"a collection of stories written well after the events they purport to describe by people who weren't there" -- Respectfully, do you believe that Julius Caesar's "The Gallic Wars" are a "historical text"? We have only Ten Copies in existence, and the Very Earliest Copy of the Manuscripts dates from at least 1,000 Years after the Events in Question.
I'm just curious what you would define as a "historical text"... I mean, we have 25,000 Copies of the New Testament, dating from within 25-50 years of the Events in Question -- and yet you would rule them out as "a collection of stories written well after the events they purport to describe by people who weren't there"?
Your perspective makes me Very Sad. Way back in High School, I was the 1991 State Champion for World History -- but if we can't acknowledge the New Testament as a historical text,
lol. Someone should have told Will Durant he was born waaay too late to put pen to paper.
I note from the kind of apologia that push the same "Julius Caesar" point that the second most credible historical document by that reckoning is Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. Excellently funny. Maybe we should all worship the Greek Gods if the physical evidence falsifies the purported words of Jesus.
Since the writings of Julius Caesar don't require me to suspend disbelief (except possibly in the matter of the number of casualties inflicted on enemy armies and the size of enemy armies) and no-one is worshiping Julius Caesar on the strength of those manuscripts I don't need to be as skeptical about them. Caesar as a historical figure is cross-referenced in numerous historical documents. Large claims (eg being the son of God, and physical resurrection) require large evidence.