re: Does anyone actually believe this

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Via wiki's page on the historicity of Jesus. You can check out the sources, there is universal agreement among secular historians that Jesus existed.

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You're right, universal expert agreement has always been respected.

Genro, I seem remember you in a discussion about climate change. Am I remembering correctly?

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Y'all spent 10 pages debating something that's not up for debate. If I got on here and said the ocean wasn't salty, would you argue this long? Or would you just accept that I'm a stubborn ignoramus/troll and move on?

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There's a growing group of critics that are starting to come out right now -- Richard Carrier is usually the flag bearer for the contemporary movement and has just produced a peer reviewed, cited book on the evidence for Jesus or lack thereof.

He recently demolished Ehrman, and is gaining steam as we speak.

If you're going to cite experts, you had better prepare to bring up their works.

Most modern scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed,[5][7][8] but scholars differ on the historicity of specific episodes described in the Biblical accounts,[12] and the only two events subject to "almost universal assent" are that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist and was crucified by the order of the Roman Prefect Pontius Pilate.[9][10][11] -- is literally what they agree on.

However, certain scholars, particularly in Europe, have recently made the case that while there are a number of plausible "Jesuses" that could have existed, there can be no certainty as to which Jesus was the historical Jesus, and that there should also be more scholarly research and debate on this topic.[18][19] -- Similarly, they closed the book very early and said "yerp he was there", without anyone really testing it with any real gusto. There needs to be more talk regarding the subject, as most ancient historians and theologians also happen to be Christians. The few Atheists that have said Jesus existed or was a person have been destroyed recently, as I said earlier: Ehrman vs. Carrier.

https://vridar.org/2012/04/28/the-facts-of-the-matter-carrier-8-ehrman-1-my-own-review-part-2/

This is a fantastic scholarly summation of the Ehrman/Carrier debate that turned me.