[quote=@DarkwolfX37] "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. [/quote] I'm going to need your sources because these statements are false. Yeshua = Jesus and Apollonius = Apollos, an early apostle that has (I believe one) source that wrote about him outside of the Bible and isn't considered reliable. But if you want to argue against the existence of Jesus in the first place, you have an uphill battle because that fact is [i]widely[/i] accepted by historians. I'll quote this webpage that has dozens of sources listed: "Virtually all New Testament scholars and Near East historians, applying the standard criteria of historical investigation, find that the historicity of Jesus is more probable than not,[4][5][6][7][nb 1][nb 2][nb 3][nb 4] although they differ about the beliefs and teachings of Jesus as well as the accuracy of the details of his life that have been described in the gospels.[nb 5][13][nb 6][15]:168–173 While scholars have criticized Jesus scholarship for religious bias and lack of methodological soundness,[nb 7] with very few exceptions such critics generally do support the historicity of Jesus and reject the Christ myth theory that Jesus never existed." Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus I mentioned that Jesus is a translation of Yeshua. Same as Yahweh or Jehovah, as you noted. The four gospels were written within thirty years of the death of Jesus, which, from a historical perspective, is a remarkably short time period (I remarked on all of this and more in my long section). None of the texts attributed to the apostles have any evidence that they were written by anyone other than who is thought to have written them. Finally, if it's annoying, let us settle it. You have a misconception that the canon varies wildly from sect to sect. However, the core canon of 66 books (which was widely accepted by the early Church as the biblical text with very little variation, save books such as James and Revelation) is widely accepted among virtually every denomination and with perhaps one or two additional texts that are considered by some to also be a part of scripture (and by very few individuals as well—you may point to the Apocrypha, but that's even sectioned off in many Bibles that contain it as a "Hey, we aren't sure about this" book). This notion that the biblical canon is not well established is ludicrous and has no foundation when taking Christian theology into question.