Okay. I jumped a couple of pages, because people were being assclowns.
If something doesn't exist currently, then it must have never existed. Okay, I can see that, but I tend to take the opposite view with history. Not all the time, but most of the time.
I tend see the Bible itself holding actual historical mysteries, we just have to figure out the details and get through the mumbo jumbo.
No, lots of the stuff that has come down to us in legend has a legitimate basis in history but there is no physical evidence of it today. Rust, erosion, decay, and thousands of years destroy all but the most hardy artifacts, and the ones which have survived, have generally done so by virtue of having been buried for most of the time between then and now.
Jerusalem sits at the centre of three of the world's great religions. All consider it their holiest of cities. Muslims, Jews and Christians have been fighting over and destroying Jerusalem since the Fall of the Roman Empire. Nothing from the ancient Jewish temples has survived to today. What wasn't destroyed during the battles, was carried off by the various conquerors of Jerusalem going back to prior to the birth of Christ.
Jesus is a historical person and his crucifixation is recorded in ancient Roman records for the region. The Romans were notoriously good record keepers. Roman troops were garrisoned in conquered territories with local puppet monarchs who had pledged their allegiance to Rome in return for which, Rome kept their enemies at Bay. In fact, the law in the conquered territories was Roman law, which is why the Romans carried out the crucifixtion of Christ at Herrod's bequest.
The priests wanted Jesus gone because of talk he was the Messiah, Herrod wanted him gone because people were calling him "King of the Jews" and well, Herrod didn't want the competition and Jesus made the Roman's nervous. What if the Roman's decided that Jesus would make a better puppet king than he did?
If the trial and crucifixtion of Jesus did not make sense from a historical perspective, it could not have happened and then we wouldn't have the event that separates the Christianity from all of the other religions, the Resurrection. Historically, we know that He lived, pissed off the established leaders of both the church and the state sufficiently that everybody wanted Him dead, and they crucified Him. It's believe in his divinity, and Resurrection which is the crux of the Christian faith. Jews say he is a prophet, the Muslims call him a great teacher, only Christians call him the Messiah.
Not that bible, the other one.