Is Jesus a real historical figure?

See this page to analyze these 20 proposed examples:

• In [AD 33] The 1 Corinthians 15 creedal formula we hear of Jesus as an historical figure, including “that Christ died… and that He was buried.”
• In [AD 45] Paul's letters to churches at Corinth, Galatia, etc. were speaking of an historical Jesus (e.g. “born of a woman, born under the Law,” “born of a descendant of David,” he had a “brother”, “[Jewish leaders] both killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets,” and “that Christ died… and that He was buried” etc.)
• In [AD 55] Thallus's 3rd volume of his history book speaks of Jesus's crucifixion, and consequences in “many places in Judea and other districts”
• In [AD 70] The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke spoke of Jesus as a historical figure, “just as they were handed down to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses”
• In [AD 70] Acts of the Apostles we also hear often of "Jesus Christ the Nazarene, whom you crucified,"
• [AD 80] The Gospel of John we hear often of this historical "Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph"
• [AD 93] Josephus's Jewish Antiquities 18 speaks of this Jesus who "won over many Jews and many of the Greeks"... "Pilate... condemned him to be crucified"
• [AD 93] Josephus's Jewish Antiquities 20 we hear of how "the Sanhedrin [was convened] and brought before them a man named James, the brother of Jesus who was called the Christ," (note James is well-known as Jesus's biological brother often in Paul's letters; Paul knew James personally).
• [AD 95] 1 Clement's letter speaks of Jesus, e.g. "remembering the words of the Lord Jesus" who came from "the line of Judah."
• [AD 100] The Didache speaks of Jesus, from "the holy vine of... David" (i.e. a descendent).
• [AD 100] Mara-Bar Sarapion's letter to his son likely refers to Jesus in a line of references to historical figures like Socrates, saying the Jews gained nothing from "executing their wise king".
• [AD 105] Papias's report speaks of hearing what living disciple-witnesses of Jesus were still teaching ("the Lord’s disciples, and whatever Aristion and the elder John, the Lord’s disciples, were saying")
• [AD 107] Ignatius's Epistle to the Smyrnæans also speaks of "the seed of David according to the flesh," "baptized by John," and "under Pontius Pilate and Herod the tetrarch, nailed [to the cross]"
• [AD 110] Polycarp's letter to the Philippians speaks of Jesus as a historical figure, e.g. how he was killed "upon the tree" (a Jewish prophetic reference to the cross).
• [AD 111] Pliny the Younger's letter to Trajan speaks of Jesus as a historical figure, and even how Christians sang "a hymn to Christ as to a god" (while himself believing Jesus was merely a recently executed man.)
• [AD 115] Tacitus's Annals speaks of "Christus, from whom the name ["Christians"] had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus"
• [AD 120] Seutonius's Life of Emperor Claudius also mentions "Chrestus" and his followers ("[Claudius] expelled them from Rome," which is true of Christians).
• [AD 150] Justin Martyr's Dialogue with Trypho records that the historical Jesus was "crucified under Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judæa, in the times of Tiberius Cæsar."
• [AD 165] Lucian's book, The Death of Peregrinus speaks of Christians quite a bit, and how Jesus "was crucified", calling him a historical "crucified sage."
• [AD 175] Irenaeus's book, Against Heresies too refers to Jesus as a historical figure, "being of flesh and blood.... [and was less than] fifty years old;"

This page analyzes 7 arguments in depth:

