I don't care when exactly the Gospels and so on were penned.  They contradict each other and geographical reality and known history at many points, and are full of wonder stories that were probably made up on the spot (at least in the one attributed to Matthew), so they are not acceptable texts for historical purposes.  Things written by believers cannot be trusted regardless.

The fact is there is no reliable historian who wrote anywhere near that time of history that mentions either Jesus or a Nazareth.  The closest we have is the Christian fraud called the "Testimonium" of Josephus, and any objective observer can easily dismiss that (that so many Christians keep referring to it is testimony to their lack of real evidence).  Everything else of an objective nature dates from at least a century later.

Now it is true that absence of evidence is not proof of absence, but it is strong evidence of absence.  Mainly the point though is that to compel belief, with the idea of moral turpitude if one does not believe, should require damn strong evidence, not such a huge lack of it.

It is important to not allow believers to put the Bible into a special category of documents.  We do not believe what Homer says for no reason other than that it contains stories of gods and miracles and so on, and the same test should apply to any ancient writing.