Historical Jesus, Biblical Jesus

[mordant]

Again, it's about the best argument. Conclusive proof of his existence is never going to happen. Even if a dead body purporting to be Jesus surfaced it would not convince me, even if the body has numerous references to who he was and had all the physical marks of someone who was crucified.

There is no such thing as conclusive proof with ancient history.

Did any Caesar actually exist? Probably, but not conclusively. We can do this all day with all ancient historical persons such as Plato, Socrates, Tacitus, Josephus, etc.

With ancient history it is always about the argument, not about what the evidence proves or doesn't prove. The evidence is only used to reinforce the argument, not to conclusively prove anything.

Fantastical claims for these figures are either absent (most) or clearly separable from a politically-motivated cult of personality (Caesar). No one claims any of these people are eternally god incarnate, or invoke some present-day eldritch spiritual channel of instruction coming from them as justification for various things we are supposedly to do or not do in the present day. None of them are said to influence whether we have eternal life in paradise or in hades. 

That is why we are more, rather than less, skeptical of all claims concerning Jesus, including HJ claims. The florid nature of the assertions made about Jesus, raise the bar. He is not just "some guy". Historians may divorce Jesus from all that, and regard him like any other alleged actor in the ancient world, and apply the same methodology to him in the same way. Intellectually, I can accept that. But as a non-historian, I am not obliged to go that route. I have different purposes than a historian. I'm trying to ascertain what can be known to a high degree of certainty, and basing my conclusions on that and that alone.

Put another way, historical objectives and empirical / epistemological objectives diverge here. They clearly do, as we're talking about two very different standards, that is: (1) HJ is proven so long as no surviving record specifically claims otherwise vs (2) HJ is unproven so long as the preponderance of available evidence does not support it. Support is not merely indifference or assumption or the failure to state otherwise. It is actual support, preferably with the factual data undergirding it.

Historicity makes no fantastical claims about Jesus.

And ffs ... how many times do I have to repeat myself that HJ is not proven?

IT'S ABOUT THE ARGUMENT.

Historicity indeed makes no fantastical claims about Jesus. But in my view it fails to take into account that almost everyone else does, and to apply a standard of evidence to it accordingly.

A page or so back you said:

If the sources all agree about an event, historians can consider the event proved.

I do not buy the argument, which I understand on the above basis to be, that if no surviving claimant specifically argues against HJ, HJ is proven. Even then, I presume, again on the above basis, that you'd need 100% of them dissenting (all agreeing) to disprove it.

So it's about the argument for me, too, as this is the argument I'm not buying.

Perhaps you intended "proved" to be understood in a less literal way than I took it. If so, I am willing to be corrected, as I have a well known tendency to take things too literally.