do you believe there was a historical figure the Jesus story was built on?

[intaglio]

104. The Jesus of the Gospels? - nope

There is an excellent chance that there was one or more minor "prophets" whose name might be transliterated as Jesus. Firstly because Yeshua (normally written by Greeks and Romans as Joshua) was a very common name in Judea and Galilee and secondly because apocalyptic street preachers were 2-a-penny in that area.

Ehrmann, other "agnostic" scholars and most of the non-fundementalist researchers will admit that the vast majority of stories about Jesus were stolen from other religions and legends, and also many parables attributed to Jesus were common currency long before the supposed ministry. What the scholars who accept that there was a inspirational figure leading a new religious movement forget is that the religion we have was actually founded upon the theology and efforts of Paul. Problem, Paul never met Jesus (and neither did any of the Gospel writers), never admitted his reality in the early epistles and only spoke of him as an ideal in those epistles.

Interestingly we have very little information about Paul either. The epistles that are not much later forgeries were, stylistically, written by one hand in the 1st Century CE but the accounts of Paul's journeys are, frankly, impossible. There is also no contemporary record of Paul or Saul of Tarsus, which for a man who (supposedly) attracted enough attention from an Emperor to warrant him being transported to Rome with a Centurion and a couple of other soldiers is - err - problematic.