Did Jesus ever actually exist? To the majority of scholars, both Christian and otherwise, this is essentially a non-question. It seems to have been pretty much universally accepted throughout the Common Era that Jesus, whether the Messiah or not, was at least an actual person who lived in first century Palestine and was executed by the Romans. It appears that the first serious questioning of the very existence of Jesus only dates back to the eighteenth century, and has been pretty widely dismissed since then. But is this due more to the available facts or simply to wishful thinking? Christianity has been a majority religion for centuries, and Jesus is also considered an important prophet in Islam. Even some people who totally reject Christian belief like the idea of Jesus having been a real person, as many of his teachings are of value even outside their religious context. Still, there doesn't appear to have been all that much evidence for Jesus that dates back to the time when he actually lived. The known Gospels appeared some time after Jesus' death, and while they could have conceivably been based on eyewitness accounts, they presumably weren't actually written in their present form by direct witnesses. The Gospel accounts themselves, however, are generally believable. Sure, they contain accounts of miracles, but there are plenty of reports of real people having worked what at the time were thought to be miracles, and many myths have developed about confirmed historical personages. There were stories that Alexander the Great had been born of a virgin and that Nero had come back to life after dying (a belief quite likely reflected in Revelation), and I don't know of any comparable movement arguing that they never existed. The verisimilitude of the Gospels could simply mean that they were written by good authors, however, and we know that some of the historical details don't quite add up. Not only does Luke's account of the census during which Jesus was born not really make sense, but this census didn't occur until AFTER the death of Herod the Great, whose presence was significant to Matthew's story of the birth of Jesus. Still, since the carpenter-turned-preacher apparently didn't do much of any significance until he was around thirty years old, we can expect the details of his birth to be sketchy, and full of invented details.
What about evidence from historians of the time? The problem here is that Jesus would have been of only marginal interest to anyone not directly involved with his life or part of his then-small following, and he apparently never ventured outside Palestine during his lifetime. Some of the most cited and argued mentions of Jesus appear in the works of the first century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus. He makes reference to Jesus having been a miracle worker in the time of Pontius Pilate, and to James being the brother of Jesus. The latter passage is generally considered authentic, but the former is more suspicious. The form in which this account now exists says that Jesus was "the Christ," something that a Jew like Josephus wouldn't have believed. Some argue that the passage was basically authentic but was doctored by devout Christians, while others think the entire passage was an addition by later Christians. Pliny the Younger and Tacitus both mention Jesus, but only in the context of what the Christians of the time believed. That Suetonius' reference to "Chrestus" is actually talking about Christ is a bit of a stretch, as Chrestus was a common name at the time.
The earliest known writings about Jesus in the Bible itself are the letters of Paul, who did appear to regard his Messiah as an actual flesh-and-blood person who lived in the recent past. He doesn't give many details of the man's life, however; and he seems to consider himself an equal of the apostles who knew Jesus personally, even though he admits to only having seen the Christ in spiritual form. Then again, do we know whether Peter and James accepted Paul as an equal authority? The Book of Acts seems to suggest that they did, but the authenticity of this book has been questioned. The letters refer to various divisions of Christianity even this early on in its existence. Just look at 1 Corinthians 1:12: "Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ." Paul criticizes this division, but chances are that each of these groups had their own beliefs about Jesus, and Paul's own teachings were almost certainly not universally accepted. And who knows what Paul included in his letters that DIDN'T survive, some of which are alluded to in the ones that did?
I've also seen suggestions that Jesus did exist, but his character wasn't much like that shown in the Bible, or that he was actually a composite of different historical figures. One idea I've come across a few times is that Jesus led a violent rebellion against the Romans, which would presumably be a welcome one to self-styled Christians who join the NRA and support war. Still, if the real Jesus was THAT different from how he's shown in the Gospels, can he even really be considered the same person? The name Yeshuah or Joshua, of which "Jesus" is a Greek translation, had been a quite common one among Jews for a long while. The revolutionary who was freed in the Christian founder's place is referred to as Jesus Barabbas, or "Joshua, Son of the Father." Since there isn't any evidence outside the Bible to the practice of Pilate freeing one prisoner from crucifixion, it's been proposed that Jesus of Nazareth and Jesus Barabbas are actually the same person, having been divided into two separate figures by the Gospel writers. Really, I suppose this is pretty much all speculation at this point. I suppose Occam's Razor would say that Jesus having existed is the simplest explanation, but perhaps we'll never really know.
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