Reply #47: Modern secular scholarship has no problem with the existence of Jesus.

[megatherium]

But of course no one can prove the miracle stories, the resurrection in particular.

Jesus died about 30 CE. The earliest writings in the New Testament are those of Paul, who gives little information about the life of Jesus but who does claim that many saw Jesus after his death. (See his first letter to the Corinthians, which mainstream secular scholarship dates to before 60 CE.) We know from his writings and also the book of Acts (written by 120 CE) that Paul was converted to Christianity about 10 years after the death of Jesus. From this we conclude that the belief in the resurrection appeared very early in the Church, and was not a later mythological addition as commonly assumed by skeptics and atheists.

But in the modern world, it is not at all unusual for people to report seeing apparitions of loved ones after their death. It is difficult to assign any objective reality to such apparitions, but they are very common. I have no trouble believing that Jesus was a real human being, who taught his followers various things, who somehow provoked the Roman authorities into killing him, and whose followers became convinced he survived his crucifixion in some sort of spiritual manner.