Did Jesus exist historically? Well, it seems John the Baptist is a historic person but it is fairly sure he would not even be historically known for anything if he had not baptised Jesus of Nazareth. So both must be historical. But there is more to it than that. Did Jesus actually die on a cross? John the Baptist made the future sacrifice of ‘the lamb of God’ his major message it seems. He did not live to see it. His own death is a historically attested event because it coincided with a historic war between Herod and the father of his first wife whose replacement wife infamously asked for John’s head on a platter. If Jesus had not died on a cross in a way consistent with something sacrificial then nobody would have bothered remembering John the Baptist. Yet they even kept some bones of John the Baptist which seem to have survived as fragments analysed by scientists recently. So he must have been vindicated by what happened to Jesus. It must have been either death on a cross or something very similar. Stands to reason - not just mine but historians down the ages.
