[sral]

The mainstream scholarly consensus is still near universal that Jesus was a real person, even if the supernatural claims about him are not accepted as historical.

The data points most relied on to support historicity are:

Paul's writings, in particular Paul's reference to James as "the brother of the Lord," which implies that Jesus had a physical brother who Paul knew personally.

Two mentions (albeit one of them at least partially interpolated) by Josephus.

A mention by Tacitus that the founder of the Christians was one named "Christus" who was put to death by Pilate (quite similar to what Joesphus says).


That's pretty much it for hard evidence. There really isn't any smoking gun, but scholarly consensus is that historicity is at least more likely than not.