He may very well be historical fiction, I don't deny that. But I disagree with the rest. When I say historical figure, I'm talking about him in the same way one might talk about Homer. It's a character that has a presence in both contemporary work and ancient ones, no matter if he was real or not he is a historical figure in that sense. And we do have texts dated from the first century (the Pauline epistles) that talk about Jesus, so even if he didn't exist per se, we at least know for certain the myth is old. There are plenty of theologians and historians that believe jesus existed as person (obviously not as the son of a god, but as a regular human whose actions made an impact in the society he live). There are also those who believe a person existed in which the myth of Jesus was built around. In regards to your last point, yes, a lot of fabled people have contradictory history surrounding them, that's a quirk of the way we keep track of things and something historiography studies. (Historiography is the science that studies the way we retell history)