The question that shatters faith, forever.

[mediamogul]

The OP suggests that without historical support Christianity falls apart.

There is a bit more to it than that. To quote H. L. Mencken:

Either Jesus rose from the dead or he didn't. If he did, then Christianity becomes plausible; if he did not, then it is sheer nonsense.

So, at step one we need some historical reference to an actual person and then they need some evidence that he came back from the dead...and rose to heaven and all that stuff. They have actual evidence for neither but it is not too much to ask that they demonstrate that there was such a person to then meet condition #2.

Again, these are burdens that we did not hand them. They are stuck with them because of their own beliefs.

Once again, the OP said nothing about the resurrection. You are moving away from the topic. Many here claim that Jesus never existed.

That is merely an opinion based on a judgement of the number of sources and the quality of those sources needed to assert that as a fact. In order to be consistent, the person making the claim that Jesus did not exist must apply the same standards to other figures of ancient history, like Socrates.

I'm already anticipating the retort about, "extra-ordinary claims having a higher burden of proof." So I want to remind everyone that the central question is focused entirely on whether Jesus was an historical figure or not. It has nothing to do with legends surrounding the man.

But lets call it what it is. Fundamentally different claims are being made regarding Jesus than are being made regarding Socrates. Attributing miracles and supernatural events to a person neccessarily alters our ability to verify the events. It is drawn then into the realm of mythology which is fundamentally different than the claims being made regarding Socrates which is more a question of "did he say and do what Plato said he did". The things that Plato claimed Socrates did were the actions of a human being living in the natural world governed by the laws of physics as we know them. So I do believe that fundamentally different claims are being made about the two. It is not a fair comparison. It is more comparable to the story of Siddhartha Guatama (the alleged Buddha) than to Socrates.