I'd like to strengthen the point I made earlier: the only substantive accounts we have from a few decades of Jesus' death are those of his devotees.
Now that does not prove those accounts are mendacious. But one really would have liked to have been able to balance them against some early but unsympathetic accounts, just to see which seemed more plausible.
We know there were some of Jesus's contemporaries who spoke about him with a a clear lack of sympathy or regard, to say the least. Witness words ascribed to Jesus himself in Matthew 11:
16 But whereunto shall I liken this generation? It is like unto children sitting in the markets, and calling unto their fellows,
17 And saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented.
18 For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He hath a devil.
19 The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. But wisdom is justified of her children.
Jesus is saying "Look - how unfair people are saying that kind of thing about me!". Maybe he was right. But Joseph Smith dismissed criticisms in the same way, and there seems to be a considerable chance that he was not right.
With Jesus, we shall likely never know. (Unless that is, he turns up in the sky surrounded by angels one day, in which case we'd better believe he was right. There is still part of me that rather wishes he would: but I am not betting big money on it.)
