[JacksHH]

for the last several years, following the jesus life/myth/comination thereof has been sort of a hobby of mine. consequently, i've run across a number of books and online sources regarding this question. to begin by stating my current conclusion/opinion on the matter: yes, he existed as a historical person, but the early catholic church, under constantine's direction/influence, had a political agenda that created major distortions in his life and message(s) that make a current accurate assessment of them virtually impossible at this time without the possible documents the vatican may have buried in its archives somewhere. there's a guy i ran across a reference to once who i can't remember the name of who traced roman geneological records and claims that the new testament was originally a sort of historical novel, mostly, if not entirely, fiction, written by the roman general piso, also known as josephus, and his family (to increase their income probably, as it became popular).

i find it rather ironic that most people who profess themselves to be christians are more interested in following the myth (the virgin birth, the "miracles", the resurrection) than in following his teachings. despite the paucity of them in the canonical gospels and the lack of them in the epistles, what is left of them still allows an ethical basis on which to live one's life that is probably as good or better than any other that has come down the pike within the last few millennia (at least in the west).

a biblical/dead sea scroll scholar from australia spent twenty years decoding the new testament gospels and acts according to the pesher of habbakuk in the dead sea scrolls and came up with some very interesting data: jesus was not born in bethlehem (instead in a small building a few meters south of the qumran monastery/fortress), he was married twice and fathered four children, he was not crucified in jerusalem, but in qumran (she gives the exact spot within inches), and did not die on the cross, and most of the "miracles" can easily be explained by the use of idioms common at the time (for example, "walking on water" was an idiom for walking across the wharf to get to the boat), and, finally, jesus went to rome with peter and paul after the crucifixion.

imo, the nt was deliberately coded by those who wrote it (and only in the greek version, another hurdle for romans who didn't speak it, rabbis of that time being required to speak all 19 languages of the region as one of the requirements for becoming one, so "jesus" was no dummy, "jesus" himself possibly writing at least parts of the gospel of john while he was awaiting mary magdalene to give birth to the required son to carry on the lineage of king david) to mislead the romans as to their activities and inspire converts to their version of judaism, but it was only able to be decoded after the discovery of the dead sea scrolls, although the pesher code is basically quite simple (two others, at least, were employed, including the already commonly known one of gematria).

she put her findings (up to the point of publication; she may have had even more subsequently in another book: she has/had an online discussion group, but only open to serious scholars) in a probably still out of print book called [please pm for title] (i believe it was published in australia under the title [please pm]). that book seems to cover the actual life of jesus up to the time he went to rome (c. 61 ad), but his later life is revealed (to my satisfaction, anyway) in another book called [please pm]. apparently he may have gone to southern france either with mary magdalene (his first wife, euphemistically referred to as his companion in the gospel of philip, one the gospels found in the nag hammadi documents, and considered by gnostic christians to be of virtually equal importance to jesus himself [at least in principle; the gnostics considered both of them to be divine and symbolic only, not physical], which is why their activities were so actively suppressed [possibly to the point of "ethnic cleansing", i.e, mass murder] by both the patriarchal jews and the church) or to visit her and his son after his second marriage to a greek woman, eventually setting in srinegar, where he was buried at the age of 120, after giving sermons where he subsequently became known as avelokiteshvara, the compassionate buddha (!), although he was regarded as the prophet yuz asaf in the small jewish diaspora community at the time.

i found confirmation of this last assertion in another, recent "fluff" book [please pm] written by an australian tv journalist who visited india and was told virtually the same thing by an ak-47-toting muslim. there's a muslim guarding his mausoleum in downtown old town 24/7, and another at moses' gravesite, where there's a small egyptian-style stele marking it, a few miles up the road, since islam considers both of them to be prophets. there's also some rumors that he may have made it to japan (you can really get around, even on foot, in 120 years; as i recall, the book of mormon says he came to the us on a cloud, which might have been a lot faster means of transport in those days, depending on the wind speed and direction).

whatever you choose to believe, or fail to believe, about him, the "jesus" story has certainly had more influence on history in the last couple millenia than that of any other person, real or fictional, with the possible exception of siddharta gotama ("the" buddha [one of maybe over 700]).

peace, philip