Anyone care to comment on Joseph Atwill's contention that Christianity and Jesus was made up by the Romans patterned after Tiberius Flavius other than to say he was just capitalizing on writing books, is not a legitimate scholar and is a liar? Bart Ehrman disagrees with Atwill and states that as a bible scholar he, himself, is not a Christian.

One of the arguments is that Rome had other stronger enemies than the Jews and why would Rome address the Jewish population this way?

I think that it could conceivably have an effect at pacifying the Jewish population at the time to get them to pay taxes (render unto Caesar) and "turn the other cheek" whereas they had no control over the Visagoths, Gauls, Vandals and Ostrogoths.

Bart Ehrman stakes his reputation on the fact that there is a historical Jesus and Atwill is not qualified academically, to make his statements. He claims that historical evidence is conclusive by off hand and non-propagandistic statements made by such figures as Paul. He asks, "How do you know Julius Caesar existed since no one was around at his time to offer physical evidence of his existence?" In other words, we only have historical evidence to support claims of this nature.

The problem here for me is that history is often distorted by well-intentioned scholars who claim credentials. Case in point, the Schlessinger/Zinn controversy about American history.

Future historians will undoubtably dispute the historical scholarship of today.

I don't think Atwill has been dismissed as easily as some Christian scholars would like to believe. We do have physical evidence for the Holocaust and the subjugation of the American Indians by white colonists. None for the existence of Jesus.

The problem is, for Atwill and others, who is this Jesus? Who has the definitive character traits of him? Is the King James version of the bible totally reliable and if so why? This Jesus is enigmatic in the same way that any god appears except to believers.

I have an open mind regarding the existence of a Jesus but am not convinced that the evidence presented is sufficient to say one way or another. Whether this Jesus is a god is an entirely different question.

Why is all this important? Because in the US and other places, foreign policy is determined by "believers" who claim to know things others don't and they are in governments and are often influential politicians. These erstwhile leaders often put us into war based on pseudo-biblical prophecy and fanatical ideas.

Discuss.