With the gospels, I don’t think there’s any debate that it comes from an oral history. As for their influences - ever notice the old testament has 2 overlapping creation stories? People spend their lives analyzing the text through various lenses, there’s tons of material on how Jewish oral tradition worked and picking apart the markers of it.

I didn't mean to imply that there was an oral component I mean I don't see a need for one. You can pretty much trace every single thing those authors said to texts. Also you are comparing writing that was about 900 years apart from each other. 900 BCE Israel Kingdoms are not 1st century Roman province.

The rest of the new testament starts to diverge, there’s a pretty stark difference between them and the rest of the books

Not really. You see the NT writers constantly referencing the OT. In fact most of the Jesus story is an combo of Jeremiah, Elisha, and (especially in Matthew) Moses.

As for lowering your standards of evidence, I really don’t understand your point. There’s no pictures of Caesar or George Washington, if they existed today the lack of pictures would be pretty suspect.

We have contemporary records of both men.

Context is everything in history. It’s like asking “where is his birth certificate?” when someone is born in a time and place where that wasn’t a thing

Show me where I asked for one.

The time frame matters because Pompeii is a time capsule - human hands couldn’t have manipulated the evidence past that date up. That’s one generation - there would have been people around who met the guy (or should have).

Again. I just explained this to you. The two events are separated by decades. You are about as far from the Moon Landing as they were from supposed Jesus. And again Paul did a missionary trip there.

And yet, neither followers or opposing institutions ever questioned his existence, details of the account of his life line up with historical records

And can people be wrong?

Ultimately, what’s more likely: there was a man known as Jesus of Nazareth (even if he took up the name and role in someone else’s plan), or there was a conspiracy to fake the existence of a man who was a threat to both the Jewish leadership and Roman rule, and neither of those parties (who had people still alive as the movement became a problem) “what do you mean I had him executed? I never met the guy”

The group James led was never a threat to Rome which is why he was left alone. He was a threat to the Pharisees but being a threat doesn't mean that they could do anything about it. Making up a dead leader would have made perfect sense.

Maybe he died, maybe a stand in died, maybe he faked his death with the help of Roman soldiers and fled to Asia. But someone had to have played the role - otherwise a lot of people would have had to flawlessly keep up a conspiracy, many of which weren’t believers

Maybe James and Peter made him up. Two people can keep a secret.

You can spend hours digging into every single detail I’ve brought up, it’s literally the most studied historical subject ever with a ton of secular historical work done in the last century. But the consensus is that he definitely existed, there’s just too many corroborating details that line up

And yet you can't find a single piece of contemporary evidence.