My question is not IF there is evidence of Jesus; there are few historians who question the personhood of Jesus. The question is WHY some intelligent atheists accept other historical figures on far les evidence, yet argue about Jesus. Is it simply trolling, or is something else going on?
The nature of history is that history is the recording of less than 0.001% of human activities in history,out of which few are verifiable. By this very nature, history (books) are for us to get to know what could possibly happened at a high level. It can't be used to deny any other possibilities (which is as vast as 99.99% human activities overall).
None of the atheists understand this. That's why they keep arguing.
That said, the less than 0.001% activities are almost exclusively (i.e., the serious part of the recordings) secular activities of famous events and famous persons (famous as considered by the authority), out of which some recordings are lost in history. Most authorities won't record and pass along recordings of supernatural events/figures.
Even the part preserved were transplanted in paper form with original ancient scrolls lost. Not only that those events/figures are not verifiable, but also that the contents themselves are not reconcilable with the original writings.
