Religion
In reply to the discussion: Francis to faithful: Give up your riches to help the poor [View all]Act_of_Reparation
(9,116 posts)... as I'm not refuting Jesus' existence, but the groundless claim that there's more evidence for Jesus than Alexander the Great.
But, to entertain your question, I'm undecided on the matter. What we gleam from Josephus is this: a Jewish man named Yeshua was crucified in Jerusalem by Pontius Pilatus. As Yeshua was a staggeringly popular Jewish name, because Pontius Pilatus was notoriously vindictive and famously unpopular with the Jews, and because messianic cults were widespread in First Century Judea, that Pilatus would have crucified an "upstart" named Yeshua is statistically probable, in my own amateur opinion.
But again, I think it is irrelevant. Whether or not a man named Yeshua was crucified by Pontius Pilate does not prove this man was the Biblical Jesus. It wouldn't, ipso facto, support any claims made by adherents to Christianity.