> It's not even absolutely clear that Jesus was a historical personage.
It is pretty certain that Jesus was historically a personage, since we have historical evidence that people had a text (often called The Holy Bible, or some variation) with a character in it called Jesus.
We at least know that the Apostles were real people since Paul’s authentic letters depict him having to haul a sack of collections money to Peter and the extant living Apostles, nevermind his arguments with them over whether Gentiles should be circumcised, a debate which would yield the universality of Christian belief rather than being an extended Hebrew sect.
It's also important to note that Paul, whom is the founder of Christianity as we understand it, never ever mentions anything about Jesus' life, Jesus' lived experience in his authentic letters; he is strictly concerned with, strictly extrapolates from, Jesus' death by crucifixion and the meaning of his resurrection. The books in the Bible that describe Jesus as a historical figure are written after Paul has died.
I would suggest not using wikipedia as a source especially one full of insufficient arguments as that one.
> Only two accepted facts of a historical Jesus
Main article: Historical Jesus
Part of the ancient Madaba Map showing two possible baptism locations
Bronzino's depiction of the Crucifixion with three nails, no ropes, and a hypopodium standing support, c. 1545
> There is no scholarly consensus concerning most elements of Jesus's life as described in the Christian and non-Christian sources, and the only two events of this historical Jesus subject to "almost universal assent" are that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist and was crucified by order of the Roman Prefect Pontius Pilate (who officiated 26–36 AD).[14][4][5][6][7][note 5]
The criterion of embarrassment has been used to argue for the historicity of the baptism of Jesus, shown here in The Baptism of Christ by Juan Fernández Navarrete.
> Based on the criterion of embarrassment, scholars argue that the early Christian Church would not have invented the painful death of their leader.[15] The criterion of embarrassment is also used to argue in favor of the historicity of the baptism of Jesus,[16][17][18] given that John baptised for the remission of sins, although Jesus was viewed as without sin and this positioned John above Jesus
Neither is even a kind of good argument. In place of actual evidence we are making impossible to disprove psychological arguments to the motivation of believers.
There is no contemporary as in at the time evidence of Jesus or reason to believe that the parties that wrote down accounts long after his death were actually recordings of first person accounts.
If the bible can make up exodus and fabricate Noah I have no reason to believe fabricating Jesus is beyond the pale. Here is what I think a better write up looks like it is admittedly biased
Another reasonable challenge to the use of something like the Bible is that normally when a work contains thousands of clear fabrications and myths it tends to diminish its worth as a source.
For instance if I wrote a biography of wizzwizz4 and in the course of my writings claimed you were a godlike being from pluto who came to earth in the middle ages it would not only be dubious it would cast doubt on myself as a credible source. Even true things I wrote which were not corroborated elsewhere would be reasonably deemed dubious.
> If the bible can make up exodus and fabricate Noah I have no reason to believe fabricating Jesus is beyond the pale.
From a historian's perspective, these are completely different sources, from hundreds of years apart. There has been a lot of analysis of their composition, which tell us what we probably can and probably can't trust about them. You don't discard a historical source just because it's a religious text. There are no absolutely trustworthy sources in history, but that they existed within a context, giving us some confidence in certain properties at least.
Of Pythagoras, it has been written:
> There is not a single detail in the life of Pythagoras that stands uncontradicted. — Walter Burkert (via Wikipedia)
Aristotle is only attested in other people's writings, produced after his death. We still think he existed. All evidence of Diotíma of Mantinea can be traced back to Plato's Symposium, where a handful of her ideas were recorded. Plato might have made her up, but there's reason to believe he didn't. We only have, like, four sources on Genghis Khan's life, and he was viewed as a deity for hundreds of years. Nonetheless, we're pretty sure there was a person called Genghis Khan who existed, and held the role in society that all these tales suggest he did (even if the tales themselves may not be true).
Very little is known about almost everyone. Jesus is not exceptional in this regard. If you say that Jesus didn't exist because there's not good evidence, you have to discard a lot of allegedly-historical figures for the same reason. (Or, I suppose, just make a special exception for this one guy.)
It is pretty certain that Jesus was historically a personage, since we have historical evidence that people had a text (often called The Holy Bible, or some variation) with a character in it called Jesus.
There's also lots of evidence that Jesus was a historical person. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus for an introduction.