Still going to keep throwing this in because it needs to be done in combo with what you said.

I think it is great that people take the time to walk down the Yellow Brick road with believers. I do.  But there still is are facts of science, outside arguing history that fly in the face of the bible. The story of Jesus, while only second to the god character, is not the only story in the bible that makes fantastic claims and scientifically absurd claims.

Genesis alone is an absurd book full of scientifically absurd claims. The two stories of Jesus that are most important to Christians are the birth and death of this alleged character. They can only reduce those two stories to metaphor if they still want to cling to them. But at that point, if they do, it ceases to be a fact and can there would be no need to believe the Jesus character as anything more than a mere mortal, which Jefferson himself thought.

I value this double team because it serves as a constant reminder to the believer that they cannot simply pull us into that book and think that that is all it will take to convert us. They can do that all they want but that will never change that their book is not, nor ever will be a science textbook.

So Luis, it is not to steal anyone's thunder or sidetrack because BOTH are important arguments. On the issue of history you still cant have George Washington fart a Lamborghini out of his ass simply because we can prove his existence.

My personal take, and the take of most non apologist historians is that you can only say that a movement started shortly after the alleged period of the claimed Character. It is obvious that someone marketed Christianity as a new toy for those in the market for their hero to show up in their life time. But there is no truth whatsoever to claims of virgin births. And there never was or ever will be the possibility of a human escaping rigor mortis.

Even today, bad claims are still sold in new age garbage, I heard Larry King say he didn't believe in an after life but wanted to be frozen, so in the future they could bring him back to life. The jerks who sell this junk, if they wanted to be honest, should only sell it as a way to study disease and death. Once the cells die freezing them will never make it possible to reverse the damage to the individual cells or the change to the atoms that will happen. When Larry King dies, he will stay dead, freezing him will never create the ability to reverse the damage done.

So history, while important, and should be debated, there will always be the 8000 lb elephant in the room in the form of fantastic claims.

I agree, I just wanted to focus on one simple inconsistency in the historical record.
However, you did mention one of my favorite points of contention.
I consider myself a bit of an expert on the effects of death, putrification et al...
I worked as an Autopsy Technician for a number of years and I've been involved with literally hundreds of post mortim procedures.
I can state with absolute certainty that dead is dead. The process of cellular breakdown begins almost immediately. The little benign bacteria, roughly 1% of the total body mass begin the process of breaking down the body's tissues. The blood starts pooling in the lowest parts of the body, and rigor, the release of toxins which cause the stiffening of the muscle tissues begins. Rigor goes away after a day or so. After 1 1/2 days, in a warm environment, the body would be bloated and the skin would be a grayish black.

He wouldn't just get up and walk away...

LC >;-}>

Come on now, you forgot their trump card, "Poof, God did it". You got a problem with magic tricks? He's all powerful. Why is that so hard for you to swallow? You're not one of those people who lets pesky things like reason and science get in the way?

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Only if the person was well nourished before death.  During the Civil War Confederate corpses often would not bloat or blacken while a nearby Northern soldier would be.

It seems if you are near starvation when you die the body rots differently.

                  Around here I'm more known for my historical comments, but on this question I will fall back on the fact that I came from and married into a large family [lots of pregnant women] and grew up around people with medical degrees [Mom and a sis + their friends talking shop] to point out the most blatently absurd part of the crappy story.   No one puts a teenage girl, 9 months pregnant!!!!!, on a donkey for a 100 mile trip over rocky hills [no roads] from her family home FOR NO SENSABLE REASON!!!!!!  Roman census takers didn't count and didn't tax teenage Jewish girls.  TAX collectors didn't care where you ancestors came from, they just collected taxes where ever you ARE, same as today.

110% absolutely, on the money correct!!!!!
 

LC >;-}>