Graham, as you know I have great respect for you research, thinking and writing. You will not be surprised that I disagree. Jesus could not be the incarnate Son of God, the Anointed One Messiah fulfilling the hopes and prophesies of the Jews, nor the embodiment of the Greek idea of logos, the rational and expressive principle of the Deity, if he did not live.
I have read a fair amount of works that have alternative explanations for the phenomenon of the emergence of Christianity and believe I have as honestly confronted the controversial challenge that you pose to traditional Christian believers such as myself. I am not the one to debate you or anyone of the historicity of the basic beliefs of the faith, but I agree with Matthew that while our faith goes beyond facts and proofs, the facts are crucial to the faith.
You quote an impressive list of alternative writers and thinkers. They must stand against 2000 years of questioning and scholarship. I know it is easy for doubters and skeptics to dismiss all the studies, research, rational thinking, and historical inquiry that has maintained the facts of the faith in place for two thousand year, dismiss based on the control of the priesthood who simply conspired to maintain power. Perhaps.
The historicity of Julius Ceasar, you would agree, is without question. Same of Socrates. The historicity of Jesus has never been seriously questioned and the string of alternative voices you have spent a great deal of time exploring are very much in the minority. It raises an interesting question. Why?
Going against the overwhelming support for an established fact is either an exercise in attention getting or a heroic attempt at finding the truth. In the first category, it is an all too common exercise today, the "man bites dog" phenomenon. One does not clicks by saying "here is evidence for the historical Jesus." But to say the opposite is, as you recognize, controversial and controversy sells.
On the other hand, perhaps these alternative voices are honest people seeking truth, even as Einstein did when he said, oops, Newton didn't have it quite right. But Einstein's wild and crazy idea that upset all we thought we knew had to be backed up by solid evidence. Without that, it would have remained an intriguing idea that would be lost in the dustbin of man bites dog stories. So, let's see the proof.
There is a difference, however, in the Einstein example and the fake Jesus evangelists. I consider the evidence for the Holocaust pretty solid, you would agree. Yet, there are quite a few who deny it, if not outright, then it wasn't like what we are taught. Sort of like saying, well, yes, there may have been a Jesus but the stories aren't quite right about things like the crucifixion and resurrection. Holocaust deniers have a worldview, an axe to grind, a motivation for their denial of what most of us consider beyond question. There's an article on that:
https://u.osu.edu/vanzandt/2018/03/08/holocaust-denial/
I have reasons to believe and reasons to want to believe, I am a motivated believer. There are a great many who have reasons to not believe, they are also motivated and some very strongly so. Benjamin Cain has made his motivations (and emotions about this issue) painfully clear. It takes some strong motivation to deny what is historically extremely well accepted.
Finally, I would remind you of what I consider one of the most compelling arguments for the historicity not only of the itinerant preacher from Nazareth, but for his meaningful death and ultimate glorification: those closest to him who would know better than anyone what happened to him almost all died horrific deaths, all holding the great lie they apparently had conspired to spread. What could possibly have been their motivation?
