wiki: Virtually all modern scholars agree that Jesus existed

Alright guys and girls.
Time to stir the pot here.

Wikipedia: Historicity of Jesus

Virtually all modern scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed, and biblical scholars and classical historians regard theories of his non-existence as effectively refuted. While there is little agreement on the historicity of gospel narratives and their theological assertions of his divinity most scholars agree that Jesus was a Galilean Jew who was born between 7 and 2 BC and died 30–36 AD. Most scholars hold that Jesus lived in Galilee and Judea, did not preach or study elsewhere and that he spoke Aramaic and may have also spoken Hebrew and possibly Greek. Although scholars differ on the reconstruction of the specific episodes of the life of Jesus, the two events whose historicity is subject to "almost universal assent" are that he was baptized by John the Baptist and shortly afterwards was crucified by the order of the Roman Prefect Pontius Pilate.

then ... over at:
Wiki: Crucifixion of Jesus

Jesus' crucifixion is described in all four Canonical gospels, attested to by other ancient sources, and is firmly established as an historical event confirmed by non-Christian sources.

Also, of note to me, since i have heard *repeatedly* by skeptics of all sorts that "crucifixion did not even exist at the time of jesus" (and the cross is only an astrological reference, blah blah blah) ...

Although almost all ancient sources relating to crucifixion are literary, the 1968 archeological discovery just northeast of Jerusalem of the body of a crucified man dated to the 1st century provided good confirmatory evidence of the gospel accounts of crucifixion .[26] The crucified man was identified as Yohan Ben Ha'galgol and probably died about 70 AD, around the time of the Jewish revolt against Rome.

Okay.
So?

i'm not taking sides here. (ok, per below, well maybe a bit)
i just find it interesting.
although personally (having no religious affiliation, having been raises agnostic by parents who were catholic (mom) and jewish (dad) by familial relation, but staunchly agnostic by personal opinion) ... after having waited till i was in my late 20's to even bother opening a bible, and having finally read a good bit of it -- out of raw curiosity, not some sort of miraculous midlife conversion -- (still haven't read Acts or Romans, and maybe missed an epistle or two) ... i find it rather hard to believe that not only was the entirety of this book "fabricated" "out of thin air" with NO basis in fact\history (ie. the central character is entirely false \ fabricated) but i find it even less plausible (far less plausible) that SOOOO many people would have meticulously HAND copied these works and passed them on without *strong motivation* (and by strong motivation, i am really referring to a: "you fucking killed my leader, we will not let his memory die" sort of thing)
also, if you start digging in to the dead sea scrolls, and the Nag Hammadi library texts, and you start reading the research around them (and you actually study who the Essenes were) it becomes pretty hard not to start making connections. Once you have done that you have already started the process vis-a-vis a KNOWN historical backdrop of connecting the "jesus" of "myth" with an actual factual historical milieu. At this point things start becoming pretty goddamn intriguing, if not compelling even.

Just saying.
ramble over.