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I'd like to address this to those who are familiar with New Testament scripture, but are non-believers or, ideally, ex-believers.
Are there any serious considerations of the hypothesis as follows:
1. Jesus was a mortal man who read the bible for what it was, saw the world for what it was, and realised there were things rotten in society of the time.
2. Jesus was a perceptive, loving and highly moral individual who sought to change the world and people's attitudes for the benefit of humankind. Effectively a humanist.
3. Jesus studied scripture to such an extent he was able to offer plausible reinterpretations of the old testament consistent with his own moral observations of the real world.
4. Jesus learned basic but convincing trickery much like those practised on a daily basis all over the world today by faith healers, gurus and magicians worldwide.
5. Jesus was able either to convince his disciples he was God incarnate, or more likely actually submitted to some of them his grand plan to promote moral advancement. Some of them may even have assisted in some of his supposed miracles.
6. Jesus believed so strongly that moral evolution was required, that he was prepared to suffer and die for his humanistic beliefs, like so many people do to this day.
7. Jesus had to profess faith in order not to be disregarded as a heretic. It would never have been enough to simply say 'Religion is false and we should all start being nicer to each other'. I think it would be most consistent to think he did not even believe in God.
8. After Jesus sacrificed himself most brutally, his disciples felt morally obliged and inspired to do the same. Some accounts may have been mistaken, some disciples may have been genuinely convinced of Jesus' divine nature, others were conscious allies in his gambit for moral advancement.
To me this approach seems to fit what vague facts we have, while actually elevating Jesus as a historical figure of great humanity.
Such a view on Jesus may at least be useful when debating Christians whose faith is already floundering but feel such a personal bond they cannot bring themselves to believe he was a liar. This way his moral stature is maintained, I would argue it is even enhanced, which may sit better with ex-believers.
This explanation makes very good humanistic sense to me. No magicks required, yet Jesus and his disciples remains a figure of admirable moral stature, if ultimately deceptive. I think most people would agree that the moral values endorsed by Jesus in the New Testament were a significant improvement on those from Old Testament, to say nothing of how those views may have been misrepresented and abused by organised religion of the time.
Just a hypothesis, but it makes a lot more sense to me than many I have heard. But then I'm really not familiar with scripture, I'm basing this on my own rather limited knowledge.
Thanks for reading, I'd appreciate your serious thoughts.
I had meant togive this a serious reply but got distracted. IMO The council of Nicea could be the point at which the first version of our "Bible" was written. At this writing, a character named Jesus could have been invented from any one of the prophets who existed at the time IRL and embellished with pagan legend, complete with a set of apostles, to add credibility. It seems plausible that some sort of prophet could have existed, even based on the atheist thoughts about the "bible myth. " Of course, there was and is a political agenda behind the whole story, and if you can trace the lies maybe you can find an element of truth. (ok Iknow, I watch too much CSI)
But with the decay of the Roman Empire, the rulers of the day needed something to keep some semblance of order. A cursory read of the early history of North Italy in the dark ages (before it was Italy) is a good way to figure out what happened without a strong central government in those days. (I did a little research on them to understand some of my family history.) Unfortunately, the methods they adopted for control, torture and killing and such, was not at all pleasant. Those methods did give Christianity the ability to survive in spite of its unbeleivable nature, as no one dared question it or subject the legend to much scrutiny. So, if Jesus did exist, he may have been entirely different than the God of scripture as he was presented through history. He may, in fact have been a Ghandi type character, whose bio was so bastardised by the ruling priests as to be unrecognizable IRL. Well, now that my fingers are tired... thats all for now.
