3 bad arguments for the existence of Jesus 

I remember a friend of mine tried to argue that the New Testament was unreliable because the gospel writers didn't describe what Jesus looked like. They wouldn't be wasting their very expensive ink and parchment to describe something that doesn't matter in comparison to the the good news he preached. The title the video made me remember that.

im glad that you show that there are bad arguements that you disagree with, some people will use anything, even without evidence just to help their cause

Mr. Horn, I recently purchased your book Made this Way, and it is definitely a good read. By the way, I suggest making a video about bad arguments against homosexuality. Thanks in advance

Top stuff Trent. A Christian with bad arguments can be as bad as an atheist with good ones.

Trent, I'm reading Hard Sayings right now and I would love if you did an episode expanding on your view of Noah's flood. It would be a very interesting topic.

Thank you for your work Trent , you're like The Sesame Street of the catholic apologetic , so educative

Love your work Trent! I pray God blesses you and guides you in your mission! Though, as a history buff and general buzzkill I just have to point out that Caesar was never crowned emperor, the first emperor was his adoptive son Octavian

I myself use the Justin Martyr (First Apology) reference to the Pilate letter to Tiberius, but I am extremely careful to say 1. We don't have the letter itself, and mention the forgeries 2. That Justin, a Roman lawyer, is telling Emperor Pius "look it up in your archives" is pretty good secondary source evidence of some document that did exist but has long been lost.

Thank you for your strong scholarship and sharing it in ways that we can easily digest and with integrity that allows us to trust what you teach. You have helped me so much!

People are so critical about Jesus but they would give less critical assessment for other religious figures like Siddhartha the Buddha, Mohamed, or ancient philosophers like Socrates or Confucius whom I believe do not have that many, some might not have any, authentic written testimonies or biographies by eye-witness accounts about their lives and teachings.

I disagree that the Cesar/Alexander/Jesus comparison is immediately a bad argument. For instance, if said mythicist says that they don’t believe Jesus is real because of the claim of demigodhood or divine ancestry, wouldn’t the best subversive respond be to ask “do you believe that Caesar or Alexander is real, Caesar is descended from Venus & Alexander is a secret son of Zeus, if you go by their written biographies?” or is that still a tactical error from your perspective?

I get what you mean but Christians would call Jesus a man (taking on human nature), though more than a man. It is interesting how the Josephus passage's meaning can really change depending on how one interprets it, and a rather negative strain can be in there somewhere. I agree so very much that it is important to use good arguments! Online, though, you don't know what you're gonna get. Not to say that being printed makes an argument any better.

Yo Trent I am telling Al Kresta you’re talking about him 😁🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

Thank you for a well-argued video and, as far as I could see, an interesting RU-vid channel. As a Catholic, I enjoy rational explanations of why things are how they are in the church. . . . I had a small comment. @18:22 you ask: "why didn't the disciples of the first Christians, those mythicists, why didn't they fight the heretical historicists later in church history?" I agree that the mythicists would have fought the historicists and that both sides would have written about it. It could be that none of the mythicists' writings have been preserved, because their writings were not considered worth to be preserved by the prevailing historicists. But do we see anything of the fight in the writings of the historicists? Another video pointed to verse 7 in the second letter by John (2 John 7): "For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist." That could be seen as the author of 2 John, a historicist, fighting against mythicists who denied that Jesus had come in the flesh, as real human being. . . . I watched the video in a RU-vid series on the question of mythical versus historical Jesus by a non-believer, the channel Fisher of Evidence. The author tends overall to the side of historicity but gives the mythicists many strong points in some questions. (To myself: I differ from you in my view on Genesis (all mythology) and on the exodus (mostly mythology, maybe some legend), but I certainly confess the historical Jesus as our Christ and savior.)

A more apt comparison would be that we have more evidence for Jesus than we do for Socrates or maybe Plato.

I love your character as an Apologist to provide criticisms for bad arguments which defend your position.

Again a great little video. But I have to explain ways, we can use two of those arguments in a good way. Of course there is more evidence for Caesar. But there are a lot of historical persons from antiquity we have less sources and evidence for. Solon, Sokrates, Boudica and Arminius for instance. Using Caesar is a way to discredit this argument, because most people know of coins, monuments and buildings (e.g. the Basilica Julia and the Regia, both on the Forum Romanum) connected with Caesar. We can explain, that the original argument had nothing to do with Caesar and that he is used to discredit a good argument. It can be shown in different ways, that the Testamonium Flavianum was changed. There are even different versions of it. This makes it a very strong argument, that there was such a Testamonium in the original writings of Josephus. They only could change it, because it was there. Of course you have to know enough about philology to understand this, which makes it an argument not for every discussion, but not a bad one.

Great video Trent! Can you do a video about the evidence for Jesus being buried, some deny that Pilate would allow that and I have not seen apologist tackle this issue. Thanks, God bless!

