Jesus was also a historical figure,

Prove it. Stop telling me what other people on JSTOR think, stop telling what your No True Scotsmen think, stop telling me how dumb I am, stop comparing me to other people. Back up your assertion with evidence.

s hard to proof that a random person from any historical time period existed,

Not my problem. You are making an assertion and it is not my fault that it is hard.

because most folks couldn’t read or write,

And?

but Jesus is independently attested in Josephus

He wrote his book series 40 years after the supposed events and the two passages that refer to Jesus are both forgeries. The first one is talking about a totally different James and the long one was expressing 2nd century Trinity ideas and gushes over Jesus in a way that no Orthodox Jewish person would.

We know that John the Baptist existed, w

Don’t care. He isn’t Jesus.

we know that Pontius Pilate existed

Don’t care. He isn’t Jesus. Stay on topic.

m not sure how you have a “pile of evidence” that someone did not exist, it tends to be very difficult to prove a negative. :)

Simple. No one can agree about the basic facts about him which is what you see when people are lying. Additionally even a minimum historical Jesus requires a precise sequence of events that involves multiple people doing unexpected things. On average people are average. Just for starters

• Why didn’t Pilat kill the rest of the Ministry?
• Where did the Ministry go after the events?
• How did they end up in Jerusalem somehow thriving and oppressed at the same time?
• Why did the Pharisee break their own rules about reporting Jews for non-violent crimes to the Romans?
• Why did the Pharisees simply use their secret police as documented in the Talmud to deal with James and Jesus and co?
• Why was Paul oppressing them to begin with and what was the nature of it?
• How the hell does a movement, a reformed movement, a counter movement, and a counter-counter movement form in 6months to 3 years?
• Why did Paul not go to the Jerusalem community after his experience?
• How did Jesus, a man with nothing, convince 12 people to give up everything for him?

You need to explain all this if you want your minimum historical Jesus and you can’t.

If you walk into any mainstream research university, and talk to their religious studies department, the idea that Jesus didn’t exist is very fringe.

Argument from authority, logical fallacy. Present your evidence.

That’s great the you did some passionate research in high school,

Personal attack. Present your evidence

but that is not enough to disprove the widely accepted academic consensus.

Argument from authority, logical fallacy. Present your evidence.

This isn’t “argument from authority” - this is peer review.

No. Peer review is the process where multiple experts review the work of other experts. What you are doing, dodging all requests for evidence, is argument from authority.

I don’t have the Greek or access to multiple manuscripts, so I have to rely on what they say - a

Sorry? Present your evidence instead of dodging.

and the fact that academics are always looking to disprove each other and get published.

Cool story bro. Present your evidence.

The historiography of early Christianity has undergone massive changes since the 1940s. (This is true for historiography across the board - my interest primarily lies in Ancient China, and the debate there is whether the Xia dynasty existed or not)

Not what I said. I said there hasn’t been a major document discovery on this topic since the 40s. Now present your evidence instead of trying to find a gotcha .

If you do want some academic support for a fictional Christ, you can try Richard Carrier or Bob Price (Price has a podcast!) Bob Price is absolutely insane but fun and he’s always very clear when he disagrees with consensus.

Cool story bro, present your evidence.