Is there proof that Jesus existed? At least in a historical sense rather than a biblical sense

Josephus (c. 37 - c. 100), a Jewish historian for the Roman Empire and a non-believer, in a much discussed passage in his Antiquities of the Jews called the Testimonium Flavianum, writes:

“About this time came Jesus, a wise man, (if indeed it is appropriate to call him a man). For he was a performer of paradoxical feats (paradoxôn ergôn poiêtês) a teacher of people who accept the unusual with pleasure, and he won over many of the Jews and also many Greeks”

While historians agree that there was almost certainly some later tampering with this text by later Christian writers’ (Meier, Vol.1) most scholars also accept the authenticity of this key sentence: “…he was a performer of paradoxical feats, a teacher of people who accept the unusual with pleasure.” Other translations of the original Greek used by Josephus give us the following: Jesus was a performer of paradoxical (astonishing, startling, surprising) poetics (tricks, feats, works and deeds) a teacher of those who accept the abnormal (novel, truth, unusual and strange) with pleasure (gladly, delight). If we can provisionally grant the historical authenticity of just this fragment of Josephus’ non-Christian witness, then Jesus was a 1st century Jewish rabbi (teacher) who spoke in “paradoxôn ergôn poiêtês”, i.e. Jesus was a paradoxical poet.

The word "paradoxôn" literally means “against (para) orthodoxy (doxos)”. And against orthodoxy means “heresy”. From this rare vantage point external to the theological embellishments of the gospel authors and the political agendas early Christian communities, the historical Jesus therefore looks be a heretical Jewish poet, one who spoke in mind-bending paradoxes while attracting unconventional followers who joyfully received his counter-intuitive teachings.

NOW this poetics of paradox (paradoxôn ergôn poiêtês) reported by Josephus CORRESPONDS PERFECTLY with what we find at the heart of the parables of Jesus recorded in the synoptic gospels, where the original signature of this itinerant Nazarene Jew’s historical voice-print is embedded within narrative core of his most memorable short stories and parables. For if we extracted from the parables of Jesus all subsequent Christian interpretation and theological embellishment over the past two millennia, and let the language-event that simmers away within his proclamation of the Kingdom be unleashed in its first, disturbing, immediacy, then the earliest memory of Jesus coincides with paradoxical poetics (paradoxôn ergôn poiêtês) described by Josephus in the most astonishing way. To summarize:

Good Samaritan Luke 10:25-37: the agents of neighbourly love, i.e. the devout Pharisee & Levite priest, are exposed as morally and religiously bankrupt; the morally and religiously bankrupt, i.e. the half-caste Samaritan, is an agent of neighbour love.

Prodigal Son Luke 15:11-32: the younger wayward son, who is lost in rebellious exile from home, is saved with the father’s homecoming feast, the older dutiful son, who is saved in righteous obedience to his father’s home, is lost in rebellious exile from the homecoming feast.

Vineyard Workers Matthew 20:1-16: the privileged status of those who started work at day break is the source of their envy and their sense of injustice; the envy and injustice of those who started work just before sundown, is the occasion for their privileged status, (when both groups receive equal pay from the vineyard owner).

Pharisee and Tax Collector Luke 18:10-14: the self-righteous Pharisee, who is saved in as a Temple insider - is lost, just as the sinful Tax Collector, who is lost as a Temple outsider - is saved.

Two Sons Matthew 21:28-32: the acceptance of the first son is a refusal to work in the field, and the refusal of the second son is an acceptance to go work in the field.

Friend at Midnight Luke 11:5-8, where: the refusal of a friend becomes the acceptance of stranger, while the persistence of a stranger is the faithfulness of a friend.

Shrewd Manager Luke 16:1-8: where: a shrewd business manager is condemned his employer as a fraud, as this fraud is praised by his employer as a shrewd business manager.

Unjust Judge Luke 18: 2-8: we see: the refusal to back down of a fearless judge is a merciful delivery of justice, just as the merciful pleas of the widow for justice are a fearless refusal to back down.

By unsettling the binary oppositions that constitute the very form and content of human language, Jesus' discourse of radical paradox is a skilful means for a piercing through our protective defences and exposing the defects in any system that justifies the status quo by interrupting our pre-given horizons of meaning with series of subversive reversals in the expected story-line at its deepest level that put language under pressure and puts into question our taken for granted assumptions about reality.

And while the world-shattering impact of this 1st century itinerant Jew’s paradoxical sayings were soon domesticated by the early Christian communities, if we dig beneath the mythic and supernatural encrustations that were built up around Jesus in the developing streams of early the Church (e.g. the Virgin Birth, the ‘only begotten’ son of God, substitutionary atonement, the pre-existing Logos, the Second Coming, etc.) and re-activate the mind-bending event that these traditions harbor prior to his subsequent inscription within the New Testament canon, then the paradoxical secret at the heart of Jesus' most memorable teachings not only demonstrates the historical existence of this itinerant Nazarene rabbi in 1st century Palestine, but also proves to us that the earliest memory of this Jesus has indeed survived the historical process of oral and written transmission with the original signature of his historical voice-print still intact.