There can be no convincing. Accepting Jesus Christ is a matter of faith. Even if I could convince you that he was indeed God and I think that we could do a credible job, it would prove nothing. Skepticism does not allow anyone who does not want to believe to be convinced. As long as anyone is determined to be a skeptic then he will just nay say for the sake of it. If you have seen then Monty Python skit, the Argument Clinic, it is like that.If you were capable of making the leap of acceptance on an intellectual level, it still does you no good. Many people believe that Jesus existed and are not Christian. Many people who call themselves Christian believe that he was God, but that in itself does not make them Christian. One becomes a Christian through having a personal relationship. One has to desire to be changed before one can change.I was an atheist for thirty years before I came to an intellectual acceptance that maybe I was wrong. Once I was ready to challenge my own presuppositions then things began to happen. I did not become Christian on my own. God began to act in me. He convicted me of his truth in ways that defy description. To the outside observer, my faith would seem to be irrational. Anyone who knew me at that time would never use those words to describe me.The Holy Spirit is what convinces people. He works inside each person. Anyone who cares to discover God finds him in unlikely circumstances and places. Some people look all their lives and never discover him because they are looking for the wrong thing.Jesus Christ was a real person. Even Jews do not deny his existence. They had the most to gain by proving his existence to be a fraud. It would certainly have been worth their while to make the case that you are proposing.Can we prove irrefutably that he really existed? What would you accept? There were no birth records. There were many witnesses, but since you discount his existence then you can discount their existence as easily. The case against Jesus' existence is far less believable than the one for him. If he did not exist then there was a plot that existed for centuries before. Things about his life were written in prophesy by David. Read the 22nd Psalm and you will read a description of a crucifixion. It is written in the first person. David was never crucified. Not even close to it.Jesus is an unlikely hero. He is counter to Jewish tradition. Yet despite his humble origins he is shown to lecture to teachers of Jewish law on the law and to quote from the Bible without the benefit of any formal education. This is just plain illogical in so many ways. If anyone is going to concoct a story and expect it to be believed then he will at least try to make it plausible.The place of Jesus' birth and the circumstances of his birth were prophesied well in advance. The new covenant which Jesus introduced was predicted by Isaiah and other prophets. The Holy Spirit and gifts of the Holy Spirit were mentioned by Amos and other prophets.One could take the position that the writers of the New Testament knew the facts and were trying to write things to fit the prophesies of the past. This of course would assume that they knew the facts in the first place. Nobody had a Bible then. Only certain people would have that knowledge and they would have to have a reason to do it. Since these were Jewish prophesies then it mean that a body of Jews would have to have a strong reason to betray their own religion. This is an interesting theory but it defies logic.The Romans would have had reason to bring Christianity into disrepute as well. Any false stories circulating would certainly be corrected in order to maintain stability and stamp out trouble. Christianity was seen as trouble too because it stirred up the Jews so much. The first copies of Christian letters began to be circulated around 60 A.D. They were translated and copied by hand. They were distributed throughout the Roman empire. If a conspiracy did exist it would have had to start before this time. To suggest that it was none afterwards is impossible since there are copies in existence in more than one form for most letters and the Gospels. At this same time, Jesus is mention twice by name by Josephus in the history book, Antiquities of the Jews. Notice this is Jewish history not Christian. One of these is the Testimonium Flavianum passage in which he confirms several details of his life and death. These details also began to appear separately in the first Gospels and Epistles which were starting to circulate when this was written.He called Jesus a "wise man" and a "doer of wonderful works". He was "a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure." It says that he "drew over to him many Jews and Gentiles". He mentions Pilate and his crucifixion. He mentions that his followers persevered and "are not extinct at this day" (bk XVII, chapter II, section 3). Flavius Josephus was not a Christian but a Pharisee. He also gives an account of the death of James, "the brother of Jesus the So-called Christ".In 112 A.D. Cornelius Tacticus a Roman historian and governor wrote that "Christus, the founder of the name [Christian] was put to death by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea in the region of Tiberius: but the pernicious superstition, repressed for a time broke out again, not only throughout Judea, where the mischief originated, but through the city of Rome also" (Annals XV 44) as his explanation for the persecution of Christians by Nero. He also confirmed many details given in Acts, Romans and the gospels. Suetonius wrote the Life of Claudius in 125 A.D. and mentions similar details.Pliny the Younger wrote about Christians in 112 A.D. He spoke of them as people who met in secret before the sun came up who pledged themselves to be honest and to do good deeds, praying and singing to Christ as a god. He says in his Epistles X 96 that they refused to bow to the Emperor Trajan or to curse Christ even under extreme torture. He said that Christians loved truth at any cost. Are these the sort of people who would believe or spread lies?Lucian of Samosata wrote that Christians worshiped Jesus, "the man who was crucified in Palestine because he introduced a new cult into the world" in The Passing Peregrinus. This brings us to the writers of the New Testament. Matthew was a tax collector, not a Biblical scholar. He could probably do numbers well, but he would not have had the kind of education necessary to commit the kind of forgery necessary. He lacked a motive since it was in his best interest to continue to please the leaders of the time and not make waves. Mark was a youth who traveled with Silas and Paul. He was not present. Since the other gospels weren't written yet then he would have to have a source for his information. He probably did not have the expertise or knowledge to pull of a scam of this nature. Luke was a doctor. Neither Mark of Luke met Jesus personally. He had the skills, but no motive. He also was a Gentile and therefore had no access to Jewish teaching.John was an Apostle and like Matthew he had direct access to Jesus and was present for the events they describe. He was also the son of a poor man and he did not have the education to pull off an elaborate hoax.Paul wrote nearly half of the New Testament. He