>>267225403I'm unsure whether you intended to reply to me or not; vaguely sounds like you think I'm a christian. and yes, the existence of Buddha as such is somewhat dubious; certainly he and Mahavira of the Jains seem to share a lot, like two variants of the same story split and evolved their own way. Muhammad is just badly attested, and the name, which means 'praised' c.f. the contemporary title of the persian kings, anushirwan, probably is just a borrowed title of a number of consecutive rulers (if the arabs wanted a name derived from the same root hmd, they'd settle by Ahmad, a name that is attested before the islamic eruption.
as for Jesus, he, like the Buddha and Mahavira, can be the mythological doppelganger of John the Baptist. both leading saintly lives, preaching to the crowd, getting killed by the rulers. this would be made more likely if we had a sect which still holds John in reverence. oh wait, we do: the mandaeans do exactly that.