Tristan Scott

Yes, that's right. Especially if, as may have been the case, the Jesus figure was a small time prophet in rural areas during his short ministry. It's possible that after he died, as so often is the case, his legend grew, as did the followers and people started writing things down.

IMO, the parables themselves may be the best evidence for HJ. These little stories were at first probably passed around by word of mouth by followers, until later they were written down. They would have had to have essentially been unchanged once they were installed in the gospels as they would have had to be familiar to the followers who knew them from the oral tradition. I'm sure that they were probably interpolated with interpretations that would make them favorable to whatever dogma was being espoused, but the stories the stories themselves would have had to have been close to the oral tradition.

avi

Did you read post #24?

avi

Tristan Scott

Yes, I don't disagree with what you have written. If there was a HJ and Philo didn't write about him, it would probably be because he never heard of him.

aa5874

And if Jesus did NOT exist then it would NOT be expected that Philo would NOT write about a non-existing Jesus.

It is NOT known that people would write about an unknown non-existing character.

How can it be shown that Jesus existed and Philo never heard of him?

People who argue that Jesus did NOT exist have INHERENTLY predicted CORRECTLY that there would be NO mention of Jesus by CONTEMPORARY non-apologetic writers.

One cannot argue that Jesus did EXIST and provide NO credible historical evidence of his existence.

People merely BELIEVE Jesus existed and that is all.