I doubt that Jesus, during his brief life in Palestine, raised even a single blip on the radar back in Rome, Steve. There were a lot of Jewish prophets roaming around Palestine in those unstable times, and the local Jews were certainly interested in many of them to some extent, but I think the Romans were not...unless they were recommending a Jewish uprising against Rome in their preachings, and Jesus was not doing that, according to what's written about him. Therefore he did not matter to the Romans until some considerable time later in their history, so why would they have written about him? He was a nobody to them when he died. I know it would properly make you very happy to think that Jesus never existed...as it would thereby invalidate the entire religion that is based on him. It would make it a mockery based on nothing. And you'd love that, I'm sure. So enjoy assuming he did not exist. Enjoy it to the full. It cannot be proven or disproven anyway, and your enjoyment of that supposition won't change a thing.

To counterbalance it though, I have this thought. Religions always (or virtually always) seem to arise out of the personality and activities of ONE particularly inspired person who attracts a number of faithful followers, and it is those closest followers who generally set about establishing and spreading the religion. They figure it's their sworn duty to, because they imagine they have "the answer" to everything that matters. This happens again and again. I've even seen exactly how it happens...on a relatively small scale. It takes one very charismatic leader to get the ball rolling that starts a new religion or a specific religious order, monastery, Ashram, etc. I regard the idea that Jesus did NOT exist...and that the whole Christian religion still arose in his name and based on his life story ANYWAY...to be about as unlikely as that Buddha or Zoroaster or Deganawida or Quetzalcoatl or any other such founding figures of religious antiquity never existed...or about as likely as that the Earth is flat and the Moon made of a very large Edam Cheese. Religions, like nations and businesses, do not arise on the basis of non-existent founders.

But if you've emotionally committed to the idea that he didn't exist, which I think you are, then nothing I can say will make any difference to that, and we'll just waste a lot more keystrokes over it to no advantage for either of us (as is already happening...predictably). :D So, believe whatever you like about it. I hardly think it matters.