What evidence do we as Christians have that Jesus is real?

[tampasteve]

For the lack of any other starting point I don't see how it could be argued that Jesus didn't exist. How does one explain Paul's conversion or the Apostles actions and motives? Paul in particular is a problem because of his education and actual presence in Jerusalem where Jesus was. Was he in on the scheme as well?

The simple and best answer is that Jesus existed and started a ministry.

The people that outright say he did not exist are largely composed of people that won't accept any degree of evidence for his existence; in general they have an "axe to grind" for some reason. Even most atheists and the most vociferous anti-Missionaries (Rabbi Tovia Siger) believe that he was a real person that that the Gospels at least teach some truth (born in Nazareth, etc.).

The "proof outside the Bible" thing is largely a layman's requirement. The Bible IS a historical document. I used a label from an Anheuser-Busch beer bottle from 1910 for an argument in one history paper and the fiction book Look Homeward Angel for an argument in another paper - historical documents in both cases. There seems to be this idea that historians look at history and make some kind of black & white decision. If a document is proven true, it is history, and if it's not proven true it's not history. History doesn't work that way.

100% agree. Most scholars, whatever side they are on, do tend to agree with the Bible as a reliable document. Whether they believe the claims is another matter, but in terms of history it is reliable.

First of all, there's no infallible method for defining which documents are true and which aren't. There is no magic number of facts needed to corroborate a historical document. Historians use documents created by forgers, liars, myth-makers, all manner of people.

Very true, especially in relation to ancient documents. The very genre of history as a "science" is new. It has always been a mix of myth, reality, and otherwise interesting ideas.

With that said, at the moment very few (maybe a handful) of professional historians doubt Jesus' existence. Where the crux of the disbelief comes is in whether Jesus was the Christ, and that is a question history can't answer.

Yep, which is actually all the more reason that believers need to seek out those supporting sources too. We tend to get easily swayed by cheap and unresearched claims by armchair Atheists and anti-missionaries. The information is there, we just have to look for it too.

All the stuff about "Jesus didn't exist" comes from tinfoil hat wearing, alien chasing, misguided individuals. One of my favorite websites is by an atheist who goes into great detail to debunk all these people: An Atheist Historian Examines the Evidence for Jesus (Part 1 of 2)

He does an excellent job, despite being an unbeliever.

haha, I agree.

So, with that tirade, let me come to my point:
1) None of this is directed at you personally, @tampasteve . I agree with much of what you said. History can be a great comfort and support to our faith, but it will never prove our faith. I simply used your post as a starting point.
2) Don't play the unbeliever's game. If you agree to prove Jesus' existence using only extra-Biblical evidence, you've lost before you started. They know what you're going to present. You're going to start talking about Josephus, Tacitus, etc. And the unbeliever will be ready to tick off the reasons why none of those sources count - none of those reasons being based in professional historical method.
3) Don't give up the high ground. The Bible IS a historical source. That is not a claim that history has proven every word of it to be true (belief in the truth of the Bible comes from elsewhere) - history never does that for any source. The point is, don't surrender that position.

I agree 100%. As I said above in this post, the difficulty is that we are generally discussing with other armchair theologians and apologists. They don't want to do the real research that could shake their foundational beliefs. So, we must be versed in both the biblical and extra biblical evidence.

 

[Landon Caeli]

Is there any ?

I don't believe there is any evidence, no...

...For some, believe it or not, evidence is not a necessity.