>>you make it hard to take you seriously. It is patently absurd to say that anything is "the ONLY conclusion … that can be reached" about this sort of thing.<<

Why do you all keep saying I'm not to be taken seriously but you're here arguing with me? If I'm not to be taken seriously, it must be because my argument is easily refuted. Then refute it.

As for it being only conclusion that can be reach is because that is the case. We can't say Josephus wrote of men that served as models for the gospelic Jesus when the men Josephus wrote of were his contemporaries and not those of Jesus. It is impossible then that Josephus could have served as the model. And yet, we cannot deny the remarkable parallels are there--too many to account by mere chance. Since the at least Matthew and Mark were supposedly already written before Josephus ever put pen to paper, we have a problem.

How did Josephus's later Jesuses get into earlier gospel narratives?? Because the narratives were written AFTER--they had to be--and then were backdated to look earlier because there is no way they could be earlier than by backdating.

>>And knowing that one will only be berated and accused of mendacious stupidity for having pointed out such an obvious truth makes it that much less likely that you will be seriously engaged<<

Then you're free to move on to bigger and better things.