"I tihnk it is very unlikely that a legend could happen with so many people already opposed to the existence of the person. Anything created out as a myth within the first 150 years would have been strongly opposed by those said people. Since they were strongly to discredit this "movement" in this the first century.
The problem isnt that legends can form, the problem is that in this specific case, the legend would have trouble rooting due to huge opposition that would quickly strike down things as false.
And I would only call that specific group, because it is commonly known that the 1st generation of Christians were being hounded by Jews because they thought this movement was blaspheme. (We can understand this by early letters written from churches., among other sources)"

You think that, but it's wrong. And we can't be sure about the whole "people opposing Jesus" thing. As far as I know, people cheered for him on Palm Sunday, and it's proven that the people who stood up against the Romans, were inspired by Jesus' ideas...
Also, I believed it was the Romans who hounded the first christians. Paulus for example was at least an assimilated Roman, rather then a jew.
As for the legend thing, you're thinking anachronistic. In that time 50 years was more then 1 generation. So, 150 years would make about 4 generations, without the modern communication and media we have today. So, we can surely claim that 150 years is well enough time to "start a legend".
To give you a lovely example, I'd like to use the "grave robbery" of Hubert Van Eyck. Hubert Van Eyck was Jan Van Eyck's brother and only a few decades after he was burried in the Bruges Cathedral (at that time the Sint-Donatius Church). They opened his grave and took the bones of his right arm, with wich he painted, to carry it around the city to praise "the blessed arm"..
His brother too was made legendary a few decades after his death, he was claimed to have invented the oil-painting technique..
Max Bloch, in his famous work "le roi thaumaturge" explains that every king was; by default, a living legend. A touch of his hand would heal. Although it didn't for ages, people still believed it..
To summarize: your whole "legend"- arguement is anacronistic and silly...

Spam - closed

"Now why would God exterminate the faithful and yet allow the sinners to escape death?"

What did he had to do with it then?

"keep your anti religous comments out of this thread then!"

I'm in no way spamming. I'm trying to get a dialogue going about the sense or nonsense of religion. What you do, on the other hand, is repeating a silly phrase over and over again; thus inside spam...

TYMO, stop spamming X(

An original text rarely survives, but very often, copies are made of it. Until 1500 there was no other way then to just copy texts by hand. In this process, there were always changes made, either deliberatly (sometimes copyers made changes to things that fitted them better) or by accident. a good text tradition implies you either have the original text or have a good idea of how it must have looked like (by using different copies).
When you just have some copy of a source, you can never be sure wether this is the original text, and thus your info is flawed. A copyer, defenatly when he felt connected to the subject (wich is always the case in religion), can always make changes to provide proof or whatever...

A good text tradition, and thus a good knowledge of how the original text was like, is thus most important when you discuss the content of it.. Without it, your source is useless..

"I think what i'm sayign is that within 100-150 years of the person dying I think is reliable data, because it dosent leave room for people to make up legends about such things. If they had, they quickly would have been called out because the events are still somewhat fresh in people's memories. Now there are a dozen accounts during that time period and if you consider that the Jews really didn't like this idea of Jesus, any account that was false about him would have been attacked thoroughly by Jewish Pharises and Sadduces, and would haev been taken as a hoax."

That's a seriously dangerous statement. I could name you thousands of examples of people being turned into legends just after their death, or even while they were still alive
Reliable data doesn't exist either. Every way of communication is selective and deforms the reality. Minds deform things as well, it's a well-known fact that your mind only remembers what you found important, and that little bits are forgotten and "patched" with little made up facts. This is an automatic process, you can't control it..
Another thing, I wouldn't go as far as calling them "the Jews" as a single monolithic group, and I wouldn't defenatly conclude that sources were or weren't attacked, you can only guess... Especially if you say that they really didn't like him, they can as well make things up to make him look like a sorcerer or whatever..

To summarize: we have 2 sources that weren't directly involved into the whole situation, and they mention a Jesus, how he was killed and that he inspired people (wich explains the political trouble of that region in that time.  That's where historical facts end about the man. When you go further, you can assume things, but they're not facts..
And this is where I reconciliate with Deci's statement: "there's no historical evidence of one jesus performing the things described in the bible. it's very common for religious people to shout "jesus was a historical person" and intentionally disregard that he was most likely many historical persons."

Rory Gallagher - Too much alcohol

"For instance no one would dispute that JFK was alive at one point, even though he's not today."

That's a very silly comparison, and you know it.
First of all, I never disputed Jesus' existence, I merely wanted to point out that sources are really scarse, and none of them inform us about what the bible says. Historical sources merely tell us he existed and was crucified, and that there was an uprising in the region where he lived, probably inspired on his ideas (even that can be  doubted). Nothing more nothing less..

Now, for JFK, we have tons of sources, starting with film/audiotapes, speeches, writing etc..

Just listen and talk to her. Men too often try to help by finding a solution, but in this case, she just wants someone to talk to..

At least, that's what I think you should do..

Yes, but I'd like to stress my point on the text tradition. It's beyond doubt one of the most essential things when validating a source..

"I think your incorrect in saying there are only 2 reliable sources. What makes them very reliable is the time when they were written, the reliability of the people who wrote them, and if that style written is consistent all the way through with that person (don't want fogeries).  A dozen of them were written in the first century . Some of the best known writers are Plinoy, Jocepius, Tacitus and Suetonius. I'm am unsure if there are multiple copies of them, but i would assume so, this is something I'll look into too (some of them were written as texts). I only know that the dating for them is very early and shouldnt be discredited due to lack of copies. If there were only one or two accounts this wouldnt be possible, but since there are a dozen reliable people writing about this man, in a way they corroborate the existence of Jesus Christ in history."

Suetonius made a compendia, that's merely a sort of encyclopedia of all known knowledge to preserve it from the barbaric people who were then invading Europe. So he's not a source on the matter of Christ..
Tacitus wasn't born when Jesus was around (or still an infant), so he's not really a source either..
Plinius is indeed a source, and so is Josephus..
And really, a text tradition is equally important as what you named. I'm studying history (medieval and early modern history), so I think I'm entitled to say that I know at least a bit of the matter of sources

"WFS, there are far more then 2 verifable reliable sources."

No, there aren't...
It's not that easy to find (historicly) reliable sources of roughly 2000 years ago. You'd have to find sources of wich you know both the background of the writer (or you have to be able to verify other not relevant facts he/she recounts) to check his/her reliability. Then you have to be certain that the text has a good text-tradition, wich means that the text we have isn't yet another copy... Preferably, you'd have several version of the text, so you can have an idea of how the original text might have looked like...