Jesus had schizophrenia and paul had temporal lobe seizures

[Minimalist]

I would contend this point that the people in Palestine during the first century CE were desperate for religion. In fact, it wasn't for another 4 centuries that the Roman Empire force-fed Christianity to the masses, with other empires down the road doing the same.

No what I really mean is that palestine in the time of jesus was poor, Ignorant and politically unstable, thus prefect breeding ground for cults. Infact now that I think of it why even see this miracle and legend attribution in modern cult leaders like joseph smith.

Those conditions apply to most of the ancient world. Which is probably why this essay is so on target.

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/r...kooks.html

Conclusion

From all of this one thing should be apparent: the age of Jesus was not an age of critical reflection and remarkable religious acumen. It was an era filled with con artists, gullible believers, martyrs without a cause, and reputed miracles of every variety. In light of this picture, the tales of the Gospels do not seem very remarkable. Even if they were false in every detail, there is no evidence that they would have been disbelieved or rejected as absurd by many people, who at the time had little in the way of education or critical thinking skills. They had no newspapers, telephones, photographs, or public documents to consult to check a story. If they were not a witness, all they had was a man's word. And even if they were a witness, the tales above tell us that even then their skills of critical reflection were lacking. Certainly, this age did not lack keen and educated skeptics--it is not that there were no skilled and skeptical observers. There were. Rather, the shouts of the credulous rabble overpowered their voice and seized the world from them, boldly leading them all into the darkness of a thousand years of chaos. Perhaps we should not repeat the same mistake. After all, the wise learn from history. The fool ignores it.