I recently came across this excellent atheist site. The essays (which continue over several pages) with the titles "Let the Stones Speak" - on the archaeological evidence, and "Choking on the Camel" - on whether Jesus ever existed are particularly good. - http://www.ebonmusings.org/atheism/index.html - The main passage in Josephus referring to Jesus is generally agreed, even by christian experts to be a pious forgery, and in any case Josephus was born in 37AD. When I referred to contemporary commentators I was thinking of people like Philo or Seneca who were alive and in the area at the time of the supposed events. They are totally silent on the subject.