I would like to offer a counterpoint to those making the "historical evidence is weak for accepted academic belief" argument. This is from my own research.

Croesus, the king of Sardis, supposedly lived around 550 BC. He asked for oracles from Delphi regarding his impending war with the Persians and then lost his battles with Cyrus the Great. Our earliest written tradition (think, gospels) is the poet Bacchylides, who claims that Apollo rescued Croesus from self-immolation on a funeral pyre. Herodotus tells us that Cyrus not only put him on the funeral pyre, but he also took him down. Xenophon tells us that Cyrus simply captured Croesus, no pyre involved. Ctesias writes an altogether different history, saying that Croesus fled to the temple of Apollo where he was caught, bound, and divinely freed three times. The only historical record apart from these guys that we have is a small Lu- inscription in Sumerian, which may indicated Lydia, and a pot scene that falls in line with the poetic version of Bacchylides.

What can historians say about Croesus? Only that he lived and lost his battle with Cyrus. The rest is a mystery. Presumably the Greeks had no idea what happened to him, but there's no reason to believe the ancient authors either. Even in antiquity, Herodotus and Ctesias were lampooned by Lucian. Croesus does have an advantage that many historical figures do not: he was attested by multiple cultures, the Greeks and the Persians.

The historical figure of Jesus Christ is no where substantiated outside the gospels. Josephus makes a sketchy reference to him, but the name isn't even right. You know that he had no decent evidence for king Tut of Egypt being paralyzed in any way until recent genetic tests confirmed his disabilities? The Egyptian record makes no mention. There is no archeological evidence for Jericho of Joshua fame. There is no written record outside the Torah for Moses, the exodus, et al. The theological changes from Mark to John are so stark as to be believed they were not from firsthand accounts.

My point being this: there is stronger evidence for most historical figures than there is for Jesus Christ. To throw the baby out with the bath water, so to speak, would be a great fallacy and concession by those not advocating for historical Jesus as recorded in the gospels.