It is a term used by historians to gauge whether or not a person, place, or thing actually existed in the past. Thus the Historicity of Jesus refers to the academic debate over whether or not there was an actual person named Jesus who lived in Judea in the first century. Historicity has been much more problematic and harder than what many historical laymen might expect. The records and data that have been preserved over most of human history privileged the elite and powerful, and even then were very sparse. So with Jesus, historians have had to parse out the few scraps of first and second century documents like the Jewish historian Josephus that refer to a man named Jesus and his Christian sect to make an argument. Part of the reason why this particular debate is so controversial is that these interpretations often turn on semantic and linguistic interpretations on a very narrow source base are thus very subjective.

For example, some historians argue that Josephus's references to Jesus are later forgeries added in by Christian chroniclers. Other scholars make a contention that such a reading is too restrictive and assert that Josephus should be taken more literally. Between these two poles is a mainstream voice that suggests some elements of Josephus are forgeries, but it represents a genuine voice from the first century that does say a man named Jesus existed.

Normally, historicity is something that applies to academic debates that are tempests in a teapot, but when they touch on hot-button issues like religion, they can became quite lively.