Historical Jesus, Biblical Jesus

[Cavebear]

Hey people, just stopped by to remind you of something we went over many times.
Prophesy was not prediction, in any sense, in ancient Hebrew culture. In fact sooth-saying was forbidden.

Forthtelling, Not Foretelling: Biblical Prophecy
Oxford University
"Christian readers typically misunderstand prophecy in the Bible because they assume that its primary intent is to foretell the future. This chapter shows that the intent of the genre of prophecy in the Hebrew Bible was not primarily to predict the future—certainly not hundreds of years in advance—but rather to address specific social, political, and religious circumstances in ancient Israel and Judah. This means that there is no prediction of Christ in the Hebrew Bible. The writers of the New Testament and later Christian literature reinterpreted or reapplied the Hebrew prophecies. This is not to disparage these later Christian authors, however, for they were participating in a long-standing process of reinterpretation that goes back to the prophetic books themselves"

Show ContentSpoiler:

https://www.oklahoman.com/story/news/rel...508899007/

"A biblical prophet’s purpose was to hold up a mirror to society so believers could see who they really were and how they were acting. A prophet held a yardstick to society and said you are or are not measuring up to God’s standard."

The broad consensus among Jewish, and even some Christian commentators, that the “servant” in Isaiah 52-53 refers to the nation of Israel is understandable. Isaiah 53, which is the fourth of four renowned Servant Songs, is umbilically connected to its preceding chapters. The “servant” in each of the three previous Servant Songs is plainly and repeatedly identified as the nation of Israel.

Isaiah 41:8-9
But you, Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, the offspring of Abraham, my friend; you whom I took from the ends of the earth, and called from its farthest corners, saying to you, “You are my servant, I have chosen you and not cast you off.”

Isaiah 44:1
But now hear, O Jacob my servant, Israel whom I have chosen!

Isaiah 44:21
Remember these things, O Jacob, and Israel, for you are my servant; I formed you; you are my servant; O Israel, you will not be forgotten by me.

Isaiah 45:4
For the sake of my servant Jacob, and Israel my chosen, I called you by your name, I name you, though you do not know me.

Isaiah 48:20
Go out from Babylon, flee from Chaldea, declare this with a shout of joy, proclaim it, send it out to the end of the earth; say, “The Lord has redeemed his servant Jacob!”

Isaiah 49:3
And he said to me, “You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified.”

It's not Jesus.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/isaiah

At the time the 3 different authors whose writings are combined in Isaiah, Jews do not (and still does not) accept the bullshit of Fundamentalist "prophesy".
It's ALL based on a foundational error Christians made up about prophesy and this passage.

The ancient role of a prophet in Hebrew culture was to interpret the words or will of their god to the people OF THEIR OWN DAY. NOT to predict the future.
So you often hear fundies talking about "prophesy", and how various prophesies were a 'foretelling", or prediction of the future, and indeed they count them up as "proof" that Jesus or whatever HAS to be true, as the "prophecy" came true. In fact Deuteronomy forbade fortune telling, omen reading and divination, thus we know it was an abomination to even think in these terms for many/most centuries in Hebrew culture.

Deuteronomy 18:10
"Let no one be found among you who sacrifices their son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft"
Christian fundies are interpreting omens. It was forbidden.

Isaiah was not talking about a future time. He was obviously talking about Israel. With the rise of Apocalypticism, around the turn of the millennium, this changed somewhat, and is evidenced in many Christian writings, including the gospels, as they adopted the notions absent in ancient Israel, but coming into popular view with the Essenes. In terms of Hebrew culture, the "telling of or prediction of" the future, was unknown, and forbidden, and not at ALL a view of the major prophets themselves. However in the the new view, certain "hidden meanings" or "pesherim" began to be looked for, in the practice of Midrash. The name for this is called "pesher", (or seeking a "hidden meaning"), which was not even known to the original speaker/writer, but only "revealed" later to certain believers. Originally, the (plural) "pesherim" were only fully revealed to the Son of Righteousness, (the leader of the Essenes), and the idea was first found and fully understood after scholars read the Dead Sea scrolls, and was a sub category of "Midrash", (or study of the texts).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pesher
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midrash

Thus we see that "prophesy" as fortune telling as began to be practiced in Judaism around the First Century, (and picked up by Christians and the gospel writers at the time), really was a very late invention and never a classical part of Hebrew scripture, or understanding, either interpretation, or intention, and certainly was not the function of the ancient office of "prophet", in Hebrew culture, who was to be a "mouthpiece" to the people of their own day, and not Madame Zelda with her crystal ball.

