Quote from stu:
Historians must base their claims on substantive corroborated verifiable evidence of the time, not on myth and legend in story form.
It does of course take a lot more than making false or unsupportable claims and then calling people names for something or someone to become historical.
However I do appreciate how unsavory to personal feeling and sensibilities it can be, to have facts expose long held religious assertions as completely false .
A small list of the many Pagan and Anti-Christian sentiment Greek/Roman/Jewish writers all commenting against Jesus and his followers, not against there existence, which was taken as fact.... but either mentioning them in historical reference or trying to dispel their significance to events that happen prior.
Thallus 52 AD and quoted again by Julius Africanus in 221 AD trying to explain the darkness and earthquake that coincided Jesus' crucifixion.
Pliny the Younger 61-113AD, in a letter to the Roman emperor Trajan mentions Christos and Christians
Suetonius was a Roman historian and annalist of the Imperial House under the Emperor Hadrian. His writings about Christians describe their treatment under the Emperor Claudius (41-54AD):
Cornelius Tacitus 56-120 AD He was a senator under Emperor Vespasian and proconsul of Asia. His writings talk of the Christians and the fact that Nero blames the Christians for the great fire.
Mara Bar-Serapion 70AD Syrian philosopher writes of the Sufferings of Jesus.
Phlegon (80-140AD) In a manner similar to Thallus, Julius Africanus also mentions a historian named Phlegon who wrote a chronicle of history around 140AD. In this history, Phlegon also mentions the darkness surrounding the crucifixion in an effort to explain it:
There's many more and not even going into the Jewish writers that denounce Jesus' claims.
You'd be proud Stu, there's been people for the last 2000 years all writing against Jesus, but not that he existed, they all acknowledge that fact, they denounce him as God.