According to the OpinionJournal of the Wall Street Journal editorial page no serious historian of biblical antiquity has ever doubted that there was a historical Jesus.

So? Is the opinion page of the WSJ suddenly an authority on this topic?

Let's play along and stipulate that the WSJ has the magical power to know what people who died centuries ago were thinking. The next obvious question is: What convinces you that their knowledge had any relation whatsoever with reality?

D'A

Someone was probably real who stirred up some attention. His name almost certainly wasn't Jesus, as that's not even what I've heard most Biblical scholars say. It was probably something close. But saying "Jesus was real" really doesn't mean anything.

We know there were a lot of people stirring up attention at that time period and believed by people to be a messiah.

What about Appolonius of Tyanna who also did a whole bunch of miracles and seems to have been a nicer person than Jesus?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollonius_of_Tyana

http://www.chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/essays/incredible_shrinking_son_of_man.html

http://mama.indstate.edu/users/nizrael/jesusrefutation.html

Further research seems to show that many Biblical scholars believe that Jesus was neither real nor fake, but a compilation of the doings and believed doings of several different people.

The wikipedia article on Apollonius says that Edward Gibbon said of him, "we are at a loss to discover whether he was a sage, an imposter, or a fanatic."

Which is almost exactly the same as the quote from CS Lewis that inspired the claim that inspired this claim.

Neat :)

For the record, the news division of the wall street journal has earned serious cred. Almost all media watch groups and internal media groups in America consider the editorial division to be a right wing rag that lies, manipulates data poorly, and hides behind a thin veil of institutional credibility borrowed from its news division.

Paul Johnson, author of A History of the Jews, is quoted saying, "I doubt if there is any serious scholar alive now who would deny Jesus’ historical existence. Indeed, He is much better authenticated than many secular figures of antiquity whose existence no one has ever presumed to question."

That statement does nothing to support the credibility of the Wall Street Journal editorial page in general.

You've also typed the exact same words on three other claims.

So What?

Prof. Lawrence H. Schiffman lectures in

The Modern Scholar: Odyssey of the West II: A Classic Education through the Great Books: From Athens to Rome and the Gospels(Lecture 13),

that

"One of the best sources for Jewish historical information for the first century is the New "Testament, and in the case of Judea, The Gospels.

Rolls eyes at reference to religious texts as a "source of... historical information." Most of the Gospels were codified in the third century or later, based on translations and copies and oral tradition. The idea of any of them as primary sources is laughable.

The fact that some guy with a Ph.D says something does very little to speak to its accuracy.