Matthew 16:4 "A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah. Jesus then left them and went away."

A prophesy that "comes true" is a failed prophesy.
Rabbi Sachs

"A prophet is not an oracle; a prophecy is not a prediction. Precisely because Judaism believes in free will, the human future can never be unfailingly predicted. People are capable of change. God forgives. As we say in our prayers on the High Holy Days: “Prayer, penitence, and charity avert the evil decree.” There is no decree that cannot be revoked. A prophet does not foretell. He warns. A prophet does not speak to predict future catastrophe but rather to avert it. If a prediction comes true it has succeeded. If a prophecy comes true it has failed.”
https://www.rabbisacks.org/quotes/prophe...rediction/

(On NOT predicting the future)
"This is no minor detail. It is a fundamental feature of Jewish spirituality. We believe that we cannot predict the future when it comes to human beings. We make the future by our choices. The script has not yet been written. The future is radically open."
https://www.rabbisacks.org/covenant-conv...he-future/


https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780765799982/Me...prophecies.
Their role was NOT to be a soothsayer.
"Their task was to warn, criticize the morals and ethics of their day, and counsel and comfort the Israelite people."

"Today’s world misunderstands prophecy. We see it as a foretelling of the future, but that is not what prophecy was about in the days when the various books of the Bible were written, and prophecy is not about fortune-telling today, either.

A biblical prophet’s purpose was to hold up a mirror to society so believers could see who they really were and how they were acting. A prophet held a yardstick to society and said you are or are not measuring up to God’s standard. For example, the prophet Nathan confronted David when the king had Uriah killed and took Bathsheba as a wife. Because of Nathan’s words, David recognized his sinfulness, accepted the consequences and repented.

Prophecy sometimes includes a statement about what will happen in the future. But this soothsaying should not be viewed as definite, unchanging predictions of what is to come. The prophet is saying, "If you continue your evil ways, this is what will happen to you in the future. If you change your ways to conform to God’s desires, your life will have a different future.” "In the familiar story about Jonah, the prophet goes to Nineveh at God’s insistence to tell the Ninevites they will be punished for their sinful ways. The Ninevites respond to Jonah’s prophecy by atoning for their sins, and God refrains from sending down His wrath. Jonah, then, is upset because God forgives the Ninevites. Jonah feels like a fool for expressing the prophecy.

But in the story, Jonah did not understand the purpose of prophecy. Prophecy is never about telling the future; it is always about attempting to change current behavior to be in line with God’s laws and desires for humankind. When that purpose is accomplished, there is no need for the undesirable future to occur." "Likewise, prophecy may tell of good that will happen if believers take the proper path. When the society or individuals fail to follow that proper path, of course, that future will not occur, and painful consequences will follow."

One of the most famous "prophesies" that Christians use is Isiah 53.
Throughout Isaiah the 3 authors of Isaiah trieh to explain how Israel, (throughout Isaiah the Suffering Servant was used interchangeably with Israel, NOT the MESSIAH.
The Book of Isaiah was written for the ancient Jews to help them understand what happened and why they had SUFFERED THROUGH the Exile.
It's NOT a prediction of more suffering. The prophet office did not include foretelling future events, until much much later.

Cherry-picking one line from an entire text and claiming it predicts something is about as ignorant and nonsensical as one can get. Yet they do it ? Amazing the stupidity.

In Isaiah 40, he says
"Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her
that her hard service has been completed,
that her sin has been paid for,
that she has received from the Lord’s hand
double for all her sins.”  Isaiah 40:1

The suffering IS DONE. The Exile is over. Yet dishonest Christians still say it's about Jesus and his suffering. ALL THE SUFFERING in Isaiah is already accomplished.

It's not about Jesus. The prophet was explaining their suffering, already DONE. It's not about sooth-saying, It was addressed to his own people.
It's not about future events.

