On "Scholarly Consensus"

[Faith No More]

So what do you think would constitute an authentic source for actually knowing that Jesus existed?

What about the earliest followers, the earliest writers, and the closest disciples who all testified to his existence? They were just lying about it?

If your answer is yes to the last question, then the next question is, do you really know that they lied?

I don't think it's a matter of knowing, but a matter of which is more likely.

You're creating a false dichotomy, Rayaan. It's entirely possible that these people never even existed and are nothing more than fanciful characters. When looking at historical documents, you have to see what other historians were saying at the time. Someone of the stature that Jesus rises to in the bible would have been written about by many different writers, but all we can find to substantiate Jesus' existence are the bible and a few very questionable external sources.

What appears to be most likely is that either no Jesus existed, or the Jesus that did exist was so vastly different from what the bible describes that it's barely valid to say Christ was based on a real person.