Was Jesus just a fictional character?

The silly claim that Jesus never existed exasperates me.  It’s essentially crank stuff, but lately, via the unfiltered medium of the internet, it’s won an audience (that it doesn’t deserve) among credulous, over-eager atheists and agnostics.

I understand disbelief in his divinity.  But the flat denial of his existence is a different matter altogether.

I’ve had relatively little to say about it, but, having again encountered the claim several times over just the past few days, I do want to call attention to the following brief columns:

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/765589224/An-agnostics-argument-that-Jesus-did-exist.html?pg=all

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865618385/He-was-the-son-of-God-and-one-of-us.html?pg=all

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865619115/The-evidence-for-Jesus-is-early-and-powerful.html?pg=all

And to this one, as well:

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/765576518/Parallels-of-prophets-not-parallel.html?pg=all