grow up in an enviroment just like the one u see on tv these days , no food supplies no electricity no proper education and they are convinced that Israel is the only one to blame , again it's not education it's part of their lives

I think u got bored from all the stuff I wrote , so finally I'll tell u what I think as a muslim who doesn't believe in loving other people just because they are from the same country I am from ,who believe that we are all humans and should be loved and hated by what we do not where we are from, I'll tell what I think should be the solution is:

killing innocent people is WRONG but fighting for freedom is not , Palestinians do grow up in unhealthy enviroment but I don't blame Israel alone for that,

other arabic countries should interfere and stop the miserable situation there and save Palestinian from them selves , why arabic countries? because they started this war together and they have to finish it in peaceful ways, Other countries can help too, but we can't blame them if they don't because every Country has its own problems,

they should talk to Hammas, make them step down so they can start building Palestine from the begining and not to forget getting the palestinian what was theirs in peacful ways, arabic countries have oil and they can be a powerfull voice that can solve problems with peace ,

that was what I think the way things should go but sadly , that won't happen because the arabic presidents are too busy stealing , frightening, giving us the shitiest education on earth and shuting us up so they can keep their positions and their money not to forget sparing some time to hate each other ...

so simply it's not gonna work , believe us when we say we wanna be better , we wanna share building this planet but we can't because our presdints don't want us to do that.....

lol I wrote too many things and it took a long time and I might be wrong or right , may be I'm too stuipd to think that way :)

first bolded part : thanx , I was worried about that :)

secomd bolded part : I used the dictionary once to find the word "extremists"  hehe :D

Ok. So we've thrown out:

• First hand accounts of Jesus' death and crucifiction
• Second hand accounts of Jesus' death and crucifuction
  
• Historical accounts of Jesus'

How many more documents are skeptics going to strike? There ARE first-hand accounts. They're called the Gospels, ya know?

The argument is a very difficult one to argue, I think, on either side. Either you accept the actual first-hand accounts which are very pro to what the argument is (that a man named Jesus Christ was crucified around 33AD) and the related accounts (such as Tacitus), or you throw virtually everything out the window in favor of 'historical accuracy' yet it's an impossibility to get historical accuracy at that period. I don't believe we've ever seen manifest documents from that era concerning names & home addresses for victims of crucifictions...Did we?

Also, you argue that 'it has been shown that the documents were probably modified by the early church' - Who said that? The large body of scholars agree that the work wasn't edited, since Tacitus was rather anti-Christian in his work, and referenced the actual burden of blame that Christians did indeed burn down Rome - to agree with Nero's accusations. So then we either believe that Tacitus' had words inserted from the church - including convincing arguments against Christianity, just to further some sort of general reference to Jesus in a work that has helped build the foundations of understanding history at the turn of the common era.

Wrong stick the Gosepels are not first-hand scholars agree that none of the apostles wrote the gospels, in fact that they were written well after the apostles died and were written by people who never knew Jesus

 There are no first hand accounts of Jesus, only dubious second hand accounts

The celebration of Easter has absolutely nothing to do with the legitimacy of the Bible. Easter is a tradition practiced by the church, and is outside of what the Bible states about Jesus' death, burial and ressurection - since it states that it happened acccording to Jewish calendar dates, and not the Julian calendar. Jesus' death was/is attributed (as per the Bible) on the 14th of Nissan - which has absolutely nothing to do with pagan celebrations, does it?

And going back to the source of the argument - You were initally arguing that the Bible itself was incorporating pagan myths. Now you are arguing that the church celebrates specific events on pagan days - which I fully agree with. Christmas is the same way.