You are absolutely right!! But not really for the reason you think.
You see Jesus the fictive character depicted in the Buybull, which is nothing but a collection of fairy tales and myths and fables full of magic and supernatural nonsense and claptrap, could not have been anything natural, human or otherwise.
What would you call people who think Jesus was just a pathetic fool of a normal human being who got himself killed while blathering about the neigh end... BUT YET... worship him as a God?
What do you call people who try to rationalize a collection of fairy tales and myths with magic and demons and flying about with devils and exorcism and curing blindness with spittle mixed with mud and raising no less than three dead people and walking on water and changing water into wine and feeding thousands with a couple of fish and cursing to death fig trees and exorcising demons out of humans and making them go into pigs and doves that come down from the sky and start talking and zombies coming out of their graves by the hundreds and a creator of the universe who splits himself in three parts and sends one third to rape a little virgin and then insert the other third inside her womb so as to sit there for 9 months and then come out and wait for thirty years doing nothing and then go annoy a few Jews and get killed and then come back to life and fly up to outer space on a cloud?
What do you call people who think that the magical ill begotten son of a ghostly 1/3rd of a magical sky daddy was really just a normal nothing of a meaningless pathetic fool of a deluded blaspheming human despite him later appearing as a blinding heavenly light and voice from heaven to Paul?
Ok, I think we
really need to STOP using the absurd Triumphalist Jesus (Remsberg's Jesus of Bethlehem) to throw out any idea of a Reductive Jesus.
"Jesus of Nazareth, the Jesus of humanity, the pathetic story of whose humble life and tragic death has awakened the sympathies of millions, is a possible character and may have existed; but
the Jesus of Bethlehem, the Christ of Christianity, is an impossible character and does not exist." - Remsburg 1909
One can point to Apollonius of Tyana who we have reason to believe existed who in our oldest account of him
Life of Apollonius of Tyana (220 CE) is
more of a one man miracle machine then Jesus.
The question is if we get rid of all the supernatural stuff in the Gospels (Paul's writings are about a Jesus in a vision so we can throw those out at the start) does the Jesus story hold up?
From what we can tell even the "natural" events in the story don't hold up to history as we know it.
* The throwing out of the moneychangers in the Court of the Gentiles would have prompted a response as there were guards there to prevent just such an action and this part of the temple was 10 acres or over 7.5 american football fields in area.
* The Sanhedrin trial account is totally at odds with the records on how that court actually operated in the 1st century.[11] In fact, a little quirk of the Sanhedrin court was that a unanimous verdict for conviction resulted in
acquittal
* Jesus preaches in the open so there is no need for the whole Judas' betrayal. A real Roman official would have sent a modest group of soldiers and got the guy as what happened with John the Baptist. In fact, based on what Josephus writes even this would have been
subtle by Pilate's standards which can be summed up as being on par with the Silver Age Incredible Hulk i.e. 'puny people/prophet annoy Pilate, Pilate smash' as what happened with Samaritan prophet of 36 CE...which was so badly handled that it got Pilate recalled to Rome to explain himself.
* The crucified were left to rot as a warning to others unless there was intervention on the behalf of an important person per
The Life of Flavius Josephus (75)...which Mark gives us in the from of Joseph of Arimathaea but he seems to be nothing more then a plot device to get Jesus down form his cross and into a convent tomb. The timing of this is really wonky as to go before Pilate at this time would make Joseph of Arimathaea "unclean" and be unable to eat the sacred Passover meal!
* Given Jesus' short time on the cross and reports of him being out and about afterwards, certainly the Romans might have wondered if they had been tricked. Never mind that theft of a body was a capital crime. Yet there is nothing in the reports about the Romans acting on either possibility. Carrier describe how the Romans would have handled the situation and it is totally at odds with the account in Acts.
Lena Einhorn, PhD (Nov.17-20, 2012) 'Jesus and the "Egyptian Prophet"' Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting shows there other problems with the Gospel-Acts account in that events seems to have been time shifted:
* Acts has Theudas' death before Judas the Galilean which would put his death before 6 CE; Josephus clearly puts Theudas' death during the time of Fadus or 44 to 46 CE
* The Gospels talk of robbers but Josephus only talks of them for two time periods: 63 BCE to 6 CE and 48-70 CE.
* Mark 15:7 KJV states "And there was one named Barabbas, which lay bound with them that had made insurrection with him, who had committed murder in the insurrection." But Josephus give no account of an actual insurrection in the time of Pilate Instead we are told of two non violent protests and Pilate's reaction to the Samaritan prophet of 36 CE. In fact, in what little of Tacitus that covers this time period that was preserved that we are told “Under Tiberius all was quiet.”
* outside of the questionable Testimonium Flavianum Josephus makes no note of crucifixions of Jews between 4 BCE. and 46 CE
* The Gospels indicate friction between the Jews and Samaritansin the time of Pilate; Josephus records no such friction until well after Pilate finally resulting in the Galilean-Samaritan War (48-52 CE)
*Josephus does record co-reigning high priests but these are Jonathan, son of Annas, and Ananias, son of Nebedaios at 48-52 CE
We have seen this time shifting before with King Arthur, Robin Hood, and even John Frum. If they actually lived when they may have not lived in the time period we are now being told they lived.
King Arthur has become so distanced from whatever actual human origin he had (if any) that he has become effectively
become fictional. The King Arthur
we know is a wild mish mash of antichronistic material with his knights wearing 15th century armor, living in 14th century castles, and championing the 13th century values of Chivalry...all in the 5th to 6th century.
Jesus if he actually existed seems to suffered a similar antichronistic treatment but this raised the issue of can we trust anything in terms of time period the Gospels tell us?
