[quote=@Meta] 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. [/quote] I'm not saying that he didn't, just that there's only one real source that he did in any way even similar to the stories, ie being a religious teacher and not just some random guy who was sympathetic enough in the public to be made into the main focus after the fact. That's just false. Several of the apostles don't even have evidence that they wrote anything. The major ones in the bible do, I'm pretty sure Luke, John, and two other of the major ones actually have more evidence of existing than yeshua did, but a couple really don't. You're misunderstanding my point. I'm not saying that the canon isn't well established. You're right that around 50-70 books are incredibly common, but several of them as well as several that you wouldn't consider canon, the Apacrypha being a good example yes, are considered canon to a good number of sects. Then there's the "non-biblical" books, the ones considered canon by a sect even though they aren't printed as a part of the bible as a book. You also say "early church" but I don't think you're referring to that correctly. The "common" books were compiled together and given canon status relatively recently, and there were at least two major events since then that have notably changed things. Keep in mind that a huge chunk of christians use the KJV, and it was specifically re-translated, altered, and in some spots recompiled in order to be better sounding and easier to sell to people. Your thought that somehow all christians have this same pool they use just isn't right. Much of it is the same across all sects, you'd be hard pressed to find a christian who doesn't consider John to be canon, at least for the most part. But even with the common books, interpretations, and therefor what the canon is for all intents and purposes, varies WIDELY. If you want to talk specifically about the physical books in terms of canon, yes, you are about 90% correct. There are about 60ish books that will show up almost every time. If you want to talk about what they [i]follow[/i] as canon, which is generally what I refer to, then there's a wide bell-curve to keep in mind.