Hawkpeter

Yet another apologists throw away one liner (one day we should have a poll about what single apologist claim is the most annoying) is, "we have more evidence that Jesus exsisted than we do that Julius Caeser did".

What are some good sources of evidence that I can start with to wager JC over JC?

Johann_Kaspar

Well, such a claim is pretty ridiculous. And not very interesting from my point of view. Is it really worth discussing with such apologists?

To start with Julius wrote at least one book, which is usually the first text studied by the pupils following Latin courses. Ans - as far as I know - that book was not subject to massive deletions, additions and modifications...

Steven Carr

If you want to wager, you can wager the contemporary coins with Julius on them against the contemporary coins with Jesus on them.

And then consider how likely it is that the Roman Empire had no Emperor for the time Julius reigned, and that nobody mentioned this fact.

That would be the biggest conspiracy of all time.

Kilgore Trout

There are no accounts of jesus that were written while he was alive. This is probably the best argument for a mythical jesus. Nobody writes about jesus until well after his supposed death. Historians would not take any person too seriously if he wasn't talked about until long after he was dead. All the extra-biblical accounts that I know of are just short mentions like that he was crucified by Pilate. Since they were written after the gospels, there is no way to know that they were not just parroting what christians believe instead of doing actual research.

The Evil One

This claim is balls. Richard Carrier has a good summary:

http://www.infidels.org/library/mode.../indef/4b.html
(section entitled: Julius Caesar Crossed the Rubicon, but was Jesus Resurrected from the Dead?)

Basically: assuming for the nonce that Jesus existed as a historical individual, the evidence for any given event in the life of Jesus consists of the Gospel of Mark.

One dodgy biography (which may actually not be a biography at all but a literary parable of some sort) written 40 years after Jesus died.

For Caesar, we have things he wrote, things his friends wrote, things his enemies wrote, and things written about him by important contemporary historians. We also have his coins and assorted other physical evidence.

There is, in short, no comparison. One was the greatest man in the known world. The other was pretty much a nobody. The amount of hard evidence we have for their lives is commensurate with this evaluation of their comparative importance.

Al Kafirun

Imagine if Caesar or George Washington or anyone of historical relevance wasn't acknowledged for 100 years after their supposed existence and then only by people who couldn't claim to have known him personally. Imagine if more than half of the facts presented about them was on the whole proven fictional. Imagine if 97% of what was written of them contradicted itself. Imagine if their lives were on the whole concerned with magic tricks. Yada, yada...

spin

As has been noted there are numerous coins issued by Caesar and people study his literary/military records, but for hard core evidence, as the significance of coins can be lost on people who don't think much, there are statues of Julie which fit the descriptions we have of the man in ancient literature down to indications of his health problems. A few examples of such statues can be found here. People who can't see very far past their noses can usually relate to such things. One can see the altar dedicated to him (built by Augustus on defeating his assassins) in the Roman forum. Of course one needs to contemplate if there were no Caesar then Gaul wasn't conquered and the country never came under Roman control, so the French don't speak a romance language (ie one based on Latin).

The basic argument your antagonist proposed is one of an ignorant person who doesn't really want to be contradicted, so is there much point in doing so?


spin

Rhaedas

I'm no scholar of Caesar, but another difference that I would assume is probably true, is that the various sources that talk of him probably for the most part agree on basic facts, ie, there's consistency.

Roland

What I love about the Caesar site is how honest it is. Notice this quote:

"Gaius Julius Caesar was born (by Caesarean section according to an unlikely legend) of Aurelia and Gaius Julius Caesar, a praetor. c. 85 BCE: His father died, and a few years later he was betrothed and possibly married to a wealthy young woman, Cossutia."

"..an unlikely legend...possibly married to..."

When's the last time you heard an apologist use phrases like that when describing Jesus?