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this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2025
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Jesus is definitely an amalgamation of a variety of stories and characters. I believe a real Jesus existed and was really killed by the state for what he did on what they celebrate as Palm Sunday, he mocked the emperor and was killed. He likely also mocked the Jewish leaders of his time and the Mystery Cults/public perception of Jews in his time.
Example; the Eucharist was an act of mockery towards Mystery Cult rituals and the negative stereotypes of Jews.
The Bible Jesus and much of his teachings are a culmination of thought put upon one character to tell a story like Gilgamesh (who was also a carpenter), any Roman-Greco hero, King Arthur. The story of the three wise men is, in my opinion, the idea that Eastern/foreign thought is introduced somehow namely Zoroastrianism. The dude lived in Palestine and likely alongside heavy trade routes into Rome, probably got exposed to interesting folk. He's born in both Nazareth and Bethlehem? Sounds to me like he's all these different folks smooshed into one story.
In my opinion, Jesus is anti-authoritarian first and foremost, likely some form of socialist. And likely a punk.
Kurt Cobain is probably closer to Jesus than any Republican.
I mean, he did exhort his followers to sell their shirts and buy swords!
The Roman empire was putting to death many prophets and god incarnates. The innovation of the Jesus story was that he didn't stay dead, but he also conveniently didn't stick around.
Curiously in all those stories in Josephus Rome killed the messianic upstarts immediately without trial and killed the followers they could get their hands on.
Yet the canonical story has multiple trials and doesn't have any followers being killed.
Also, I'm surprised more people don't pick up on how strange it is that the canonical stories all have Peter 'denying' him three times while also having roughly three trials (Herod, High Priest, Pilate). Peter is even admitted back into the guarded area where a trial is taking place to 'deny' him. But oh no, it was totally that Judas guy who betrayed him. It was okay Peter was going into a guarded trial area to deny him because…of a rooster. Yeah, that makes sense.
It's extremely clear to even a slightly critical eye that the story canonized is not the actual story, even with the magical thinking stuff set aside.
Literally the earliest primary records of the tradition is a guy known for persecuting Jesus's followers writing to areas he doesn't have authority to persecute and telling them to ignore any versions of Jesus other than the one he tells them about (and interestingly both times he did this spontaneously suggesting in the same chapter that he swears he doesn't lie and only tells the truth).
I believe it was Josephus who pushed the theory that Paul was an agent provocateur sent by the Sanhedrin to make sure that the Christians split from the Jewish religion.
Considering Paul's relentless proselytizing and his martyrdom, I don't quite buy it, but I don't reject it outright either.
More likely the version we ended up with was intentionally obfuscated from what it originally was.
Notice how in John, which lacks any Eucharist ritual, that at the last supper bread is being dipped much as there's ambiguous dipping in Mark? But it's characterized as a bad thing because it's given to Judas? And then Matthew goes even further changing it to a 'hand' being dipped?
Does it make sense for the body of an anointed one to not be anointed before being eaten?
Look at how in Ignatius's letter to the Philadelphians he tells them to "avoid evil herbs" not planted by god and "have only one Eucharist." Herbs? Hmmm. (A number of those in that anointing oil.)
There's a parallel statement in Matthew 15 about "every plant" not planted by god being rooted up.
But in gThomas 40 it's a grapevine that's not planted and is to be rooted up. Much as in saying 28 it suggests people should be shaking off their wine.
Now, again kind of curious that the Eucharist ritual of wine would have excluded John the Baptist who didn't drink wine and James the brother of Jesus who was also traditionally considered to have not drunk wine, or honestly any Nazarite who had taken a vow not to drink wine.
I'm sure everyone is familiar with the idea Jesus was born from a virgin. This results from Matthew's use of the Greek version of Isaiah 7:14 instead of the Hebrew where it's simply "young woman." But almost no one considers that line in its original context with the line immediately after:
You know, like the curds and honey ritual referenced by the Naassenes who were following gThomas. (Early on there was also a ritual like this for someone's first Eucharist or after a baptism even in canonical traditions but it eventually died out.)
Oh and strange that Pope Julius I in 340 CE was banning a Eucharist with milk instead of wine…
Now, the much more interesting question is why there were efforts to change this, but that's a long comment for another time.