scholars agree that a Jewish man named Jesus of Nazareth existed in the Herodian Kingdom of Judea in the 1st century AD.

But,

There is no scholarly consensus concerning most elements of Jesus's life as described in the Christian and non-Christian sources.

...there was nothing unusual about a messianic Jewish troublemaker in Judea during the early Roman Empire.

I bet he was a member of the Judean People's Front.

Because of the destruction of the Temple and the Judean rebellion there were probably a lot of messianic figures.

Jesus is just the one who achieved the necessary memetic virulence to be remembered.

Saul/Paul definitely helped this.

ETA: Also, stories attributed to Jesus may have happened to other messianic preachers.

As you indicated, this isn't an unpopular opinion in the wider world. There are records outside of Christian scripture that mention Jesus. No legitimate historians doubt that he existed.

It's quite possible, but the waters are muddied since every legendary facet was treated as fact, so the historical record is relatively less reliable given how much of it was manipulated in the name of faith.

I don't think most serious scholars would swear that a Jesus existed at that time and place, but would say that it is much more likely than not based on the confirming evidence from outside of the Christian faith. At some point you need to decide how much evidence is enough for any ancient topic. There's no particular reason that I've found credible enough to convince me that there WASN'T a historical figure there, even though I absolutely refuse to accept any magic or miracles.

I've always understood historical Jesus as a concession, and not a reflection of confirmed existence.

What Jesus are they talking about? That needs to be defined first. Not the one depicted in the bible that’s for sure.

Have you heard about this dude named Brian?

Hmm... let me get this straight.

Your unpopular opinion™ is that someone named Jesus may have existed around the same time that all the stories about Jesus Christ of Nazareth were written?

Joseph Smith was real too. Why should anyone care

People think that if it's not recorded, it didn't happen. That line of thinking ignores that entropy of historical documents. Records are lost in fires, floods, looting, improper care, and more. There is also the issue of conflicting information from different sources. Is the document written by Ancient Person A about Ancient Event correct or is it Ancient Person B's version correct.

STEM people are trained with principles that are consider absolute until a paradigm shift happens.

It's why historians have the 5 C's: context, change over time, causality, complexity, and contingency.

The profession what would under historical evidence and historical thinking would be lawyers. Lawyers get cases all the time were you don't have direct evidence. For example, it's a murder case. There is no murder weapon and no eye witness. The victim was found with multiple stab wounds. There's a suspect in custody.

How do lawyers prove the suspect did the murder? Lawyers bring in collaborative evidence, such as: the suspect was seen with the victim before the murder, the suspect was seen in the area after the estimated time of death, the suspect had blood on their shirt, the suspect had a motive, etc.

To circle back to Jesus. There is no fundamental law of physics nor experiment to prove Jesus. Historians have to apply the five C's to prove the existence of Jesus. Collaborating documents, events, archeological evidence, carbon dating of physical evidence, etc.

Of course as soon as religion is mentioned, people's biases go into overdrive.

Who fucking cares?

Saying Jesus existed but biblical events didn’t happen is meaningless. And since we know the bible is full of crap, it doesn’t really matter if a Jesus existed or not. That specific fairy tale Jesus is made up. Maybe it is a dramatization of real events, maybe it is a mix of stories and legends about several different people, maybe it was fabricated, it doesn’t really matter. Saying “Jesus existed” is just feeding the apologists, and there are so many Christian historians than I cannot take claims like that seriously.

There is a lot of historical evidence that a lot of historical figures claiming to be the second coming of the messiah existed at the time. Jesus was just the most popular one. He’s the crème de la crème of messianic figures of the time. That’s all.

Okay, now do Atlantis.

Just want to add a couple of things

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. There were no extra-Biblical references to Pontius Pilate until 1961. Now imagine how much documentation must have surrounded the Roman prefect of Judea. All of it gone, except for a bit of limestone.

Also an argument (I think I heard it from Hitchens, but not sure): We know that the Nativity story is bogus because the Census that was supposed to bring Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem is anachronistic. And we know that it's important that Jesus be from Bethlehem (City of David) because the Messiah was prophesized to be from there.

So the question is: if were making up Jesus from whole cloth, why not just make him Jesus of Bethlehem? Why go to the trouble unless Jesus of Nazareth was something people were already familiar with?

Chiming in here with no degrees or STEM training to say that I exist, but it's unlikely there will be any record of me in a couple thousand years. Though I haven't given the whole water to wine thing a go so don't count me out just yet.

Downvote for stating "facts" without sources.

Jesus doesn't have to be a single historical person.