The Christian Bible has a lot of "prophets". Do you consider that there is a difference between "prophets" and "prophesy"?

[Minimalist]

The church has always been far more interested in "profits."

[Bucky Ball]

The Christian Bible has a lot of "prophets". Do you consider that there is a difference between "prophets" and "prophesy"?

Great question.
Not so much. The role of a Hebrew prophet (the word "prophet" means *mouthpiece"), and prophets were cultural "wise-men" (and women ... Deborah was a prophetess). They were to tell the people OF THEIR OWN TIME what they saw as the will of God for their own people. So, the writings of the prophets were prophesy for their own day, (not predictions) ... except in the sense the writings were "WARNINGS" to their people that if they did not act in accordance with the prophetic advice, then bad things would happen. Thus if the people heeded the advice, the bad things would NOT happen, and again (as noted above) a prophesy that failed, ... means the people heeded the advice, and a failure of the bad thing happening is a successful prophesy, and if the bad things happen, it means the people did not heed the advice, and it's a failed prophesy.

Both Jewish and Christian thought taught that the end of the age of prophets was either at Malachi or thereabouts.
Google "Last Prophet".

As mentioned above, the understanding of "prophesy" CHANGED during the Jewish Apocalyptic period, when the Jews began (a totally new view) to look for "hidden meanings" which were revealed fully only to the "Son Of Righteousness", (the leader of the Essenes) which was discovered in the Dead Sea Scrolls, when they were found.

[Minimalist]

Actually, anyone who is going to talk about prophecy in Judaism should ask the Jews... not some dumbass xtian.  They have a rather more expansive take on the issue but reading the future is about the least of it.

https://www.chabad.org/library/article_c...udaism.htm

When the Torah was given at Mount Sinai, all of Israel experienced direct prophecy. However, that revelation was too powerful for them, and they requested that Moses serve as an intermediary between them and God’s word. Following that model, God sent us other prophets to communicate His messages. Prophecy continued until the beginning of the Second Temple period. Since then, we have received God’s word with less clarity. One of the indicators of the future redemption will be the return of prophecy to Israel. When the glory of God will be revealed in the future world, all will prophesy, young and old.

A person who possesses the highest intellectual and moral virtues can receive prophecy if he purifies himself and is free of sin. Nevertheless, prophecy is not automatic; God might still withhold prophecy from someone who is fit for it.

Of course this horseshit is as absurd as all other religion but they have put a lot of thought into it!

[Bucky Ball]

Actually, anyone who is going to talk about prophecy in Judaism should ask the Jews... not some dumbass xtian.  They have a rather more expansive take on the issue but reading the future is about the least of it.

https://www.chabad.org/library/article_c...udaism.htm

When the Torah was given at Mount Sinai, all of Israel experienced direct prophecy. However, that revelation was too powerful for them, and they requested that Moses serve as an intermediary between them and God’s word. Following that model, God sent us other prophets to communicate His messages. Prophecy continued until the beginning of the Second Temple period. Since then, we have received God’s word with less clarity. One of the indicators of the future redemption will be the return of prophecy to Israel. When the glory of God will be revealed in the future world, all will prophesy, young and old.

A person who possesses the highest intellectual and moral virtues can receive prophecy if he purifies himself and is free of sin. Nevertheless, prophecy is not automatic; God might still withhold prophecy from someone who is fit for it.

Of course this horseshit is as absurd as all other religion but they have put a lot of thought into it!

The problem is this Jew got it wrong.
The Torah was not "given" at Mt. Sinai. There was no Exodus, thus no "Mt. Sinai".
It was, according to the Book of Nehemiah, presented to the Jews by the Prophet Ezra, in a fall festival, before which it was never mentioned.

"Classical source criticism seeks to determine the date of a text by establishing an upper limit (terminus ante quem) and a lower limit (terminus post quem) on the basis of external attestation of the text's existence, as well as the internal features of the text itself. On the basis of a variety of arguments, modern scholars generally see the completed Torah as a product of the time of the Persian Achaemenid Empire (probably 450–350 BCE), although some would place its composition in the Hellenistic period (333–164 BCE). "

It certainly was not "given" in the second millennium BCE.