• New Testament name-ratios precisely match Palestine's. So for example, onomastic studies have catelogued over 3,000 names from tomb inscriptions etc, and we can tell a lot. We know AD 30's most common Palestinian names are also the most common names in the Gospels, despite not being common at all outside of Palestine in that time. Among the many examples, consider that 41.5% of men had one of the 9 most popular male names in that time and place, which almost exactly matches the ratio in the Gospels and Acts (40.3%). Likewise AD 30 Palestine's rarer names are equally rare in the Gospels. And finally, AD 30 Palestine's Greek names are equally frequent in the Gospels. The coorespondence is stunning and precisely what we would expect from stories grounded in eyewitness testimony. It would be almost impossible to fake this accuracy by chance even for a resident living in AD 30 Palestine, and essentially impossible outside of ~AD 30 Palestine.
• Gospel authors got it all witness-approved or close. (E.g. they self-claimed to be witness-based, they were called "memoirs", the true details about Jesus's life and teaching were fresh and overwhelming for any lay inquirer at that time, the Gospel authors were demonstrably honest, we can show several parts and details were witness-based, and the Gospels were arguably written only when the active story-recounting witnesses started dying.) And if the content was witness-approved, then it's trivially a subset of witness testimony.
• Gospels spew witness-based stories. Some reasons to agree include the fact that we can confirm an astonishing amount of undisputed accuracies in these stories, we can observe them spewing truly vivid realism (30+ instances) which are more expected coming from witness testimony, they also exhibit complex internal coherences and interlocking details. Moreover, the stories are often provably early, we can show that Christians were truly inundated in honest witness-based Jesus accounts (rather than fictions), and finally all the additional reasons in this section help establish that the Gospels spew witness-based stories. But of course, if the Gospels have so much witness-based content, then absent reason to think otherwise we have reason to think they simply are largely or entirely witness-based stories as a whole. Whatever the details, the active Gospel-formation mechanisms were obviously successful at relaying witness testimony in the final product.
• Gospel stories are not lies/legends. (E.g. We see them abounding in Palestinian content, and details which we can confirm are non-legendary for a range of reasons, we can see how the Gospels lack anachronisms and anatopisms which we would otherwise expect from legends, and we have strong reasons for thinking that early Christians in general were stringently honest about Jesus biography.) But if the Gospel stories are not lies or legends, then the only serious option remaining is that they stem from witness testimony.
• Gospel stories are a subset of 1st church’s. (E.g. We can show that the early stories about Jesus were propogated and regulated by the Jerusalem church [i.e. the "1st church"] where the main witnesses were headquartered, and that the Gospel content pre-dates the Gospels and is truly multiply attested. We can know Christians in general lionized the witnesses and celebrated and recounted their stories of Jesus from the get-go, that the Gospel authors could've and would've wanted to align their contents with the 1st church's stories, and that the Gospels did in fact strive to be witness-based while all the main witnesses attended the 1st church). But the 1st church's stories were based in the treasured witness testimony of its members, so if the Gospel content is a subset of that it means the Gospels were witness-based as well.
• The Gospels are historically reliable (E.g. in addition to the more general evidence that the content is witness-based, we know that the Gospels are extremely information rich and yet repeatedly avert countless opportunities to record inaccuracies we would otherwise anticipate on the hypothesis that the Gospels are unreliable. This cries out for an explanation, and the only satisfying one cites the general reliability of the Gospels). But if the Gospels are generally historically reliable, then the best explantaion is that their contents are truly are grounded in witness testimony.
• Popular Jesus-bio was a subset of what witnesses said. Some reason to agree are that, in general, witness-based truth would and has always smothered attempts at legend, for 50+ years after the initial events. In particular, we can show Jesus-bio thrived in the AD 30-70 Mediterranean and that false Jesus-bio failed to thrive. This is relevant because the Gospels demonstrably depended on sources for virtually all of their content, so the sources all (or virtually all) being witness-based bodes well for the prospects of the gospel content in turn being witness-based.

See this page to explore 3 arguments:

• Gospel stories spew church-hated content. For example, they spew content about Jesus that is quite embarrassing to themselves. These range from things like his being baptized by John the Baptist, to his being disbelieved by his family (which was very shameful), up to his own apostles abandoning him in the end. See inside for 10+ examples.
• Speakers in Gospels think-talk as pre-Christians. The idea here is that the Gospel characters sound nothing like post-Easter Christians. For example, we never see Jesus or individuals in the Gospels speaking of believers "receiving" Jesus, which was par for the course in post-Easter Christianity. And if the Gospels were legends, we would see that language here. Explore inside to learn about several additional examples.
• Gospel Jesus-sayings repeat consistent quirks. This is the inverse of the point just above. For example, across our sources Jesus habitually prefaces his comments with "amen." Similarly, across our sources Jesus habitually identifies himself as the "Son of Man." These are quirks that are unique to the reported Jesus, however, and the church had no corresponding tendency to apply these to Jesus.

Consider one example (among many):

• We know that Jesus was crucified. Among our evidences for this (e.g. a panoply of independent attestations from people who would know) is the fact that it is not the sort of thing Christians would invent; it was the highest humiliation and Jews in particular regarded it as a sure sign that God has cursed someone. Paul confirms the stigma associated with it when he dismissively says, “I am not ashamed” (Rom 1:16) and when in 1 Cor 1:23 he says “Christ crucified, [is] to Jews a stumbling block, and to Gentiles foolishness.”