Historical Jesus, Biblical Jesus

[Minimalist]

but what they didn't believe in was some Jew called Christ as being a god.

And damned smart of them not to.  But at least Tacitus knew Nerthus' name and not just a title.

I doubt the Romans could even accurately read or pronounce a name such as Yeshua, written in a non Roman alphabetic script. But the name "Christ" was not foreign to them. After all, it is Greek.   

Nonetheless, even Celsus seems to agree.

Celsus next makes certain observations of the following nature: "Again, if God, like Jupiter in the comedy, should, on awaking from a lengthened slumber, desire to rescue the human race from evil, why did He send this Spirit of which you speak into one corner (of the earth)? He ought to have breathed it alike into many bodies, and have sent them out into all the world. Now the comic poet, to cause laughter in the theatre, wrote that Jupiter, after awakening, despatched Mercury to the Athenians and Lacedaemonians; but do not you think that you have made the Son of God more ridiculous in sending Him to the Jews?"...

Celsus must have been quite the cut-up at parties!

The only reason I wish Jesus of the bible was real was so that he could resurrect Celsus, send him to the Bible Belt, and ridicule the Christians there.

But Celsus here is speaking against the claim of the Christians that Jesus was the "Son of God." He doesn't doubt that a physical man named Jesus actually existed as a mere human being. He accused Jesus of fabricating his birth to a virgin, and of being a mere magician.

Actually what he is saying is "what kind of an asshole god would send the Son of God to the jews?

Remember that in Celsus' day the jews had gotten the shit kicked out of them again and been tossed out of Judaea.

He has another great quote about that but I'm too tired to go find it now.