One of the odd things about Jesus the Christ as portrayed by the Bible is that no contemporary seems to have met or witnessed the biblical Jesus during the time he is said to have lived. That is, no such accounts by contemporaries seem to exist. Yet, according to the gospels, Jesus met great multitudes of people and, also according to the gospels, multitudes of people witnessed Jesus' extraordinary feats. Then again, the gospels are after-the-event accounts; they were written decennia after Jesus' purported advent, and none of the gospel authors claim to have met or witnessed the biblical Jesus.
Another odd thing about Jesus the Christ as portrayed by the Bible is that no contemporary author/historian seems to mention this extraordinary character. There is this extraspecial man, Jesus, born of a virgin, traveling the country-side, who; performs miracles; starts a movement; is a nuisance to Romans and Jews alike; is killed and comes back to life again, and all the while other extraordinary occurences directly related to this extraspecial man's existence take place. Yet, contemporary authors/historians - all of them - do not note it down.
Hellenistic Jewish historian and philosopher Philo (20 B.C.E.-50 C.E.), living at the purported time of Jesus; a contemporary, and at the right place; Jerusalem, makes no mention of Jesus the Christ whatsoever.
Contemporary Silence
Even though the writings of several contemporary authors/historians have survived and remain to form a library available for perusal, not a single independent word of this extraordinary Jesus and/or the extraordinary occurences directly related to this man's existence.
None of the contemporary authors/historians care to mention, independently: an extraspecial baby being born of a virgin mother; three Magi following a bright star to see the demigod; the slaughter of all the male infants in and around Jerusalem ordered by Herod; Jesus raising the dead, healing the blind and the lame; the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem; the resurrection; bodies of dead saints rising up from the grave and walking around the city, to name but a few examples. Such things do not go by unnoticed. Yet, we only have after-the-event accounts, which must stem from during-the-event accounts which we do not have. So, where do the after-the-event accounts come from then?
Every time you find in books a tale of which its reality seems impossible, a story defying all reason and common sense, be assured the tale to be an allegory containing a universal truth or two; and the greater the absurdity of the tale, the deeper the wisdom.
Memetic Engineering
Keep propagating that an outdoor passion play; an annual celebration in which the cycle of life is symbolically being acted out, was not an symbolic act but a real life event. Eventually, with or without force, the idea will sink in and before you know it the play is no longer a play and has become, exactly as intended, utter reality - but only in the mind.
That's why there appear to exist possible secondhand accounts and what might qualify as third- fourth- fifthhand accounts etc. about the Jesus character but no firsthand accounts because firsthand accounts would tell us about a symbolic representation, not about a real life event as portrayed by the Bible. And what to think of archeological finds; artifacts like dwellings, a biography, works of carpentry, self-written manuscripts etc..? Those are non-existent too.
Back Engineering
Yet, we do have firsthand accounts. It's just that they, much to the chagrin of fundamentalistic Christians, do not involve the Jesus character, they involve other "sons of god" who were "born", "walked", "performed", "suffered", "died" and "came back to life" prior to the Jesus character, and all of them are symbolic representations; personifications relating the myth of the "birth", "death" and "rebirth" of the universe. They all tell us the same myth: the myth of the creation of the universe, of life, of mankind.
That which is called the Christian religion existed among the ancients and never did not exist from the beginning of the human race until Christ 'came in the flesh', at which time the true religion, which already existed, began to be called Christianity. -- Augustine
The Jesus myth is not the first, merely one of the last in a long tradition of myths of personification conveying the aspects of the ever ongoing cycle of life.