:::'a nod in the direction of the obvious questions, then moving swiftly on' 
 :::Yes, because the 'obvious questions' cannot be resolved within the terms of accepted historical methodology. Slim, this is the technical objection that explains why most scholars 'nod' in the direction and then turn to their textual and hermeneutic struggles with the conflicting materials on Jesus. A Bart Ehrman, James Robinson or Geza Vermes feels constraints to work weighing the usual probabilities allowed by the material we have, rather than to succumb to the temptation to go beyond what we have. Put it this way, you cannot prove Jesus did not exist, anymore than prove he did exist. But one can legitimately assume that it is more probable, as an hypothesis, that some historical figure like him did exist, since within two generations of his death, both canonical tradition and secular historical sources assume this. (with Zhuangzi, Siddharta Buddha, etc., the sources were written centuries afterwards). Nearly all historical writing for the past preceding Gutenburg is assumptional like this. If you look at the 'Secret History' (Ανέκδοτα ή Απόκρυφη Ιστορία) of Procopius, it is written exactly in the same style as his reliable Wars of Justinian. But, as I learned several decades ago, in a wonderful seminar, much of the pornographic anecdotes about Theodora and Justinian, and Belisarius and his wife, can be deconstructed asliterary constructions based on topoi from earlier classical literature. Most of the speeches in Thucydides are pure artefacts of his imagination, etc.  Not for that reason do historians proceed to dismiss these literary exercises as devoid of historical elements, but everything remains contentious and hypothetical. The seekers after certainties with their pyrrhonism can be read as fighting against a complacent cover-up. They can also be read, and usually are, as wounded bulls charging, with vindictive relish, at the toreador of a religion that tormented them earlier. They seek certainty, like their antagonists.