Reply #14: There is a mountain of Biblical evidence that Jesus did NOT exist

[NAO]

Put most simply, the earliest New Testament books, the Pauline epistles, do not talk about a "guy" who walks around doing stuff and saying stuff. The are worshiping a spiritual Christ. They never mention any biographical details - other than the crucification and resurrection of Christ - no miracles, no sayings, no geographical / historical mention.

The church fathers that crafted Christianity deliberately placed the Gospels BEFORE the epistles so that when the epistles were read, people would associate Paul's heavenly "Christ Jesus" with the fictional character in the stories.

If all of the documents from the 1st and 2nd centuries - canonical, apocryphal, christian apologetics, and secular history are scrutinized carefully, it becomes clear that not only is there no evidence that Jesus ever existed, but there is compelling evidence that he could not have existed, or else just about every Christian Writing before Justin Martyr (150 CE) and these between Justin and Ireanaeus (180 CE) doesn't make sense. After Irenaeus, they "got" the story straight, and stuck with it. That was the point of Ireanaus' writings.

Further, if you examine the Gospels closely, every detail in story of the life of Jesus - every "pericope" - will be seen as a reworking of an Old Testament story thru the process known as midrash.

Extensive research, details, documentation at The Jesus Puzzle
http://www.jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/home.htm

There are a slew of websites and books which have gathered evidence and made the case that there was no historical founder to Christianity. I select Earl Doherty's "The Jesus Puzzle" because I think it has the most compelling, comprehensive argument.