[Dancefortwo]

Actually, anyone who is going to talk about prophecy in Judaism should ask the Jews... not some dumbass xtian.  They have a rather more expansive take on the issue but reading the future is about the least of it.

https://www.chabad.org/library/article_c...udaism.htm


Of course this horseshit is as absurd as all other religion but they have put a lot of thought into it!

The problem is this Jew got it wrong.
The Torah was not "given" at Mt. Sinai. There was no Exodus, thus no "Mt. Sinai".
It was, according to the Book of Nehemiah, presented to the Jews by the Prophet Ezra, in a fall festival, before which it was never mentioned.

Classical source criticism seeks to determine the date of a text by establishing an upper limit (terminus ante quem) and a lower limit (terminus post quem) on the basis of external attestation of the text's existence, as well as the internal features of the text itself. On the basis of a variety of arguments, modern scholars generally see the completed Torah as a product of the time of the Persian Achaemenid Empire (probably 450–350 BCE),[12][13] although some would place its composition in the Hellenistic period (333–164 BCE).

It certainly was not "given" in the second millenium BCE.

It's got several anachronisms in it too.  Several towns and cities mentioned in the Torah didn't exist until the 5th century BCE.  I wish I could remember which places these were.   I did read somewhere that some rabbis have finally conceded that the Exodus is a myth and told their worshipers that the Passover ceremony is essentially symbolic of the Jews struggles over many millennium rather than a single event.   It didn't go over well.  The congregation probably dismissed what the rabbi said, maybe he was having a bad day or something.

[pattylt]

The problem is this Jew got it wrong.
The Torah was not "given" at Mt. Sinai. There was no Exodus, thus no "Mt. Sinai".
It was, according to the Book of Nehemiah, presented to the Jews by the Prophet Ezra, in a fall festival, before which it was never mentioned.

Classical source criticism seeks to determine the date of a text by establishing an upper limit (terminus ante quem) and a lower limit (terminus post quem) on the basis of external attestation of the text's existence, as well as the internal features of the text itself. On the basis of a variety of arguments, modern scholars generally see the completed Torah as a product of the time of the Persian Achaemenid Empire (probably 450–350 BCE),[12][13] although some would place its composition in the Hellenistic period (333–164 BCE).

It certainly was not "given" in the second millenium BCE.

It's got several anachronisms in it too.  Several towns and cities mentioned in the Torah didn't exist until the 5th century BCE.  I wish I could remember which places these were.   I did read somewhere that some rabbis have finally conceded that the Exodus is a myth and told their worshipers that the Passover ceremony is essentially symbolic of the Jews struggles over many millennium rather than a single event.   It didn't go over well.  The congregation probably dismissed what the rabbi said, maybe he was having a bad day or something.

The majority of Jews today are Reformed Jews and have little to no problem with the Torah being a myth.  Even the laws given are understood as a historically needed set of rules that united and kept them as a different or “special” people and most prefer to live in the here and now.  Only among the more strict sects are the laws still kept and, in the US are slowly either dying out or becoming more secular as well.  Their idea of God has morphed as well, becoming a kinder gentler God and will only rule in the world to come….whenever that is.  Quite a large number of Jews are atheists, holding on to their culture but nothing else.

I went even further. Becoming atheist left me with no desire to continue being a secular Jew.  I became secular….period.  My culture is American.

[Dancefortwo]

It's got several anachronisms in it too.  Several towns and cities mentioned in the Torah didn't exist until the 5th century BCE.  I wish I could remember which places these were.   I did read somewhere that some rabbis have finally conceded that the Exodus is a myth and told their worshipers that the Passover ceremony is essentially symbolic of the Jews struggles over many millennium rather than a single event.   It didn't go over well.  The congregation probably dismissed what the rabbi said, maybe he was having a bad day or something.

The majority of Jews today are Reformed Jews and have little to no problem with the Torah being a myth.  Even the laws given are understood as a historically needed set of rules that united and kept them as a different or “special” people and most prefer to live in the here and now.  Only among the more strict sects are the laws still kept and, in the US are slowly either dying out or becoming more secular as well.  Their idea of God has morphed as well, becoming a kinder gentler God and will only rule in the world to come….whenever that is.  Quite a large number of Jews are atheists, holding on to their culture but nothing else.

