Existence of Jesus? Really?

In chapter one I'm suddenly affronted by this statement
"No reputable scholar doubts the existence of Jesus" - Bold words.  Worth a book or two on its own.  And I believe has consumed many "scholars" both for and against its hypothesis.

Lets break down the statement 1. reputable scholar, 2. Existence of Jesus, 3. Doubt
Lets work backwards through these three....

3. Doubt.  Well doubt and how it applies to evidence
It is important to remove faith from this evaluation of this statement.  Faith leads to the abandonment of reason. Ar, that word reason again.
I had the the misfortune of being part of a jury trial a few years ago.  I say misfortune as it wasn't a pleasant experience, even though it was a civic duty, the "civic" didn't really look after us a jurors.  It was traumatic to me as it was about sexual molestation of girls who happened to be the same age as my own daughter at that time.
Being an outspoken sort of guy (yeah really!) I was made foreman.  The foremans role in a jury trial is a strangely hidden one, although if you have watched the movie "12 Angry Men" then you will have some idea.  It can be like herding cats.
OK - As a jury we had to look at the evidence presented.  Assess its worth. Who said what about what they say or witnessed being said.  Lots of first hand stuff.  There was a lot of second hand stuff as well, and we were told, as a jury, to ignore this as it wasn't good enough as evidence.

As the foreman of this jury I had to chair the discussion.  We had five charges to work our way through and we eventually decided guilty on 3 of the 5.  Not enough evidence for 2 of the charges.

Spoiler Alert!! Interestingly, if we applied a similar evidence based logic to the existence of Jesus, we might have some problems.... the next post gets into it