THIS BLOG IS NOW CLOSED.
The bottom line is that the Suetonian sentence in question apparently used originally the word "Chresto." Combined with the facts that Christ was never related as having been at Rome, that the phrase "Jesus the Good" evidently does not make its appearance until the third or late second century at the earliest, and that the word chrestos was used to describe gods and many other figures in antiquity, doubt is cast upon the value of this passage as providing any evidence that "Jesus of Nazareth" was an actual historical figure.
Moreover, the fact that Suetonius called Chresto's followers "Judeans" or "Jews," rather than associating them with the "Christians" or, rather, "Chrestians" of his Nero passage, tends to negate the idea that the Roman historian is referring to a historical "Jesus Christ." The evidence points, rather, to another individual or, more likely, their tribal god, Yahweh the Good, as the "Chresto" of Suetonius's Jews.
In summary, the "Chrest" under whose instigation at Rome the Jews were revolting could have been their Lord God, called "the Good" or chrestos in the Old Testament. No "historical Jesus of Nazareth" would be needed, and we may retire this purported Suetonian "proof" from Christian apologetics.
[Ferguson] ends up showing that in fact the number of references to a historical Jesus in that 150-year window that aren’t just in Christian propaganda is actually 3 or 4, and those all obviously derive their information from Christian propaganda and thus the number of independent references in this category is, well, zero. But more impressive is his demonstration that the number of literary references to Tiberius in that same window is not 10, but a whopping 43 (and thus Habermas and Licona missed a whole 33 literary references to Tiberius–if only we had that for Jesus from non-Christian sources!), and then of course, um, there’s all the other evidence: inscriptions, coins, busts, architecture, papyri. Which is kind of a big reason we are so sure there was a Tiberius.
The evidence for Tiberius, in other words, is vastly better, in every conceivable way, than the evidence for Jesus. So the 10/42 apologetic gets a decisive smackdown here. I’m sure we’ll never hear of it again.
In
regards to The Godless Delusion, I
am a little over half-way done with it, and I can confidently say that it is
one of the absolute worst books I have ever read on the subject of religion and
atheism. The authors of the book possess a profound ignorance of the issues
regarding the debate over God's existence. The first 50 or so pages are devoted
to essentially insulting atheists, demeaning them as godless twits who
understand nothing. The book is filled with insults, bad arguments,
quote-mining, fallacy-rich assertions, and unsupported claims. These are, of
course, all hallmarks of bad scholarship, and it's puzzling to me how anyone
can possibly take this book seriously. I debated over whether or not I should
even include a link to this book's Amazon page, since I'm honestly not sure
anyone should read this book for fear that it might poison your mind with bad
information. But the way I see it, most atheists should be able to see through
the garbage it spews out, and even more logically thinking theists should see
through it also. What I expect (and really want) out of a book like this is a
rational examination of atheist arguments so that we can all have a rational
discussion. But you'll find none of that in this book.
As
for Answering the New Atheism, I’m
only a couple chapters in, but already I can see that this book thankfully
contrasts strongly with the aforementioned book. This book appears well
written, contains well-articulated arguments, and attempts to address atheist
arguments in a more respectable way. While the authors of The Godless Delusion make
it quite clear that they are preaching to the choir with their book, the
authors of Answering the New Atheism are
clearly trying to talk to atheists as well as theists. It’s a reasonable book
that so far seems to make logical arguments against atheism. While I have
already found several errors in the arguments presented in the book, I’m
grateful that it at least presents its arguments rationally and respectfully,
devoid of the snarky tone and loaded assertions found in The Godless Delusion. I
plan on writing full reviews of both of these books when I have more time to do
so (although others have already done so. See here and here for examples). At the very least, reading these two books provides a good lesson in
contrasting good and bad scholarship. 
The
good news is that physicist Dr. Crockett Grabbe’s ebook National Swindle of the World Trade Center is now available on Amazon.com. The book is 7 chapters long, roughly 113 pages in length, and delivers
strong, responsible scientific evidence that the WTC buildings were brought
down with explosives.
