Genesis Veracity Foundation!

[dmallind]

72. Horsecrap

Plato: A huge number of confirmed writings, and some spurious and dubious ones that show he was a popular attribution during his lifetime and after; contemporary praise and criticism from coevals such as Aeschines and Phaedo; Direct reference from people who knew him as a teacher (a goodly chunk of Aristotle).

Jesus: No writings at all; not a single contemporary reference from anyone who saw him in life (and how much more noteworthy should have been a man raising the dead and healing lepers than an old man prattling about ideal forms 350-400 yrs earlier?).

I think you have your dribbling fundy talking points wrong. The usual Greek philosopher thrown up as a red herring objection to criticism of a historical Jesus is Socrates, whom we mostly know FROM Plato.

Yes it's certainly possible Socrates was, just like Jesus, an amalgam of idealized stories from multiple sources given a single name as they were written down much later. However, the number of people who base their real life and bet on an imaginary one based on the words put into the mouth of the cipher called Socrates is zero. Even his greatest philosophical fans are fans of the reasoning method and style he, possibly apocryphally, embodied. Not people who think he is their closest imaginary friend who will helo them cosy up to his dad and snuggle forever in the long sleep with the biggest Teddy Bear in the universe.