[georgespencer]

Finally, on the novelty of Christ's teachings: a frequent claim of the gospels is that what Jesus taught was divinely inspired (Jesus himself claims this in John 7), and the reaction of those who hear him is often of a people persuaded by his ideas.

Anyone considering Christianity's claims is of course interested in the novelty of its ideas. If Christianity were at least the first time we saw a self-evidently great idea being preached and adopted by the masses, it would lend some credence to the idea that Jesus was divinely inspired. In the absence f his saying anything novel, we have the tawdry claims of miracles and abiogenesis. Lots of frills, but zero substance.