You are wrong about many things.First of all it has in fact been proven that the earliest known copies of the gospels were written well after he died and clearly not as a first hand account. In fact the known copies were written by someone other than tha authors which they are attributed to so yes we can say and it is fact that no evidence exists of his existing.
I don't dispute that the earliest manuscripts that have been found were written after Jesus died. But what I said was
Mildsteel said
You cannot conclusively prove that the manuscripts that are there were not written from either the firsthand accounts of witnesses to the events or from actual written, recorded manuscripts of the events that were contemporaneously recorded with his life.
I said that you could not
CONCLUSIVELY prove that
1. The manuscripts were not written from firsthand accounts of witnesses to the events
OR
2. The manuscripts were not from actual written, recorded manuscripts of the events
So it's possible that the person who wrote the manuscripts wrote them after hearing from someone who actually witnessed the events, or it's possible that someone wrote them from manuscripts, that are no longer available. And saying that the manuscripts were written after Jesus died does not conclusively prove either of those statements. Therefore evidence is there, however I think it is fair to debate it's reliability. So you can't say there is no evidence whatsoever, and that's where I disagree with you.
I will be the first one to admit that I think much of what is in the New Testament is from sources of questionable reliability. But having said that, I believe that although the picture of Jesus that we get from the New Testament may not be crystal clear at times, the message was so powerful, clear, and consistent with what is attributed to a person possessing divine qualities, that we can say with confidence that a reasonably close approximation is there in many cases, especially some of the words that have been attribute directly to Jesus.
Once again I need not provide an example for literally hundreds of thousands of people is in fact you who needs to prove your assumption is always correct. It si very possible and even likely for people to forgive thier executioners. You are not an authority on what is possible for another person to do. And for the record neither am I which is why it is entirely possible and probable for SOME to engage in such forgiveness under such circumstances.
No you don't have to do anything. I can't force you. But you can't provide an example of someone in that area of the world before Jesus, that taught love God with all your heart, love your neighbor as much as you do yourself, love your enemies, turn the other cheek, go the extra mile, that was tortured in such a way before their death, and then praying for forgiveness for the perpetrators. Now, it is possible that indeed someone else did so. But there are not hundreds of thousands of them for sure, at least not in that part of the world, and if any existed at all they were very few, because very few people can attain that level of transcendental realization.
Scholarly work is nothing more than learned opinion it is not evidence of divinity. There is no evidence whatsoever of any divine being. The teaching and writings you describe are engaging in the same old circualr and self defeating logic. They are meaningless unless one first assumes there is a god. Without faith they are worthless and faith is nothing more than belief in what is not possible.
Any branch of learning makes assumptions or postulates about things that it assumes to be true, before it tries to explain other things. For example Newton did not try to prove that there were such things as mass and force. He assumed that they existed and were related to each other by the mathematical relation of Force = mass * acceleration. Furthermore you are complaining that paradigms that explain reality by assuming that God exists are circular, but at the same time it is a fact that you cannot prove that you exist and you have to rely on the assumption that you do exist. And there is a reason for that. Vyas has clearly stated that the sentience, the state of being aware, is a function of Supreme Sentient being and the subordinate sentient beings, and that the existence of both fall outside of the realm of the logic of the material mind. But if you assume that both exist, it is possible to understand the true nature of the Supreme Sentient being, God, the subordinate living beings, us, and the material energy, maya shakti.
The topic of what is sentience is the most difficult subject. Indeed the answer to this question has baffled modern scientists to this very day. However, Vyas in the very first statement of the Vedanta Sutra opens the discussion on the very topic of nature of sentience by stating, "athato brahma jijnasa", i.e., let us inquire into the nature of Brahman or the transcendental reality. The great sage, Ramanuja Acharya has commented thus
The word 'Brahman' denotes the hightest Person (purushottama), who is essentially free from all imperfections and possesses numberless classes of auspicious qualities of unsurpassable excellence.
Here Sri Ramanuja clearly states that Brahman, the ultimate reality, is the Supreme Person, God, who is free from any imperfections, who is possessed of unlimited divine qualities, such as beauty, knowledge, strength, wealth, fame, etc. That is where Vyas starts, by stating that what is worthy of being discussed is the nature of sentience, in particular the nature of the Supreme Sentience. It is not a trivial subject, and to say that such a discussion is flawed, simply on the basis that is makes certain assumptions, is ridiculous.