had the skills and knowledge to pull off a scam of this sort. However, he was a self-professed persecutor of Christians. He vilifies himself by his own testimony. He was a respected Pharisee trained by the foremost Jewish scholar. He was a man of good character and high standing in the Jewish community. He of all people had no reason to participate in a scam. It was against his best interests, his character, his family, his traditions, in short, it was against all of his training and class.Peter was a simple fisherman. He had no training in the Torah or access to the documents necessary to scam the public. James was the half brother of Jesus. He was a carpenter's son. He had no skills or training. He did have motive to elevate Jesus' name. But if Jesus was a fiction then so was he.So what are we left with. A bunch of nameless people got in a room. They were Biblical scholars and therefore Jews. They invented a person that would attempt to bring down their own religion. They made him humble and insignificant so that nobody would notice their playing with the facts. They made this person travel widely though and be seen by great throngs of people. I will ignore this contradiction. They used the names of well known people of great position and status including King Herod, the various governors of Rome at the time, the chief priests and leaders were all named hoping that none of them would raise an objection. Perhaps they did it long after they were dead, but how did they get hold of Jewish and Roman records?Finally, there is the lack of motive. Why would person let alone a cabal of like minded persons concoct such a fantasy? There was no money to be gained. The people were dirt poor. The Romans were bent on stamping out all religion that competed with them. Persecution and horrible death was the result for thousands of people. This was all done before the Bible was pulled together and Rome converted to Christianity. I have visited the catacombs in Rome. You can see the piles of skulls. There is independent Roman documentation confirming the mass killing of Christians after Rome burnt in 70 A.D. Being a Christian was a bad thing at that time. Before this early Christians were persecuted by their fellow Jews who saw them as apostates. They were driven out of town, stoned and separated from their families, friends and jobs.Then there was the fate of the Apostles. They all died nasty deaths except John. Interestingly this was predicted in the Gospels by Jesus. If Peter existed then he knew that he would die for his beliefs. They all had lots of reason to turn on Jesus. Early Christians had lots of reason to recant.It is easy to look back with 21st century eyes and see things differently. We see a church grown fat and opulent. We see that someone can gain personally through professing to be a Christian. It was only this way in recent times. Being a pastor or priest often meant doing without. It was never seen as a way to advance oneself. There were better ways.At a time when everyone can own a Bible or has the information at his finger tips courtesy of the Internet, we can fall into the trap that it has always been this way. Knowledge was always an elite thing until the invention of the printing press and universal public education. Believing that the Bible is a work of fiction by over one hundred writers written over many hundreds of years all working for the same purpose, to deceive, is hard to get my mind around. They had secret meetings and had large departments cross referencing and cross checking facts. They gathered all documents into one place from all across the known world at the time and destroyed and altered information that could disprove them. They were so thorough that nothing could slip past them, even the Dead Sea scrolls. The fact is that when the Bible was written nobody envisioned it being what it is today. Each person was doing his own thing in isolation. Nobody read what the guy ahead of him wrote. There was no Bible in existence to want to add to it. What tied it all together was the Holy Spirit. He is the unifying thread to scripture.Nobody saw Christianity becoming what it is today. They met in homes and markets. The had no books, no songs, no money. They worked at other jobs and often gave up well paying jobs and possessions. Their future was uncertain at best and bleak at worst.If it was built on lies then it would never have lasted and thrived. People were under tremendous pressure to conform. They bucked the trends of the times and faced persecution and painful death. These things seem obvious to me. People have been trying to prove the Bible wrong for centuries. They said that the Bible's facts were wrong, but in every case it has been proven to be correct and history has confirmed what the Bible has told. From the Tower of Babel and writings about Babylon, everything written in the Bible has proven to be true. People doubted the story of the exodus, saying the Sinai was a desert, but archeologists have confirmed that thousands of years ago the Sinai was not like it is today and people lived in the Sinai. Inscriptions have been found telling of the famine in Egypt and sending emissaries to Joseph (called by name) for food. The Bible is not just a history book. The Bible has much science in it. The Jewish calendar is based on the lunar cycle. It is as accurate as current atomic clocks. Our calendar in comparison has been amended many times. The Jews have used the same calendar for millenia without the aid of telescopes, observatories and astronomers.Voltaire predicted that Christianity would not exist in 100 years time. He too thought that it was based on lies. Yet, today the church is bigger and stronger than ever. It outlasted Communism and will grow in Communist China to the point, when in a few years time, the average Christian will be Chinese. Persecution and accusations of being based on lies have never stuck to Christianity, despite people like Voltaire who heaped scorn on it.People look past everything. They are attracted to the simple truths that lie at the heart of the Bible. They are the same simple truths today as when they were first written almost two thousand years ago.Some people dispute even historical records. Christians take things in total not piecemeal. One may be able to dispute parts if so motivated, but in total it is a very compelling case. If you are really stubborn no amount of evidence will convince you.Like the Dead Sea scrolls much information remains clouded in dust, hidden from the public. One passage in the Dead Sea scrolls written between 200 B.C. and the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. talks about the Messiah who was crucified for the sins of all mankind. It says he was the leader of the community who was put to death. This does not appear in the Bible. It is independent. It is also contrary to Jewish tradition which sees the Messiah as a ruler who will rule forever and never die. The passage calls him a "shoot of Jesse", a "branch of David". It uses the curious words "pierced" and "wounded". The Jews were great believers in genealogy. Had the Temple not been sacked and destroyed we would have the kind of evidence that would be irrefutable. Unfortunately we all have to piece things together as best we can.