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Desrtopa comments on Tell Your Rationalist Origin Story - Less Wrong
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Bible scholars have a consensus that this is the case, although whether they are doing any actual scholarship with regard to the issue is questionable. Atheists by and large do not become Bible scholars, and the mind-killing effects of religion mean that theists tend to do notably poor scholarship in this particular area.
However when a rationalist tries to drill down to the actual evidence you find that nothing is there, apart from Bible scholars reading the Bible and saying "this Paul guy seems legit, I don't think he'd have made that up".
Perhaps the most compelling argument I've heard for the existence of a real historical figure by whom the gospels were inspired was actually put forward by Eliezer (in a discussion on the tvtropes forum, where he visits occasionally.) That is that Jesus appears much more like a cult figure who failed to live up to the expectations of his followers, and so they modified their expectations and rationalized, rather than an ideal messianic figure that people would simply have made up.