13:47 Wouldn't this be an argument against Mary's perpetual virginity, if he had a brother?

thanks Trent

Great Video, sometimes we can do more damage to using poor arguments than an atheist can do with a good one.

Thanks!

I’ve heard Gary Habermas say there are more ancient citations for Christ’s Resurrection in 33 AD than for Caesar’s crossing the Rubicon in 49 BC, that seems to be a different, more persuasive claim than the “existence of Christ vs Caesar” argument debunked here

And the argument about Caesar, you cited Tim O'Neill for Julius leaving an autobiography, and I thought it was the very partial one for which we have so late manuscripts, Bellum Gallicum and Bellum Civile. I think you mentioned that you left a link to his response on quora, but the link is now not in the description. I then realised, the "autobiography" was that not of Julius Caesar, but of Caesar Augustus. And the autobiography is "monumentum Ancyranum" - the most complete stele being from Ankara, and the (presumed!) original in Rome destroyed. It was presumably not even raised by Augustus but after his death. It's not on par with the Gospels as evidence even for Augustus, let alone for Julius. Again, it is not about how much evidence was available in 50 AD, but how much is so now.

I saw another video on that supposed letter from Pilate to the emperor. It makes for great entertainment but it seems obvious to me that it's not genuine so I agree with your position on it. For one thing, as I understand it, Pilate was not on good terms with the emperor. Therefore, one would expect Pilate to choose his words carefully knowing they could be his last. He would not have spoken about Jesus in such a favorable light and I would also expect any letter that he would write to be short and to the point. He probably would have said something to the effect that he executed an insurrectionist per his standing orders or something along those lines.

10:52 _"we have found no such reports at all"_ We don't have those archives any more. Tertullian did. Btw, those archives would obviously also be including lots of now lost proofs for Julius Caesar. Now, Tertullian mentioning Pilate's letter is a very good parallel to people like Velleius Paterculus or Tacitus with Suetonius (both preserved, but around a gap of non-preserved historians - except Synoptics are preserved from the time of this gap) mentioning Caesar from the same archives.

What is the definition of a mystic in all religion in general? I sometimes see music called "mystical Jesus prayer" or like "chant of the mystics" and most of that content seems christian or orthodox but I don't get it. I think my friend called me one long ago

12:37 "Lentillus/Lentilius" is very fairly using Renaissance canons of descriptions of persons, ancient authors usually didn't do such.

Around time stamp 18:00 you mention the argument of silence however as Richard Carrier points out in 2Peter they must have been battling a mythicist movement by this verse ““For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.” There’s no reason to mention this unless some in the church were beginning to believe Jesus was a myth

I like Josephus is interesting, because he says no Books of scripture came After the days of Ataxerxes. Ezra, Nehemiah, Malachi. Nothing after those days. Sirach says the same thing. So does Philo. Melito got his determined definition of books of the scriptures inquiring in Israël. And Jerome got his talking to the Jews. And Martin Luther got his canon from Reading Jerome.

I like the letter of Pilate. It's a nice work of fiction. The one I found claims that Pilate met with Jesus before he tried Him and asked Him to be more gentle in His discourse, lest He be attacked and/or killed. The author does a neat job of imitating Jesus' speaking style in the Gospels....

Hey Trent, I know you probably won’t see this so if anyone knows that’ll be great. I get into a lot of arguments with atheists, particularly with mythicist who think Richard Carrier represents all historians. I know that most scholars and historians agree that Jesus was historical and that a very small minority are mythicist, but I don’t have a source that can show that information, is there some kind of poll or any source that shows the percentage of scholars who believe Jesus was historical, or at the very least a source that confirms the consensus? Thank you.

How come your debate with Jay ist here? Or mentioned?

1:26. Jesus was strongly NOT based on previous mythology. These are one of the false opinions many skeptics hold. I don’t think any respectable PhD person actually believes this. This is very wrong. It is cherry picking and twisting characteristics of some mythical characters into the New Testament Jesus character and seeing a link. The “God of Wine” Greek comparison to Jesus is the most hilarious. Just goes to show where people get their information.

Meier is on volume 5, not 4. Apparently the 6th will be on the trial and death.

there exist an aramaic copy of josephus without the interpolation

15:09 Josephus could have given the story as told by Christians _without stating how much he agreed._ Up to the destruction of the temple, as you mentioned earlier in the video, things were somewhat less clearly limited between Christians and Jews. Josephus can have been a sympathiser (he had to get an imperially paid lawyer to get him accepted among Jews at one point) without being fully Christian too. Or he could have stated all of these things with some réservations of a nasty type that a Christian copyist left out as blasphemies. Or he could have wavered. Orthodox credit him with being a hagiographer of IV Maccabees (which they consider canonic).

