I think there's a wrench in the historical Jesus example. While a majority of Biblical scholars agree that he existed, there's almost no consensus about who he was, which seems to be the driving force behind those who are agnostic or skeptical about Jesus' existence. In other words, there's a consensus about Jesus' historicity but there's no consensus about why he was actually important to early Christians. Which is strange.

As a matter of fact, there's a huge halo effect bias among Biblical scholars when describing Jesus in a supposed secular academic context:

Jesus, a perfect example of imperfect ethics

My project actually began with a puzzling experience. If one reads almost any book on Christian ethics written by academic biblical scholars, one finds something extremely peculiar: Jesus never does anything wrong.

[...]

This uniformly benign picture of Jesus’ ethics is peculiar because when historians study Alexander the Great or Augustus Caesar, they note the good and the bad aspects of their actions. Even when academic biblical scholars study Moses or David, they might note their flaws. From a purely historical viewpoint, Jesus is a man and not a god. He should have flaws.

So how is it that most Christian academic biblical scholars never see anything that Jesus does as wrong or evil? The answer, of course, is that most Christian biblical scholars, whether in secular academia or in seminaries, still see Jesus as divine, and not as a human being with faults.

Such scholars are still studying Jesus through the confessional lenses of Nicea or Chalcedon rather than through a historical approach we would use with other human beings.

It's as though their scholarship is still being biased with a need to appease Christians. Any scholar who came to such a drastic conclusion like Jesus not existing at all would be anathema to a field that still venerates Jesus in a way.