Re the Koran, IIRC Mohammed lived in the 7th century AD. So any Jesus-related content in there can only have been inherited from existing written works or oral tradition.

Peace, agriculture is a recent "invention", but it certainly predates Jesus.

For myself, I reckon it's pretty certain Jesus existed. His divinity or otherwise is a matter of faith and can't be proved. And since the scriptures didn't get written until much later, there's definitely a whole bunch of fiction bound up in it too. The stories about his birth, for example - all those shepherds and wise men, and the Herod thing - are almost certainly fiction. But without Jesus existing, it's difficult to see how Christianity could come about. It's not like Judaism which is simply the folk traditions of one particular nomad tribe - this is a from-scratch creation in a world where every tribe already had their own religions, and you simply can't do that without a charismatic leader (or leaders) to drive it. Since Clinton mentioned the Mormons, I'd say it's rather like denying the existence of Joseph Smith. Peter and his mates were almost certainly the charismatic leaders who made it go somewhere rather than fizzle out, but even then it's difficult to see how they could have made it happen without a real original crucified Jesus whose name/reputation they could draw on.

Graham.