Josephus and other contemporaries on Jesus

[Rev. Rye]

Here's one: Bart Ehrman.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Did_Jesus_...F_(Ehrman)

He's a New Testament scholar, but also an open agnostic, and even he points out that the Jesus myth hypothesis is not seriously considered by historians or experts in the field at all. And once again, he's extremely well-versed in this area (and has written 25 books on the New Testament, including three college textbooks) and, as someone who doesn't believe (he admits that the more he looked into the Bible, the less he believed; admittedly, it's the problem of evil that pushed him into nonbelief), has enough distance that he can actually examine the evidence without trying to force the ideas he already holds into it.

So, if someone with these credentials says he probably did exist (even if the Gospels ended up embellished to the point where the real person becomes a myth, which he does point out throughout his books), I'm inclined to believe him.