When you think of Jesus, you have to remember that word refers to three people. The historic Jesus, the Biblical Jesus and the real Jesus. The real Jesus, I don't know. He did probably exist, BTW. And if he was from that time, he probably thought women and heretics should be burned. He thought slavery was all right and women were men's property. He believed in torture and dismemberment as a punishment for some crimes. The Biblical and historic Jesus are interesting. And they might have something to do with the real Jesus. In grade school and high school, they taught us that the gospels were like a TV docudrama. Places were changed, several people were consolidated into one and the person didn't use those exact words. But the Sermon on the Mount is interesting. Love your enemies, be friends with tax collectors, judge not lest you be judged. If Jesus really said that, he was one of the nicer people of his time. His bones are probably buried somewhere in the Middle East now.
You say that so matter-of-factly, but from the rest of your post I find it hard to understand what you're talking about. In his Quest for the Historical Jesus, Albert Schweitzer distinguishes between the Jesus of history and the Jesus of faith. You seem to think there's another Jesus. Explain. I'm not contesting that view, but I am contesting your characterization of the "Real Jesus", whom you, apparently on the basis of pure speculation, seem to make out to be a misguided monster. I agree with you and most scholars that there's enough evidence to support the Jesus of history. P. Johnson, (2011). Jesus: A Biography from a Believer; "Nonexistence Hypothesis". J.L. Houlden, ed., Jesus in History;Bart Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist? Historicity of Jesus - Wikipedia That's the Jesus of history: the "first-century Jewish man known as Jesus of Nazareth", an itinerant preacher in first century Galilee who attracted a following, and was executed by Pontius Pilate. Of course, the trouble is that's about all we know of Him. For more, we have to turn to the New Testament and the "Jesus of Faith". Is there another Jesus? I can make an argument that there is, but it requires separating out the supernatural Jesus from the Jesus of enlightenment--i.e., the miracle-working god-man who came to earth to die for our sins from the man who preached a gospel of peace, love and understanding for all humans, including society's rejects and least advantaged, and who put these teachings into practice. Likewise, we might identify three Buddhas: the wandering sage who is said to have lived in South Asia during the sixth century; the miraculous figure who was walking and talking at birth, possessed ESP, could duplicate himself, was protected from the elements by the serpent Mucalinda, etc. And the enlightened teacher who gave us the four noble truths, the five precepts, etc. I don't know which of these is the "real" Jesus or Buddha, but the ones I live by are the preacher-teachers. I agree with Hume and Carl Sagan that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, which eliminates the supernatural ones as far as I'm concerned. But your "real" Jesus sounds like the product of a nightmare: "If he was from that time, he probably thought women and heretics should be burned, thought slavery was alright and that women were men's property. He allegedly believed in torture and dismemberment as a punishment for some crimes. All that, based on the assumption that he probably believed what the average Pharisee on the street believed back in the day. And even they didn't believe all that! Burning women and heretics was something that came in several centuries later! The New Testament and several respected bible scholars like Marcus Borg and Robin Meyers tell us that He did not follow the crowd when it came to stoning people and other strictures of the Holiness Code. That's why he got nailed! As for his bones "probably" being buried somewhere in the Middle East, that, too, is a matter of conjecture. J.D. Crossan, a progressive Jesus scholar, thinks He may never have made it to a tomb, since it was the Roman custom in most cases to leave crucified victims for the birds and other scavengers.
