It is and of course it's the familiar debate about God, Bible Jesus and Christianity. The atheists says 'I don't believe any of it; convince me'. The Believer (and I can't see inside their heads
) says: "What would convince you?" Joey Nodhead saith 'Evidence'. Sherlock has opted for the 'What evidence would convince you?' gambit. This is not too hard because scientific and historical evidence (since we all know God is not going to give TV interviews) is what we look for and we have already debated these away. That the theists believe the signature of God in the Glacier and the reliability of the Jesus - story at least, even without Personal Experiences, is no longer enough because science has a natural explanation (in fact hard evidence for it) and serious doubts about the Bible that the fact it exists is no longer enough to make it stand as good evidence.
So, Sherlock's point about why we can't believe Jesus but we can believe Spartacus. Sure George Washington and Julius Caesar won't do as we have so much hard evidence for them. Even portrait busts of Caesar. If we ever had doubts about Pilate, the inscription has put those to bed, even without Josephus and Philo. Ok, so Spartacus is another matter. We have only a written account (or so I suppose). Why do we believe that and not Jesus?
It's a fair point and it brings up the whole question of assessing history. We can hardly doubt Alexander even though he reads like a fantasy tale and some parts (the Gordian knot) do sound legendary. I mention the Jugurthine war which sounds a perfectly credible history, until we get to a Roman army short of water praying to a Numidian god for rain and it rains.
The thing with Spartacus is that there is no obvious reason why the tale should have been invented. It could be a tall story to frighten the Romans so they'd keep the Gladiators under supervision and increase the funding to the army.
It could be. But is there any real reason doubt it? I don't recall any hard to swallow miracles. The burden of proof rather in one someone who doesn't believe it.
Now Jesus has for long been accepted as a historical figure, but the claims of miracles don't help. I don't myself use the 'miracles don't happen' argument as Jesus was a one off- that's the point. I also see evidence (principle of embarrassment) that suggests that the Jesus story was real, even if parts of it didn't suit the writers, so they has to Edit. And that's where my doubts come in. The editing becomes obvious when one writer roundly contradicts another. I know the Bible apologists excuse them and edit it themselves to make it work (1). Of course it doesn't matter if the believers refuse to accept the rebuttal and just stick to the excuse - that still doesn't convince the atheists and that's what arguing for the Bible is supposed to do.
Excusing the synoptics not having a spear thrust does not make a case for the skeptics to credit the story; all it does is enable the believer to cling to Faith that the story is credible. It's the old story of where the burden of proof lies.
It's quite remarkable how often a discussion intended to convince me ends up with them refusing to be convinced by me. If they deny all the evidence and cling to Faith they somehow seem to think they won, though they haven't produced a convincing case to persuade me. And I do try to give their evidence a fair whack.
So sorry for the length and I could go on more, but this argument for why we can believe some rather doubtful old histories but not the Gospels requires some explanation.
(1) I have to mention the 'Marys split up' apologetic to try to try to get over the contradiction of Matthew by Luke, even though the Bible itself refutes that.