The Mythical Character Of Jesus

 Let's talk about that Jesus guy.

  Let's get the basic questions out of the way.  Did he exist?  I'm sure that there were men in the Hebrew province of the ancient Roman Empire circa 0AD named Jesus or Yeshua.  Are any of them the basis for the legend of the biblical Jesus?  Yeah, maybe.  It is more likely an amalgam of many legends and given a common, generic name.  Is there any corroborative evidence or archeological, anthropological support for the stories in the Bible?  No, there is not.  Some folks will claim that thousands of scholars say there is but there is not much consensus even among that lot as to who wrote what and how legitimate it is.  The setting was real.  Rome and Jerusalem and Bethlehem existed.  

Now let's dissect the legend.  Let's start with the idea that humans are all sinful and need a redeemer.  As with most bronze/iron age concepts of human interaction with gods this redemption demands a blood sacrifice.  The fact that the Hebrew mythology incorporates this universal trope of blood sacrifice is resoundingly accepted amd also ignored for being incorporated in many other theologies and rituals of the time.  It was just a thing at that time.  Why is a whole other topic.  I think people see the variance in the fact that the Hebrew God is somehow offering himself as the blood sacrifice.  Where animal sacrifice on an altar was, previously, somehow a way of atoning for grieving the divine creator this one time ritual sacrifice of a human/god hybrid would be a one time deal to make any further sacrifice unnecessary.  A mortal god who can do such a thing requires huge suspension of logic and some really nifty story telling.  For starters the blood sacrifice has to be a living, temporal creature.  In other Old Testament blood sacrifices to Jehovah a "clean" farm animal will suffice but this one, the redemption of humanity, requires "clean" human blood.  Stay with me now.  This can't be a regular human.  Not one single human is "clean" because of original sin.  The requirement that this human sacrifice be a "clean" human means a one of a kind, free of sin, completely innocent person requires a birth unlike any other before or since.  After all, a run of the mill human birth will produce any old human and that won't ever be good enough.

Here we get into the miraculous and utterly ridiculous.  In order for this sacrifice to be clean and sinless it must be divine, much more than a corrupt human.  How does one get a divine human?  With a divine violation of a human girl's womb of course.  A teen girl is told that God is going to knock her up and her baby will be God and a human simaltaneously.  For starters, a virgin birth is quite common in mythologies from around the world, some of which predate and likely inspired the Hebrews.  Secondly, a divine knocking up is a silly proposition as it requires invented paternal DNA and that simple concept would make Jesus of Nazareth either intentionally bland or undeniably spectacular in every way.  A divine infant with the power of God is inconceivable.  While we are going there imagine a pubescent Jesus.  Did he not have wet dreams about the girl or boy next door, his hot aunt, someone his mind invented?  Is there a sin there or a pass because it is just a dream?  Did he never have an angry thought?  Never doubt?  Never lust or covet?  Is that at all plausible?  He would have been such a freak and so pious that no one would have wanted to be his friend.  Becoming the leader of a cult that had maybe 2 dozen members seems equally implausible because how charismatic could someone that boring and sanctimonious be?

Now let's talk about the blood sacrifice.  Dude gets crucified for made up crimes.  He tells people before it happens that he will be back in 3 days so he dies knowing it is temporary.  He goes to Hell for a hot second, again, knowing that he is leaving in a minute.  Somehow this satisfies the blood sacrifice thing and Jesus buys back all of the souls.  Now the caveat is you buy into this fairy tale and get redeemed or you don't and you still deserve to go to Hell for that original sin thing.

Here is another logical hangup.  The whole time that this mythical, legendary, God/man hybrid is giving over to and experiencing this blood sacrifice he is one and the same with the guy demanding it.  We somehow need to take it on faith that these two individuals experiencing the same event from two vastly different perspectives are exactly the same being.  The father says, "I need one of you to die and that one has to be perfect.  Since none of you can be perfect I guess I have to die but since I can't die we will make a scene of it, all full of torture and drama that lasts a few days and that will have to do.  As far as you know I will have died but when I don't stay dead that will be the crux of this whole redemption thing because...reasons."

I'm not trying to tell people what to believe or disbelieve.  I'm not trying to suggest that I have some deep answers and could enlighten my followers.  I am merely trying to make people do a deep dive on what they believe to be objectively true and see where such a belief is unfounded and simply does not ring true.  Why do you believe the Sermon On the Mount is what Jesus said?  Who was the stenographer recording it in real time?  Who remembered it word for word and wrote it down decades later?  These are the earmarks of pure myth.

The messiah.  The mystical rabbi.  The man who performed miracles with the power of Jehovah, the son of a carpenter whose mother was a virgin when she birthed him.  That guy is a myth and much of that description can be traced to earlier myths from cultures with whom the Hebrews traded..  No such person ever actually lived and did those things attributed to him and died by crucifixion and rose from the dead all on his own because he was Jehovah in the first place.  It is a legend.  It's a story.  None of the magic in those stories has occurred in 2000 years.  No one has multiplied fish, calmed a storm, walked on water, healed the sick or raised the dead.  Many people have claimed to be Christ returned to Earth and each and every one of them has been a fucking creep who couldn't do a single miracle and then died, not counting the few who haven't passed on yet but most certainly will.  The Jesus myth.  Cool story bro.

Let's just revisit the claims, backed by thousands of biblical scholars apparently.  These are people who have dedicated their lives to the study of a 2000 to 4000 year old collection of writings from a relatively unimportant section of the Middle East for some reason.  According to all of these people there was an actual guy and he was actually executed by the Romans for reasons that probably aren't that important.  The Romans executed a whole lot of people.  It was a common thing and part of the terror that allowed their empire to maintain control for hundreds of years.  Big deal.  They executed a Hebrew faith healer who said anti Roman shit and pissed them off enough to bother with that.  He really pissed off the Hebrew leaders that were puppets to Rome and they escalated it up to some guy named Pontius Pilate and he added this Jesus guy to the list of criminals slated for crucifixion.  So what?  If all of that is actually true, historical fact I can't understand why I should give a shit.  If Adam and Eve did not bite magical fruit and make us all sinners in need of redemption and if Yeshua of Nazareth, son of Joseph was actually the son of Joseph because Mary wasn't knocked up by God and this Yeshua really was crucified by the Romans it is, yet again, cool story bro.  The real guy has had legend tacked on like Paul Bunyan.  It makes for a lovely tall tale but no one in their right mind would think it was all true.  The magic and prophecy and nonsense tacked onto the story were embellishments added decades and centuries later.  That is how virtually all legendary characters come about.  A real guy did some remarkable shit and then in the retelling it becomes more and more remarkable until it is hyperbole and ridiculous nonsense that makes for a fun camp fire tale but everyone, normally, recognizes as fanciful.  Hercules, Jesus, Spiderman and Harry Potter are all fun to read about but none of their stories should be the basis for a world view.