Any Evidence For A Historical Jesus?

[FallentoReason]

I'm not gonna insult your intellect by pointing out that this is a particularly weak argument, considering Jesus and certainly the authors of the synoptic gospels knew their Torah backwards...

Funny you say that. Considering the Gospels are mere hearsay I'd say the anonymous authors literally worked backwards and forced this supposed messiah to fulfil all the prophecies. A classic example is the birth of Jesus where Luke invented a census which would make it plausible for Jesus to have been born in Bethlehem. I wouldn't say this author lied, just wrote down the rumours going around.

You actually might want to check out mithras: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithraic_mysteries a religion that was basically coterminous with early Christianity that went on similar lines. There was also the cult of Isis that also dealt with the theme of resurrection and was, like Christianity, very popular among the Roman masses, and is often seen as a precursor for the madonna cult of the Christian era.

And don't let's get started on the possible Gnostic/Zoroastrian influence...

Yes, I'm well aware of all this. I'm just surprised that your argument hinged on the fact that it should be ridiculous that a religion was formed out of someone 'non-existent'. So what? Nothing new to see here.

The point I was making with Heracles was that this myth was already around for 2500 years prior to Jesus. Why don't you believe in good old 'Hercules'? Why Jesus?