I went even further. Becoming atheist left me with no desire to continue being a secular Jew.  I became secular….period.  My culture is American.

I have a couple of Jewish friends and they have a similar take on religion.   I went out to dinner with one of my Jewish friends and she ordered up some pizza with Canadian bacon on it.  There is nothing kosher about her eating habits.

[Minimalist]

The Torah was not "given" at Mt. Sinai. There was no Exodus, thus no "Mt. Sinai".

We know that, Buck...but those fools believe it just as fervently as morons like Charlie and Stevie think Eve ate an apple and that's why women suck.

Recounting their "beliefs" does not in any way validate them.  In fact it is necessary in order to poke holes in their silly-assed stories.

[Free]

The majority of Jews today are Reformed Jews and have little to no problem with the Torah being a myth.  Even the laws given are understood as a historically needed set of rules that united and kept them as a different or “special” people and most prefer to live in the here and now.  Only among the more strict sects are the laws still kept and, in the US are slowly either dying out or becoming more secular as well.  Their idea of God has morphed as well, becoming a kinder gentler God and will only rule in the world to come….whenever that is.  Quite a large number of Jews are atheists, holding on to their culture but nothing else.

I went even further. Becoming atheist left me with no desire to continue being a secular Jew.  I became secular….period.  My culture is American.

I have a couple of Jewish friends and they have a similar take on religion.   I went out to dinner with one of my Jewish friends and she ordered up some pizza with Canadian bacon on it.  There is nothing kosher about her eating habits.

That reminds me.

I had young atheist "Muslim" friend come into my shop one day not long ago. Of course he hides his atheism from his family. Anyways, he had never eaten pork before and wanted to try it, so we ordered something.

He hasn't stopped eating it since.

[Minimalist]

Hey, Free


I'm still pissed at the Rangers for firing your cousin.

[pattylt]

I have a couple of Jewish friends and they have a similar take on religion.   I went out to dinner with one of my Jewish friends and she ordered up some pizza with Canadian bacon on it.  There is nothing kosher about her eating habits.

That reminds me.

I had young atheist "Muslim" friend come into my shop one day not long ago. Of course he hides his atheism from his family. Anyways, he had never eaten pork before and wanted to try it, so we ordered something.

He hasn't stopped eating it since.

I was raised keeping kosher (and many other rules).  First, I hate it when Christian’s say the Torah Laws are too hard to keep and no one can do it.  Bullshit.  If you’re raised keeping the Laws, it’s just your normal life and not at all hard.  Second, it took me a bit to eat pork even after becoming atheist…then I had bacon!  While I like pork, I don’t particularly love it but ham and bacon are in a category all their own. Yummmmm.

While I reject any need to keep the Torah laws, I NEVER felt any hardships doing so.  It’s kind of like you don’t miss what you never had and the rituals were just part of your life.  The only thing I felt was somewhat hard was missing Saturday morning cartoons because I had to go to shul. That’s not even an issue now with cable TV.

[Free]

Hey, Free


I'm still pissed at the Rangers for firing your cousin.

It seemed like the Rangers were passing the buck. The problem is upstairs. The old guard has to go.

[Minimalist]

The owner is an asshole.  In that he reminds me of 'jesus.'

[Free]

The owner is an asshole.  In that he reminds me of 'jesus.'

If the historical Jesus that I envision actually existed, then yes. An egotistical asshole who shot off his big mouth until the Romans and the Jews had enough of him.

[Minimalist]

All hockey players can walk on water....after a fashion.

[Dancefortwo]

All hockey players can walk on water....after a fashion.

I have a theory that Jesus was walking on top of the dead swollen pigs floating in the the Sea of Galilee....you know...from the time he cast demons in the 2000 pigs who ran and jumped in the lake.

[Minimalist]

You know, 2000 pigs would be a whole lot of pigs for a nation which did not eat pork.

Just sayin........

[Bucky Ball]

The owner is an asshole.  In that he reminds me of 'jesus.'

If the historical Jesus that I envision actually existed, then yes. An egotistical asshole who shot off his big mouth until the Romans and the Jews had enough of him.

