I'm not purporting to be a biblical scholar, but it's clear to me that the evidence for Jesus is not as strong as, say, the evidence for Julius Caesar.
The fact that there is no direct evidence points to at least some haziness about the character. The same could be said for a number of other historical figures. It's pretty clear there are limitations to the evidence, from Wikipedia:
"The historical Jesus scholarship is bound by the following limitations:
- There is no physical or archaeological evidence for Jesus; all existing sources are documentary.
- The sources for the historical Jesus are mainly Christian writings, such as the gospels and the purported letters of the apostles.
- All extant sources that mention Jesus were written after his death.
- The New Testament represents sources that have become canonical for Christianity, and there are many apocryphal texts that are examples of the wide variety of writings in the first centuries AD that are related to Jesus.[33] The authenticity and reliability of these sources have been questioned by many scholars, and few events mentioned in the gospels are universally accepted.[34]"
So it seems that no writings about him survive from his life, by or about him. There is no physical evidence of his existence. Most of the evidence was written by early Christians, and few of the events they write about are universally accepted. And given the propensity of religious followers to exaggerate, I don't personally put a lot of stock in much of the motivated reasoning exhibited.
His is a resume with some holes in it. Smarter and better informed people disagree with me, but I'm just processing the evidence as I see it.