live.fast said:
Either way though, I think I might research this one up! I've never really questioned Jesus, and I probably won't ever, but I'd still like to know; what are the most interesting materials you guys have come across on this elective? Or the most interesting historians?
I tried to look into it with relation to what I'm studying, but there's an inherent problem: "The Bible" as a collection of texts is the biggest piece of evidence for Jesus.
The main criticism most people have on the Bible is that it's all fabricated; recent studies show that most Australians dismiss most if not all of the Bible. However, we could effectively compare the Bible to some of the even more ancient texts like the Egyptian texts, which are seen as having some sort of historical basis. Why then do some people dismiss the Bible but not Egyptian historical texts, which are older and more unbelievable?
The basic problem is the historicity of the Bible, and I don't think you can enter the argument at the time of Jesus, it's simply impossible due to the problems outlined above. You really need to start as early as possible, namely where the Bible stops being aetiological and starts being historical.
Basically, I think if you've already made a judgement on the Old Testament, you will come into the historicity of Jesus debate with a skewed perspective. So, check out the OT issues. Kenneth Kitchen outlines the main arguments in his excellent book
On the Reliability of the Old Testament. Kitchen is pro-historicity of the OT, generally, but gives all the arguments a
very fair treatment so you can make up your own mind.
Once you've had a look at the OT stuff, yell out and I'll give you some NT references.