Let’s imagine you’re a historian looking at the rise and fall of belief systems. You see empires that tried to stamp out early Christianity—Rome, with all its power, executing believers, burning texts, using state force to crush it. And yet, within a few centuries, that same empire adopted the faith. History is full of movements that were suppressed and disappeared without a trace. But Christianity didn’t. Its persistence against overwhelming odds, its spread not primarily by the sword but often in spite of it, that’s a pattern that makes you pause. My opponent will likely point to contradictions or historical criticisms, and some are worth discussing. But if we’re trying to disprove it, we have to explain that pattern. Why did this specific set of claims, about a crucified teacher in a backwater province, outlast the philosophical schools of Athens and the imperial cults of Rome? You can’t just explain that away as good marketing or political convenience, especially in its first three brutal centuries. History doesn’t repeat, but it rhymes—and the rhyme here is of a movement that consistently survives its own announced death. Trying to disprove it by picking at textual details ignores the massive historical footprint that demands an explanation. The burden isn’t just to find a potential inconsistency; it’s to account for the whole enduring story.