Then, by your definition, there exists nothing, by any Roman, Jew, or Gentile, there is no one within a 40 year window, who even seen the guy sneeze. Not exactly eyewitness reports, more like “telephone game”.
“Not exactly eyewitness reports”
Well I never saw him sneeze either. Heck I don’t even know if he had a cold?
Plus you have Tacitus, Josephus etc. writing, yes up to 40 years later.
But I put it to you -- why should they write about some obscure preacher who didn't lead an armed rebellion, didn't form a kingdom, didn't do anything (in the eyes of the authorities) except get crucified on orders of the locals?
To the Roman empire he was a nobody from a backwards land. It's like us noting down about some guy in eastern DR Congo.
In a Fuller Reply to Richard Carrier Bart Ehrman says:
In the course of my discussion of Freke and Gandy’s The Jesus Mysteries, I fault them for thinking that since the Romans kept such detailed records of everything (“birth notices, trial records, death certificates”), it is odd indeed that we have no such records from Roman hands about Jesus.There is, however, some indication that there were records of Jesus’ birth and of his death at one time. In his “First Apology” Justin Martyr says, the location and fact of Jesus’ birth could be verified by consulting the records of Cyrenius, the first procurator of Judea.
My response is that it is a complete myth (in the mythicist sense) that Romans kept detailed records of everything. Carrier vehemently objects that this is altogether false, indicating that in fact we have thousands of such records, and that he has “literally held some for these documents in my very hands.” And he points out that some of them are quoted and cited in ancient books, as when Suetonius refers to the birth records for Caligula.
I should reiterate that it is a complete “myth” (in the mythicist sense) that Romans kept detailed records of everything and that as a result we are inordinately well informed about the world of Roman Palestine [Note: I’m talking about Palestine] and should expect then to hear about Jesus if he really lived. If Romans kept such records, where are they? We certainly don’t have any. Think of everything we do not know about the reign of Pontius Pilate as governor of Judea…” … from Roman records: “his major accomplishments, his daily itinerary, the decrees he passed, the laws he issued, the prisoners he put on trial, the death warrants he signed, his scandals, his interview, his judicial proceedings.”
It’s a myth that we have or that we could expect to have detailed records from Roman officials about everything that was happening there, so that if Jesus really lived, we would have some indication of it. Quite the contrary, we precisely don’t have Roman records – of much of anything – from there. We do indeed have lots of records from someplace else that doesn’t matter for the question…
Those records are now lost, but it carries a little weight that it was believed they existed at one time.
Justin Martyr also refers to the official documentation in the ‘Acts of Pontius Pilate’ which he says recorded Jesus’ actions in life and death by crucifixion. The ‘Acts’ are also lost, but since this is one of two references to it, it carries some small weight demonstrating they existed at one time.
The Roman historian Tacitus, in his Annals (written ca. AD 115), book 15, chapter 44. describes Nero's scapegoating of the Christians following the Fire of Rome. He says that their founder was named Christus (the Christian title for Jesus), that he was executed under Pontius Pilate, and that the movement of his followers, initially checked, then broke out again in Judea and even in Rome itself. Some scholars question the historical value of the passage on various grounds.
The mention of Jesus in the Annals of the aristocratic Roman historian and senator Publius Cornelius Tacitus is significant partly because of his status as one of the most careful and sceptical historians of the ancient world and partly because it is from what is obviously a hostile witness. Tacitus absolutely despised Christianity, as he make clear when he mentions how the emperor Nero tried to scapegoat them after the Great Fire of Rome in 64 AD. He also gives an account to his readers as the origin of the Christian sect and their founder in Judea:
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. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judæa, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular
(Tacitus,Annals, XV.44)