>The Encyclopedia Britannica also speaks on it, stating that
>"these independent accounts prove that in ancient times, even
>the opponents of Christianity never doubted the existence of
>Jesus, which was disputed for the first time and on inadequate
>grounds by several authors at the end of the 18th, 19th, and
>at the beginning of the 20th centuries." - (1976), Macropedia,
>Vol. 10, p.145.

The modern, online Britannica doesn't state this nearly as strongly. In fact it largely rebuts it. In the article "Sources for the Life of Jesus":

"There are a few references to Jesus in 1st-century Roman and Jewish sources. Documents indicate that within a few years of Jesus' death, Romans were aware that someone named Chrestus (a slight misspelling of Christus) had been responsible for disturbances in the Jewish community in Rome (Suetonius, The Life of the Deified Claudius 25.4). Twenty years later, according to Tacitus, Christians in Rome were prominent enough to be persecuted by Nero, and it was known that they were devoted to Christus, whom Pilate had executed (Annals 15.44). This knowledge of Jesus, however, was dependent on familiarity with early Christianity and does not provide independent evidence about Jesus. Josephus wrote a paragraph about Jesus (The Antiquities of the Jews 18.63ff.), as he did about Theudas, the Egyptian, and other charismatic leaders (History of the Jewish War 2.258–263; The Antiquities of the Jews 20.97–99, 167–172), but it has been heavily revised by Christian scribes, and Josephus's original remarks cannot be discerned."


So the statements of Tacitus are largely irrelevant, and those of Josephus are not historically trustworthy.

I mean, we must at least admit that it's a little peculiar. As is noted in the article posted below by marcus, there was no lack of historians in that time and place. Yet references to the man as a historical figure, outside of the movement that required him to exist, are incredibly rare.