Agree. (Hi Free, great to see you, hope all is well.)
He got himself "offed" as he caused a ruckus in the temple.
Trouble-makers were summarily executed in the Roman provinces.
No trial, just executed.

Something that is necessary to remember, is that THE economy of Jerusalem was entirely dependent on the "temple" economy. There was so much involved in that ... the "festivals". There were fees for everything, ... fees for priests, fees for "purification" (before going to temple), fees to change the "unclean" Roman currency to Jewish currency, fees to buy the sacrifices, etc etc etc.
If there was a Yeshua figure, or someone that was "remembered" as such, he caused his own demise.

[Minimalist]

The alleged gospel writers can't even agree on that little tidbit.  The "john" asshole puts it at the start of his "3 year ministry" while the other three clowns put it at the end of his 1 year of troublemaking.

You'd think the fuckers could get their story straight, wouldn't you?

Of course, some asshole apologist will offer an idiotic "explanation" for why the gospels are so fucked up!

[Free]

The alleged gospel writers can't even agree on that little tidbit.  The "john" asshole puts it at the start of his "3 year ministry" while the other three clowns put it at the end of his 1 year of troublemaking.

You'd think the fuckers could get their story straight, wouldn't you?

Of course, some asshole apologist will offer an idiotic "explanation" for why the gospels are so fucked up!

Well we all know how disinformation works because we sure as fuck see enough of it in the modern age.

They took something like a Q document, spun in a few false narratives, sugar-coated it with a Messianic figure and voila, we have a bunch of bullshit.

Trump anyone?

The Gospels are 99% useless for establishing any history. For the most part the best I can ever say about some of the actual words attributed to a historical Jesus is "maybe." The only thing I can take from them with a reasonable amount of probability is the fucker got himself crucified.

But with all things considered about this character internal and external to the bible is that he was an egomaniacal self-indulgent coward whose craving for attention overwhelmed his fear of getting strung up on a cross, because the fucker knew the Jewish elites were gunning for him. He had this false sense of security in thinking the crowds adored him enough to protect him from the Jewish elites.

In the end he got played by the Jews and strung up by Pilate.

[Minimalist]

Free, in "Jesus Before the Gospels," Ehrman wrote the following:

It was just a few years ago that I came to realize that the study of memory, as pursued by scholars who did not work on the New Testament, could provide some valuable and keen insights into such matters. These other scholars work in a number of disciplines well represented in the academy, such as psychology, sociology, and anthropology. Their insights may be especially relevant to understanding how the earliest Christians told and retold the stories about Jesus after his death but before the Gospels were written. This was a mysterious period of oral transmission, when stories were circulating, both among eyewitnesses and, even more, among those who knew someone whose cousin had a neighbor who had once talked with a business associate whose mother had, just fifteen years earlier, spoken with an eyewitness who told her some things about Jesus.

How were such people—those people at the tail end of the period of transmission—telling their stories about Jesus? Did they remember very well what they had heard from others (who had heard from others who had heard from others)? Were the stories they told accurate reflections of what they heard? Or, more remotely, of what Jesus said and did? Or had their stories been molded, and shaped, or even invented in the processes of telling, remembering, and retelling the stories? During the forty to sixty-five years between Jesus’s death and the first accounts of his life, how much had the stories been changed? How much was being accurately remembered? Modern studies of memory may possibly provide us with some much-needed insights into the question.

This book came out in 2016 and I had already dismissed jesus as pure fiction by then but Ehrman put a new spin on my thinking with his work in this book.  These were not carefully constructed tales they were the last link in a dubious line of oral transmission before someone was paid to write them down....in Greek.

[Bucky Ball]

The alleged gospel writers can't even agree on that little tidbit.  The "john" asshole puts it at the start of his "3 year ministry" while the other three clowns put it at the end of his 1 year of troublemaking.

You'd think the fuckers could get their story straight, wouldn't you?

Of course, some asshole apologist will offer an idiotic "explanation" for why the gospels are so fucked up!

Well we all know how disinformation works because we sure as fuck see enough of it in the modern age.

They took something like a Q document, spun in a few false narratives, sugar-coated it with a Messianic figure and voila, we have a bunch of bullshit.

