I'm curious how you respond to the idea that Jesus didn't exist as a historical figure. The argument for this idea typically points to the lack of a first hand account of Jesus, with the first accounts appearing decades after his alleged death. That would make it a little difficult for the Roman authorities to provide evidence that Jesus was not supernatural.

Wikipedia has a decent overview of this at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_myth_theory

The idea that Jesus didn't exist as a historical figure is laughable and people who defend that idea normally end up tying themselves in knots. We have four independent eyewitness accounts, sometimes using the same sources, sometimes not, mentions by a Jewish historian, Roman historians and prominent sceptics - who by the way mock the nature of the resurrection, not the existence of the person. I guess it's kind of stupid to deny the existence of someone so close to the time they were around.

One of the "biased" sources - Luke - is widely regarded by people who know what they're talking about (like Sir William Ramsay who spent a lifetime digging up the Middle East) as the finest, most accurate historian who ever lived.

The fact that the first written accounts of Jesus appeared only decades after his execution is extraordinary to scholars of ancient literature who are used to dealing with gaps of many _centuries_, sometimes even a millenium. I can't remember offhand what the earliest copy we have of Tacitus is for example but I think it's a good 800 years after he wrote it.

When I apply the same methods of the Jesus mythers to Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Tacitus, Mohammed and even Abraham Lincoln, guess what? None of them ever existed either.

You need a great deal of hand-waving, special pleading and outright dishonesty to be a myther. Robin Lane Fox, who is certainly no Christian, is at least honest when he reads the account of John and concludes that it's an eyewitness account. Would that Dawkins and Price had the same integrity.

I have heard similar arguments before. There is no need to invoke supernatural causes. Maybe the authorities at the time made a mistake. Current authorities & governments make mistakes all the time.

It does seem like basing your view of the Universe on 2000-year-old bureaucracy is a recipe for disappointment.

It is not that they couldn't -- although the priests may not have been able to -- it's that there was no reason to. It's not like there were millions of Christians in the year 1. The Jews were very busy dealing with the Romans and not too worried about the ongoing impact of a dead Jesus Christ.

Keep in mind, too, that many Jews believe the rising again/son of God story in the bible was a myth, a parobal, and that it was not intended to be an actual rising from the dead.