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To be fair, I doubt that most atheists who have seriously studied the subject would claim that Jesus of Nazareth didn’t exist. Historians, as you mention, are near unanimous in concluding that he did. See the rather long quote below to make that point.Still, there are popular websites and books making this claim, and numerous people (atheists included) do repeat them. That doesn’t, however, discredit the atheist’s arguments (That is done by other means). What it does do is demonstrate that a lot of people just don’t understand how history works.Demonstrating a historical fact is not like demonstrating the existence of the Higgs Boson. It does involve the scientific method (i.e., gather strong evidence, evaluate it, create a falsifiable hypothesis, and demonstrate that falsification is impossible or highly improbable) but by it’s nature it depends on the accumulated preponderance of evidence rather the ability to repeat an experiment in the lab.The fact is that the vast majority of historians, based on numerous peer reviewed studies, accept that the preponderance of the evidence demonstrates that Jesus of Nazareth did exist. In point of fact, the scholarly consensus is that more than that can be known with reasonable certainty. To quote the late Geza Vermes, “Jesus of Nazareth (c. 6/5 BCE - 30 CE) was a Jewish charismatic prophet, healer, exorcist, and teacher whose message was centered on the imminent coming of the Kingdom of God..." (Who's Who in the Age of Jesus, pg. 130, Penguin, 2005). That he was crucified is considered certain (the most certain fact besides his existence), and perhaps the majority admit there must have been an “Easter event” of some kind. It is too difficult to explain the existence of the early church without one.Not quite orthodox Christianity, of course, but not quite, “He didn’t exist” either.The mistake made by people who hold that Jesus didn’t exist — the ones who try to make historical arguments, at least — is that, rather than looking at the preponderance of all the evidence like a trained historian, they take each individual piece of evidence and cast as much doubt on it as they can. This, I must point out, is part of the same methodology used by climate change deniers, moon landing deniers, and (on the other hand, perhaps) evolution deniers. Given that “Jesus deniers” are going up against a wall of evidence and scholarly work with rather amateur arguments, their position does smack a bit of a conspiracy theory.Now here’s that long quote by a general historian (purposely not by a preacher or a biblical scholar):“Jesus was born in about 6 BC… The evidence for the facts of his life is contained in the records written down after his death in the Gospels, the assertions and traditions which the early Church based on the testimony of those who had actually known Jesus. The Gospels are not by themselves satisfactory evidence but their inadequacies can be exaggerated. They were no doubt written to demonstrate the supernatural authority of Jesus and the confirmation provided by the events of his life for the prophecies which had long announced the coming of Messiah. This interested and hagiographical origin does not demand scepticism about all the facts asserted; many have inherent plausibility in that they are what might be expected of a Jewish religious leader of the period. They need not be rejected; much more inadequate evidence about far more intractable subjects has often to be employed. There is no reason to be more austere or rigorous in our canons of acceptability for early Christian records than for, say, the evidence in Homer which illuminates Mycenae.”(J. M. Roberts, Historian, Warden at Merton College, Oxford University, History of the World, pp. 209-210, Oxford University Press New York, 1993)