Who was Jesus?

[Abaddon_ire]

Did you know that the Skeptics conceived of human Logos as a piece of a universal fire?  You're digging through a mass of muddled and confusing signs trying to locate the divine in the mess.

Well yeah, of course. And that's exactly what the scientific method is, as well......a process of trial and error. Trying different things until something works.

Nope. That is not remotely the scientific method.

[Ahriman]

I guess I'm just a Confused Catholic. I do not practice Catholicism anymore, but still, I struggle with some questions.

[Abaddon_ire]

I guess I'm just a Confused Catholic. I do not practice Catholicism anymore, but still, I struggle with some questions.

My long dead parents raised me and my three siblings catholic.

With the result that we are all atheist. Every one of us. 

The only regret I have is that I never  got to ask my parents why exactly they inflicted that nonsense on us.

[Ahriman]

Honestly, I wish I could be an atheist. Seems pretty chill.

[The Grand Nudger]

Well, not if you read some of these deconversion stories. Turns of that discovering the people you love and respect the most love and respect you the least, is jarring.

There's really no chill, in atheism, in practice or in concept. All of the usual questions batshitingly answered by superstitions still have to be addressed.

[arewethereyet]

[Jehanne]

Was Jesus a self-righteous prick, or just a weird guy with some good ideas?

I wish that you would have done a poll.  My answer:

Jesus of Nazareth was a Jewish apocalyptic prophet who believed and preached that the Son of Man, an angelic being from Heaven, would come to Earth and destroy the Roman Empire, installing God's kingdom on Earth with Jesus being the King of Israel.

[Fake Messiah]

The question is "who Jesus was not?" because there is a whole plethora of Jesuses made by scholars who are trying to figure out who was the man behind the myths. So there is no single “Jesus of History.”

Cynic philosopher — The many borrowings from Greek philosophy in Jesus’ teachings would make sense if Jesus had actually been a wandering Cynic or a Stoic sage, or the Galilean equivalent. Leif Vaage, Burton L. Mack, John Dominic Crossan, Gerald Downing and others have strongly defended this view, citing plenty of Cynic statements.

Liberal Pharisee — In the book "Jesus the Pharisee: A New Look at the Jewishness of Jesus" (2003), historian Harvey Falk argues that virtually all of Jesus’ judgments on the Halakha, the Jewish law, are paralleled in the Pharisaic thought of that time, as well as later rabbinic thought.
 
Charismatic Hasid — Geza Vermes, author of "Jesus the Jew: A Historian’s View of the Gospels" (1981), sees Jesus as one of the popular freewheeling Galilean holy men, unorthodox figures like Hanina Ben-Dosa or Honi the Circle-Drawer who had little respect for the niceties of Jewish law, which of course ticked off the religious establishment.
 
Essene Heretic — J.M. Allegro has pointed to parallels between early Christians, John the Baptist’s sect and the Therapeutae/Essenes of Qumran who gave us the Dead Sea scrolls, wondering if Jesus and John the Baptist were members of that radical community.
 
Conservative Rabbi — Jesus upholds the Torah, insisting, “not one jot or stroke of the Law will pass away”. He wears a prayer shawl tasseled with tzitzit (Matt. 9:20–22), observes the Sabbath, and worships in synagogues as well as the Temple.
 
Magician/Exorcist/Faith Healer — Helmut Koester has said that Jesus must have been a combination prophet/miracle worker/exorcist. Morton Smith wrote a book "Jesus the Magician" claiming that.

Violent Zealot Revolutionary — a political messiah, inciting a revolt against the Romans, like Theudas or “the Egyptian,” the unnamed Messianic figure Josephus describes, or the two “robbers” crucified with Jesus (since rebel bandits were commonly referred to as robbers). Many scholars like Robert Eisler, S. G. F. Brandon, Hugh J. Schonfield, Hyam Maccoby, and Robert Eisenman think this.
 
Nonviolent Pacifist Resister — Bruce Malina and others have argued, Jesus isn’t called the Prince of Peace for nothing.

Apocalyptic Prophet — This is the Jesus that Albert Schweitzer and many subsequent historians have thought was the real thing: A fearless, fiery Judgment Day preacher announcing that the end was nigh and the Kingdom of God was coming fast. Like many other first century Jewish apocalypts, this Jesus did not expect the world to survive his own lifetime. Bart Ehrman makes the case for such a figure in "Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium" (1999).

Proto-Communist — Was Jesus the first Marxist? Milan Machoveč and other leftists have thought so. You have to admit Jesus has nothing good to say about the capitalist pigs of his day.

Feminist — Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza and Kathleen Corley point to his role as a prophet of Sophia, the feminine personification of divine wisdom in Jewish tradition. They also point out his unusual attitudes towards women, some of which seem remarkably progressive for the first century.

Radical Social Reformer — John Dominic Crossan, Gerd Theissen and Richard Horsley see Jesus as a champion for the Jewish peasants suffering under the yoke of the Roman Empire and its rapacious tax collectors; a Jesus in the lines of Gandhi and his struggle against the British Empire.

And on and on and on and on.... And who can say who got it right?

[vulcanlogician]

It's certainly a requirement to believe in a literal christ to be christian (as opposed to a jesusist) - and it's important whether or not that belief is true or false to christian assertions (as opposed to jesusist assertions), for example.  In the grander scheme of religious belief?  No, not at all.  Jesus doesn't have to be real or the real son of god - and isn't, and wasn't, for there to be christians or jesusists.  Fitness of the message kind of thing.

Wow. I somehow went through my whole life never hearing about "Jesusism." (I just googled it after reading your post.)

It seems like it'd be a decent religion. Hell of a lot better than Christianity, anyways.

But it does seem like it would need to be theistic and involve Jesus being the son of God. After all, Jesus says these things in the Gospels. And "Jesusism" would seemingly entail accepting the things Jesus says as true. So as far is religions go some-of-the stuff-Jesus-preaches-sounds-really-good-ism is the better religion in my book.

---

Honestly, I wish I could be an atheist. Seems pretty chill.

Be a Jesusist! That seems pretty chill too.

IDK about atheism being chill though. I think chill-ness is a person-by-person thing.

[Mashmont]

A very charismatic teacher of a view of the divine that appealed to the poor and downtrodden. A socialist at heart who was given a platform...

Jesus was nothing close to a socialist.  He didn't confiscate people's stuff.