How do you respond to claims in books written by unbelievers that there’s no historical evidence for the existence of Jesus and that Christianity is just another version of the savior myths that were part of so many ancient societies?
I don’t bother with things like this because they’re so obviously untrue. They pander to people who have refused to believe and are looking for any excuse they can find to justify their position. There’s probably more historical evidence to prove Jesus is who He claims to be than there is to prove you are who you claim to be. For example, there are 5,686 Greek manuscripts in existence today for the New Testament, thousands more than for any other ancient text. Because the copies are so numerous, they can be cross checked for accuracy. This process has determined that the internal consistency of New Testament documents is about 99.5% textually pure. In addition there are over 19,000 copies in the Syriac, Latin, Coptic, and Aramaic languages. The total supporting New Testament manuscript base is over 24,000 manuscripts. Can you provide that kind of documentation for your existence?
As for the mythology, the earliest man knew the truth about our Creator and His plan for our salvation. Those who rebelled created the mythology, which is simply a distortion of that truth. These people are asking us to believe that the lie came first, when both history and logic tell us that the truth preceded the lie. What is the likelihood that in the age before long range communication, so many of the mythologies of the world would be so similar? This could only happen if they all sprang from a truth that every man once knew.
I may be stating the obvious here, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to take the word of unbelievers about the legitimacy of our belief.