[quote=@Legend] According to most historians, this is incorrect. The part that may be considered "fiction" by historians who do not believe in the legitimacy of the Bible as a source of spiritual truth is depictions of miracles, but the overlying accounts, as a whole, are considered reliable and accurate. Yeshua is just the Hebrew spelling of Jesus (the name "Jesus" is an English translation) and if you're referring to Apollos (as it is written in most modern versions of the name) was an early Christian at the origin of its premier as a religion. All writings about Christ directly were written by eyewitnesses, while all writings supposedly about Apollonius were written over a hundred years after his death by Philostratus and are not accepted as legitimate Christian literary canon. You cannot take gnostic or other external texts and argue against internal consistency or legitimacy as it is not part of the canon to begin with. [/quote] "You cannot take gnostic or other internal texts..." Uhm... I wasn't using them to argue against the canon, just to point out examples of characters being based on real people. If I wrote a story about Jaden Smith saving the world, it would be historical fiction. Further, you can't claim legitimacy based on religious texts. Of course they're going to say that they're true. Your first statement is simply false. There are two mentions of yeshua in secular sources, and the one that would give the most legitimacy to the scripture stories is widely believed to have been altered for the purposes of doing so, as there are many inaccuracies in it compared to other historical records. The other simply mentions that there was someone by that name who was crucified around the same time period as the story claims. I'm talking about appolonius, one of the many other supposed messiahs who had people claim they performed miracles. The same miracles as yeshua is described as doing, in large part. "Jesus" is technically a roman translation, for the record. Much like "Jahovah." Several of the apostles' writings have been dated as written many years after the death of yeshua, and in some cases the death of the supposed apostle, including ones that claim to have been written at the time the events happened. There are several apostles and writers that have no secular confirmation of their existence. Not once did I mention the canon of any sect of christianity. I was talking about it in terms of the way the stories were written, not whether or not christians believe them to be accurate. Beyond that, you really can't say "legitimate christian literary canon" because what is and isn't canon varies greatly between the sects and denominations. This has been a point that has been brought up between us countless times, and it's really annoying when you do that.