> They were all written well after any disciples would have died.

Depends on who you count as "disciples" (e.g. only the 12) and what exact form you count as the "Gospels," but it's true that the books we have today are built on earlier sources. The more skeptical accounts of the dating seem to assume that the first fragment we have is the original document, never mind if it's a Coptic translation found far afield. One might be forgiven for thinking that some accounts of the dating all but assume that the scribes ran off to translate their works into every language and made it to Egypt in a week or two, as if scribes were easy and cheap.

> If there was a living, breathing Jesus, we have no hint of anything he said while he lived.

Yet the gospels agree on this to the point where it's hypothesized that there's a sayings source and we have so many copies of books that show rather little variation. This is one of the things where people always try to have it both ways, any variation in the story is presented as invention, any commonality in the story is presented as copying a single source. So a lot of accounts with minor variation are pushed one way or the other to serve whatever argument is being made at the time, rather than being seen as imperfect people trying to keep an accurate account.

> Paul is very clear that every single thing he knew about Jesus came from ancient scripture and visions, period.

I see that you're ignoring Paul meeting with Peter & co. at the Council at Jerusalem, which is attested in both Acts & Galatians. One might think they compared notes when discussing what rules Gentile converts had to keep, given that they ended up with something like a variation on the Noahide laws. You'll say he didn't meet Jesus, other than the Damascus road, but c'mon, he was studying under Gamaliel, it's not like he wouldn't have been completely out of the loop about things going on in Jerusalem.

> None of the early 2nd & 3rd century Christian writers, Ignatius, Justin, Origen, etc. had ever heard of Nero slaughtering Christians.

This is a really odd argument to make, given that they didn't personally live through those particular persecutions. And if we did point to something, it'd be easily dismissed because you just can't trust Christian sources...

Meanwhile, you blithely ignore Tacitus' account, which is especially odd given that he was not a Christian and is writing about things that happened during his own life.

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Annals_(Tacitus)/Book_15

> Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace.

And Pliny the Younger is another odd citation, you forget to mention that he does reference Jesus as a historical person (contrary to your "if" there was a Jesus). And you really can't think of any reason he might want to downplay things that made Nero look bad? Nothing at all?

> His guardian and preceptor in charge of his education was Lucius Verginius Rufus,[7] famed for quelling a revolt against Nero in 68 AD.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pliny_the_Younger

> So the best evidence says that the early Roman persecutions were forged later.

People who are doing history to learn about the past do not just skip over things like Tacitus' account.