I think there are about ten scholars who do not believe in the existence of Jesus

Is there anyway you can provide a rebuttal to the gnosticis who claim to be early Christians of that time and even today claim Jesus as theirs because of the nag hamadi texts

I'm a former believer and friendly to mythicism and I think this was a good video. I will agree that the James the brother of the lord issue mentioned in Galatians and the born of a woman/born under the law are tough ones to get around. There's also a verse where Paul says "for once we knew him in the flesh". There are solid answers around these by Richard and bob price, but they are not 100% conclusive. Paul's silence and other descriptions of the heavenly christ are the key reasons to propose mythicism in the first place tho. In the end I think the question is 50/50. I think the Josephus testimonium is more likely 100% inserted and any reconstruction is arbitrary. The other reference may be stronger, but it then refers to a Jesus shortly later who became high priest(which the christian Jesus never did, so again this could be the christ/anointed referred to earlier). Fun to think about but I tend to think there no smoking gun on either side.

Trent I have never heard about this, please respond to that guy’s tiktok

Trent Horn, did I get you right, you said, on the authority of "nearly all scholars" that Jesus was a _marginal_ Jew? Would you consider that Martin Luther King and Elvis Presley were marginal US Americans, just because they were not Presidents or Cardinal Archbishops of New York? Or are you referring to "marginal" as in fact little known? Then you are contradicting the Holy Spirit: *And fear came upon all their neighbours; and all these things were noised abroad over all the hill country of Judea.* [Luke 1:65] *And the fame of him was spread forthwith into all the country of Galilee.* [Mark 1:28] *And the fame hereof went abroad into all that country.* [Matthew 9:26] *And after these things the Lord appointed also other seventy-two: and he sent them two and two before his face into every city and place whither he himself was to come.* [Luke 10:1] *And the seventy-two returned with joy, saying: Lord, the devils also are subject to us in thy name.* [Luke 10:17] *And the one of them, whose name was Cleophas, answering, said to him: Art thou only a stranger to Jerusalem, and hast not known the things that have been done there in these days?* [Luke 24:18] *Ye men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you, by miracles, and wonders, and signs, which God did by him, in the midst of you, as you also know:* [Acts 2:22]

3:18 The argument you try to denounce as inadequate is not "there was more evidence for Jesus than for Julius Caesar in the first C. AD" but "there is more evidence for Jesus than for Caesar Julius left to us now" - and the relative positions of Our Lord and Julius Caesar in 1st C BC Rome and 1st C AD Palestine is not relevant to that. It's more a question on which community was best at preserving evidence.

What good are the best arguments of the people being argued are opinionated lazy people that think everything is subjective and based on perspective. They always ask what is truth. Notice these people never want to make a claim on their foundational beliefs and are roundabout and coy about opening up. Trust is a big factor in having someone open up. These people are very distrustful. Willing to take any side as long as it opposes. Seemingly rebels without a cause; far gone thinking themselves clever under all their masks of grey.

Josephus was quoted by an Arab writer of the x century, it seems that is version is without interpolations, I'll leave the citation directly from the scholarly article about the subject. 6At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus}6 His conduct was good,11 and [he] was known to be virtuous.1 * And many people from among the Jews and the other nations19 became his disciples. Pilate20 condemned him to be crucified and to die.11 But22 those who had become his disciples did not abandon his discipleship.23 They reported24" that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion, and that he was alive; accord- ingly25 he was perhaps the Messiah26 concerning whom the prophets have recounted21 wonders.'2 *

Those might not be the best arguments, but they are certainly not "bad arguments".

What do you think of the supposed Jesus, Yeshu, references in the Talmud?

Does it really matter the Jesus Of the Bible does not exist he did not walk on water, He was not crucified and he was not resurrected. Even the bible disputes itself as to his birth. Was there a Jewish Rabbi called Jesus quite possible it's a common name but who cares he was not the son of god born of a virgin all this stuff is copied from earlier religions.

IMO the worst argument, and only because it is so common among bible-only christians, is "The Bible says so."

Isn’t the best argument against the Jesus Mythicism “pfft teehee he’s a Jesus mythicist”. And quietly move away from the person who took Zeitgeist so seriously.

0:55 - 1:08 Opponent's expert: WRONG (You called them experts) Our expert: DING DING DING, CORRRRECT!! Because we have more....experts)

Name one tenured professor of history who questions the historical existence of Jesus. They will tell you there is much more evidence for him than for Julius Caesar ! No sense. Better stick to attacking what people believe about Jesus🙄

Forty-two SECONDS in -- 0:19 - Incomplete definition of Mysticism. 0:32 - 0:39 - "certain atheist communities online" (Begs the Question Logical Fallacy + Argumentum ad Populum = LAZY) 0:39 - Appeal to Authority/Education Logical Fallacy. Then again, your title does deal with BAD ARGUMENTS.

Stop dying your hair. (Fear me not, there will be more)

1:14 Only a handful of "relevant Ph.Ds" say our Blessed Lord never.... And YOUR argument JUST gave credibility to "relevant ---- Dude, JUST STOP. You are not helping ANYTHING at all.