REIMAGINE CHRIST

Letting go of Jesus often doesn't involve fear as much as pain. But when intellectual honesty demands satisfaction, you cannot keep the parts of the fantasy you enjoyed, at least not in the same context.

Historical Jesus

All the apologists will swear up and down there is concrete proof Christ walked the Earth. And they may be right on that count. Some New Testament scholars take an academic approach that affirms Jesus's historical existence too.

Multiple attestation is one of the most important historical criteria for establishing what happened in the past; because so many biographies of Christ exist, it's likely he did, too. While no physical artifacts from Jesus's lifetime exist, the collective body of textual and historical evidence is considered overwhelming by most historians, leading to a scholarly consensus that Jesus was a real historical figure.

Then you've got contemporary texts that seem to mention a figure like him including Roman historian Tacitus and Jewish historian Josephus though the text is debated for possible Christian interpolation.

If Jesus truly lived and was killed by the Romans for his message, it makes sense to hang on to some love for him. His message was one of compassion and love for the most part. For this reason it can be argued that he can be admired as a philosopher. His claim to divinity is only found in John after all. But Jesus was also a fear mongerer. In The book of Matthew alone he gives us terrifying descriptions of Hell half a dozen times at least. Were these really his words? How are we to know?

Figuring out who Jesus really was- and IF Jesus really was, can be an exhaustive deep dive into extra-biblical literature, gnostic texts, and the Gospels themselves.

None of the Gospels were written by contemporaries of Christ, with Mark appearing first (around 65-70 AD), followed by Matthew and Luke (around 80-85 AD), and John last (around 90-95 AD).

Other biographies of Christ that did not make it into the Bible such as the Gospel of Thomas, and the Gospel of Peter, along with other early Christian writings like the Didache and Shepherd of Hermas, can lend further insight into other perspectives on who Christ was. (Explore further here: HOW DID WE END UP WITH THE BIBLE ANYWAY?)

For example in the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus is portrayed not as a messianic figure, but as a sage imparting esoteric teachings. There is no crucifixion, no miracles, instead presenting Jesus as the revealer of inner truth, emphasizing self-knowledge and the internal nature of the Kingdom of God. Salvation is achieved through gaining knowledge of oneself as a divine, hidden light within.

In the Gospel named for Peter Jesus is a spiritual, divine being whose physical body was a mere illusion. He's not entirely alone in that perspective.

Mythological Jesus

Despite his presence in literature, some scholars are of the opinion Jesus Christ never actually existed in history. Joseph Campbell who studied myth and was a prolific writer on the topic, considered Jesus primarily as a mythological figure, not a literal historical one.

Mythicist theory argues that the Gospels historicized a celestial Jesus in the 2nd century. Historian and author Richard Carrier also argues that the earliest Christian writings depict that the gospel narrative was later retrofitted onto a mythical character. The idea has been around awhile. 18th-century French Enlightenment thinkers Charles-François Dupuis and Constantin-François Volney are considered antecedents of the Christ myth theory.

The Jesus story fits the archetype of a mythical hero common to many ancient cultures. Parallels to myths of other divine or heroic figures with miraculous births, conflicts with evil forces, and death and resurrection, are too striking to be mere coincidence. Parallels with Hercules, Dionysus, Mithras, and Osiris are numerous.