For years now I've maintained that we can be certain that the Jesus who walked on water, fed thousands with mere morsels, healed blindness, paralysis, even death and levitated off into the sky never to be seen again did not exist. Such a person would have left a much more indelible mark in the historical record than any Caesar, certainly more than Pilate or JtB. The fact that not one single morsel of evidence of all these incredible goings-on are preserved in historical records from the time in question speaks volumes. These things simply did not happen.
Philo of Alexandria was a Jewish philosopher who wrote a great deal about things going on in and around Jerusalem right in the wheelhouse of the time Jesus would have been doing his thing. He wrote about the Essenes and other Jewish sects that had somewhat similar beliefs as what would eventually become Christianity. It is very possible that he lived in Jerusalem at the time Jesus was allegedly performing all these miracles. The fact that none of his writings ever mention Jesus, any of the miracles, the dead people who came back to life when Jesus was crucified, etc., strains credulity far past the breaking point. None of these things happened.
Having said that we're left with a possible historical nugget, a street preacher who possibly pissed off the wrong people and got himself Jimmy Hoffa'd. A guy who will never be able to speak for himself because the only thing we have is what people claim he said. And none of those people are people who actually met him (none of the books of the NT were written by anyone who actually knew Jesus). Add to that decades of legendary development before the first of the 4 gospels appears (written by people in Rome, by the way, 1500 miles away and no less than 40 years removed from the events in question). The story of Jesus the Magic Jew was certainly a popular one. But popular doesn't have anything to do with true. Never has, never will. Ask Paul Bunyan.
Paul Bunyan is potentially a good example, imo. Granted, we don't know if 'he' was based on anyone at all (ie he may have been a fictional character from the outset) but one candidate that has been suggested is Fabian Fournier, a big lumberjack who was apparently killed in a brawl in Bay City, Michigan, in 1875.
I am not suggesting Paul Bunyan was in fact Fabian Fournier 'mythologised'. He may not have been. I only think it offers one plausible type of explanation.
Regarding magic tricks, here is a pic of Sai Baba of Shirdi, India (1834-1918). Magic tricks, healings, preaching, small band of followers (to whom he appeared after his death) etc etc.
Again, only an illustration of plausibility.
There were, apparently (according to Josephus) a number of 'messianic claimants' going about Judea around the supposed time of (or before and after) Jesus, some of them with much larger numbers of followers than Jesus was said to have had (thirty thousand men in the case of the unnamed Egyptian Prophet, 52 CE). I believe one of them (Theudas) tried to part the waters of the river Jordan in 45 CE and persuaded 'a great many people' to attend the event. The Romans sent armed horsemen who killed many of the people there, took Theudas alive, and then executed him, according to Josephus. Then there was Judas, son of Hezekiah (4 BCE), Simon of Peraea (also 4 BCE), Athronges the shepherd (also 4 BCE), and The Samaritan Prophet (36 CE). And others in Judea during the later years of the 1st Century CE. If Jesus did exist, it's possible he was not even as well-known as any of these, either to Josephus or the Romans. The Romans apparently executed a large number of mostly unnamed Jews in those times, but that he was said to have been crucified suggests that if he existed he would have been a bit more of a naughty boy, from the Roman pov, than he is portrayed in the Christian texts.
As for Philo, I am not an expert on his writings, but I understood it that he did not mention any of these sorts of people, so I don't tend to see the omission of one of them as telling us much, other than that perhaps none of them, or their exploits, were actually famous (or relevant) enough for him to mention. But then I am not even sure how many if any religious figures he mentions at all (he wasn't, as I understand it, writing history, and was more into ideas and philosophy).
