Jesus was a Historical Figure

Thank You. First and Foremost I would like to apologize on how I organized the debate, I was unclear on how it should be run seeing as how I am new to debate.org. Now, who was Jesus? Or "Yeshua" as He is known also by, some claim Him to be the Son of God, and some claim He is a great moral teacher and nothing else. However, that is not the purpose of this debate. The purpose of this debate is to prove that Jesus Christ was a Historical Figure, who in the end, was crucified by the Romans. I will restate that the purpose of this debate is NOT over his alleged Divinity, but of the truthfulness of his life. I will now begin. 1. The Roman Historian called Tacitus wrote: "Nero fastened the guilt ... on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of ... Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome...." Now, who else would He have been writing about that suffered the extreme penalty from Pilate and who's followers took the name of their new belief system from? He is clearly writing of Jesus Christ, now there may be a discrepancy regarding the name "Christus" yet it's still in the same time of Jesus Christ, therefore I think we are safe in that regard. However I will continue with more sources. Also to add in, we know the extreme penalty from the Romans is crucifixion. Therefore, seeing as how that aligns perfectly with how Jesus Christ was executed according to the Gospels, it gives credence to my belief that Tacitus was writing of Jesus Christ. 2. There is also a work of writing from the Babylonian Talmund that also talks of Jesus and is dated from 70-200 A.D, however it can be trusted as a non biased source for Jesus seeing as how it is a work of the Jewish Religion, which is naturally opposed to the belief in Jesus being the so called "Messiah". Here it goes "On the eve of the Passover Yeshu was hanged. For forty days before the execution took place, a herald...cried, "He is going forth to be stoned because He has practiced sorcery and enticed Israel to apostacy". Now, Yeshu or Yeshua are actually the names of Jesus in Hebrew. This gives us even more insight on Jesus being a Historical Figure. 3. Lucian of Samosata was a second century Greek satirist. In one of his works, he wrote of the early Christians as follows: The Christians ... worship a man to this day " the distinguished personage who introduced their novel rites, and was crucified on that account.... [It] was impressed on them by their original lawgiver that they are all brothers, from the moment that they are converted, and deny the gods of Greece, and worship the crucified sage, and live after his laws. Although Lucian is jesting here at the early Christians, he does make some significant comments about their founder. For instance, he says the Christians worshipped a man, "who introduced their novel rites." And though this man's followers clearly thought quite highly of Him, He so angered many of His contemporaries with His teaching that He "was crucified on that account." Although Lucian does not mention his name, he is clearly referring to Jesus. But what did Jesus teach to arouse such wrath? According to Lucian, he taught that all men are brothers from the moment of their conversion. That's harmless enough. But what did this conversion involve? It involved denying the Greek gods, worshipping Jesus, and living according to His teachings. It's not too difficult to imagine someone being killed for teaching that. Though Lucian doesn't say so explicitly, the Christian denial of other gods combined with their worship of Jesus implies the belief that Jesus was more than human. Since they denied other gods in order to worship Him, they apparently thought Jesus a greater God than any that Greece had to offer! 4. Josephus, a well known Roman Historian wrote: But to some of the Jews the destruction of Herod's army seemed to be divine vengeance, and certainly a just vengeance, for his treatment of John, surnamed the Baptist. For Herod had put him to death, though he was a good man and had exhorted the Jews to lead righteous lives, to practice justice towards their fellows and piety towards God, and so doing to join in baptism. ...convened the judges of the Sanhedrin and brought before them a man named James, the brother of Jesus who was called the Christ, and certain others. He accused them of having transgressed the law and delivered them up to be stoned. At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus. And his conduct was good, and [he] was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. And those who had become his disciples did not abandon his discipleship. They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion and that he was alive;... Now, I have not used any Biblical sources for this debate. Why? I have used sources that were hostile to Jesus in order to further advance my claims that He was a real historical man. Such sources would remove any Christian "bias" and would be sure to be as truthful as possible. There are hundreds of other sources that come from Jewish, Christian, Pagan, and Secular historians alike. However, I am limited by the characters that I can put in. One can't deny that they were writing of Jesus given the sheer amount of Historians that have written about him. I eagerly wait for my opponent's rebuttal.