Sorry if this has been asked but I couldn't find anything when searching
Is there any unbiased historical evidence of the person of Jesus (aside from the bible)?
I'm talking roman mentions or references to him or the events of the bible - off the top of my head for example, do we have the execution order for jesus signed by pontius pilate or anything like that?
if no explicit evidence exists, do you think there ought to be? In other words should we expect to have any evidence if indeed he was real but we don't have evidence? also, what is the best indirect evidence we have?
disclaimer: I'm not now nor have I ever been religious
This has been pretty well covered in this sub, with plenty of threads to browse in the FAQ: http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/faq/religion#wiki_did_jesus_exist.3F
Good and interesting question though!
Here is the section in the FAQ about the historical Jesus. http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/faq/religion#wiki_did_jesus_exist.3F
He is mentioned by Josephus and Tacitus.
So here's the thing with ancient sources and history. Not much has survived the 2000 years to today. For example the references to and about Augustus's sister, an important person, would fill maybe 2 pages. (One of my co-grad students is writing on her). There just aren't many sources out there. Romans wrote about the elite for the elite. A traveling preacher in an imperial backwater wouldn't have been heard of, let alone written about by the vast majority of Romans.