Trump anyone?

The Gospels are 99% useless for establishing any history. For the most part the best I can ever say about some of the actual words attributed to a historical Jesus is "maybe." The only thing I can take from them with a reasonable amount of probability is the fucker got himself crucified.

But with all things considered about this character internal and external to the bible is that he was an egomaniacal self-indulgent coward whose craving for attention overwhelmed his fear of getting strung up on a cross, because the fucker knew the Jewish elites were gunning for him. He had this false sense of security in thinking the crowds adored him enough to protect him from the Jewish elites.

In the end he got played by the Jews and strung up by Pilate.

agree, an ancient form of the telephone game. The Jews were a writing culture. There is no evidence (as there was in Arab and Greek culture of a tradition of "accurate" epic poetry transmission).
... the many many christianities were invented later. They used one of the miracle workers as a "template", (and there were many miracle workers at the time). There was no "orthodoxy" (see Ehrman's writings on many early christianities), until after the Council of Nicaea, when Constantine (who faked his conversion) told the attendees they must agree about something, ... he didn't care what they agreed on, as all he cared about was they had to agree on something. He knew well that religion could unify his empire, and he tried to use that, just as Alexander had done to unify his empire, just as Artaxerxes had done when sending the Jews back to Israel, with their (newly assembled) Torah of Moses, and just as the Arabs would do a few hundred years later with their new religion, called Islam. They knew they could unify their empires with religion. It's really all about politics, and social cohesion, not and details about religion.

Religion is not necessary for authentic human "life". The Sumerian concept of "chaos vs order" (which was, according to the Jewish philosopher, Martin Buber, .... see "Good and Evil, Part II), the real notion elucidated in the Garden myth in Genesis), .... and is the very same concept in the Sumerian myth where the dragon of chaos is slain. Chaos is later turned into "sin and evil".

As Joseph Campbell once said, ... “Every religion is true one way or another. It is true when understood metaphorically. But when it gets stuck in its own metaphors, interpreting them as facts, then you are in trouble.”

That's the problem with ALL religionists.

[Minimalist]

Hmmm.........

[Free]

Free, in "Jesus Before the Gospels," Ehrman wrote the following:

It was just a few years ago that I came to realize that the study of memory, as pursued by scholars who did not work on the New Testament, could provide some valuable and keen insights into such matters. These other scholars work in a number of disciplines well represented in the academy, such as psychology, sociology, and anthropology. Their insights may be especially relevant to understanding how the earliest Christians told and retold the stories about Jesus after his death but before the Gospels were written. This was a mysterious period of oral transmission, when stories were circulating, both among eyewitnesses and, even more, among those who knew someone whose cousin had a neighbor who had once talked with a business associate whose mother had, just fifteen years earlier, spoken with an eyewitness who told her some things about Jesus.

How were such people—those people at the tail end of the period of transmission—telling their stories about Jesus? Did they remember very well what they had heard from others (who had heard from others who had heard from others)? Were the stories they told accurate reflections of what they heard? Or, more remotely, of what Jesus said and did? Or had their stories been molded, and shaped, or even invented in the processes of telling, remembering, and retelling the stories? During the forty to sixty-five years between Jesus’s death and the first accounts of his life, how much had the stories been changed? How much was being accurately remembered? Modern studies of memory may possibly provide us with some much-needed insights into the question.

This book came out in 2016 and I had already dismissed jesus as pure fiction by then but Ehrman put a new spin on my thinking with his work in this book.  These were not carefully constructed tales they were the last link in a dubious line of oral transmission before someone was paid to write them down....in Greek.

I agree.

Like I keep saying, it's all built upon some historical person named Jesus, who many Jews considered to be some kind of a messiah, and who Pilate crucified.

But we really don't know anything about this guy other than what I said. All we can do is reason some of what he might of said as per the gospel records, but by no means does anything even reasonable amount to anything historical.

What we see in the gospels is not so much as a composite of numerous people as much as it is a composite of numerous lines of bullshit. Other than the crucifixion- which jibes with numerous external sources- we don't have a clue who Jesus actually was as a person. The best we can say- and I take this line from Jesus Christ Superstar- is he was, "Somebody Christ, King of the Jews."