Hamas legalizes Crucifixion

[Final-Fan]

Avinash_Tyagi said:

Final-Fan said:
Your unreasoning hatred of second-hand sources is probably the biggest stumbling block here. One must be careful whom to trust when getting information, since some (like yourself in your example) would be obviously pushing an agenda. But others (the early Roman sources) would be pretty neutral and it's merely a question of how much THEY could be trusted to have investigated what they are reporting.

There isn't just, like, one source of a madman's scribblings. There are several sources, including authors who are known to be pretty credible historians.

As for whether or not the Jesus-never-existed theory is a fringe belief characterizable as x<1% of serious historians:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_myth_hypothesis
Graham N. Stanton writes, "Today nearly all historians, whether Christians or not, accept that Jesus existed and that the gospels contain plenty of valuable evidence which has to be weighed and assessed critically. There is general agreement that, with the possible exception of Paul, we know far more about Jesus of Nazareth than about any first- or second century Jewish or pagan religious teacher."

Even those who favor the theory agree that the vast majority of historians don't find the didn't-exist theory plausible. "Van Voorst is quite right in saying that 'mainstream scholarship today finds it unimportant.' Most of their comments ... are limited to expressions of contempt."

For an example of those comments that go a little deeper than mere contempt, try this:
http://www.bede.org.uk/price8.htm

Who said anything about hatred of second hand evidence, I just said it wasn't enough. 
Also
But, Doherty disagrees with the mainstream scholars on the strength of the case against the hypothesis, and comments that "contempt is not to be mistaken for refutation".He states that "interests, both religious and secular, have traditionally mounted a campaign against it,"[99] and states that mainstream scholarship is guilty of a "notable lack of proper understanding of the mythicist case,"[100] leading to "the non-professional scholar" and "well-informed amateur on the internet" becoming those whom he regards as "quite educated (meaning largely self-educated) in biblical research."[100] "There are those, scholars and laypeople alike, who regularly assume that something ‘big’ and unique, some powerful figure, had to be responsible for the Christian movement. But if one has consistently misread that movement, failed to recognize its antecedents, the steps of its development, imposed preconceptions upon it, they will be forever forced to make the same erroneous assumption, and alternatives will not commend themselves." [100]

He's right, contempt for the theory is one thing, but contempt doesn't mean they have refuted it, or that they can even prove it wrong, only that they don't like it.

Ummm ... thus my final paragraph, which links to an overview of the refutations.  Weren't you paying attention?