Validity of Jesus' existence

A few weeks ago, Professor Sexson said something about there being no evidence outside of the New Testament that Jesus ever existed. First of all, I would like to say that this is about the most foolish and uneducated claim I have ever heard. We must first of all understand that Prof. Sexson is an ENGLISH professor, not a history professor. I find this very contradictory to what he teaches throughout the class, saying that History isn't the important thing when studying the text in class, yet now he wants to say that there is no historical evidence of Jesus. Basically what I have to say is that this is FAITH LANGUAGE by our professor who asks us not to share faith language in class. It takes faith beyond anything to believe that there is no historical or physical evidence of Jesus outside of my New Testament. Basically, Sexson has opened up the door for me to share evidence of Christ and if it is considered faith language at all, then I really can't be punished for it because he used his own faith language when he said it was not to be shared in class. On the sylabus no less!
For one example of evidence, we have more historical documents of the New Testament and First Century Church than any other historical time period in History. We have over 24,000 documents on the subject of the New Testament! That's more than Greek mythology, Plato, Roman history, or any other historical documents! How can someone say that there is no evidence of Jesus ever existing after having this many documents?
Another evidence we have is the date of the earliest manuscripts. The entire New Testament was scribed between 60 and about 130 A.D. according to Josh McDowell, author of the book, More Than a Carpenter. This is important because it discounts any claims that the New Testament was re-edited orally again and again before being written. It also means that the people who followed Christ were the authors as the books have been named after them. This also excludes any chance of the Gnostic Gospels being included the New Testament as they were not written until after 200 A.D.
With over 24,000 documents and multiple New Testament manuscripts we also must include the argument of textual criticism. There may be multiple errors one old Greek copy of any of the Gospels, but the multiple documents actually correct eachother. Having this evidence we must also include the fact that the errors are only .5%. These are very small errors at that. The main message still comes across in every text, only small errors occur, such as misspelling. This, once again, excludes the Gnostic gospels because we have only one copy of most and they are missing large portions of the text.
Finally, I am definitely going to believe my pastor on the subject of the Bible over Prof. Sexson because he has a DEGREE in the studies of the bible where as Pror. Sexson has one in English. I am going to believe the one who knows the literary style and history of the bible first.
The evidence speaks for its self and this is but a tip in the Iceburg as far as the evidence of the New Testament.