As noted in a "greatest lie" section of Quora, constrasting the Christian legends with what common sense likely took place.
Jesus appears to have been very well born, with both of his parents having leading Royal blood (and they were cousins too) and literally being the grandson of the last greatly respected King of the Jews. The second in line only to his elder cousin John the Baptist, and after John's murder Jesus becomes a replacement public figure...a new contender for a good new King.
He rides into Jerusalem in phrophesized style with his followers, and attempts to start a debt jubilee by turning over the money changers tables. Economist Michael Hudson believes that debt jubilees were a great idea which should be brought back. In any case, it's a brash populist-socialist move on the part of a new aspiring king-to-be, and also portrays his populist socialist tendencies.
But the Romans are having none of it, and kidnap Jesus' own son. Judas, Jesus cousin and closest confidante, works out an amazing deal with the Romans in which Jesus' son is freed, and Jesus himself gets to spend a mere 3-6 hours on the cross just before the Jewish holiday...and most importantly not having his legs broken...and to get hauled away by his father to his father's royal tomb. He was well attended, quickly recovered, and ultimately escaped to live a life in exile, where he is occasionally recognized but otherwise keeps a very low profile. To his followers, this is a symbolic watershed which they will soon avenge--but even with their support newer generations of Jewish Resistance face ultimate defeat, with the multiple sackings of the the too-independent-thinking Jerusalem by the Romans, who ultimately found Israel incompatible with the Roman Empire principles and renamed it Palestine for the long co-inhabitant "Philistines" who remained after the departure of the more well placed and known diaspora Jews.
Jesus never made an issue of his god-ness, but once Jesus had passed on, an antagonistic outsider named Saul changed his identity to Paul and hijacked the identity of Jesus for the godhead he was enterpreneuring, declared that Jesus had not merely escaped death but arisen from the dead, with "gospels" ultimately created to blend his new religion-of-idealist-deity with the old Jesus-was-the-good-king-who-showed-the-principles-of-courage-and-love-and-survived-and-will-be-restored, and that became the Christianity we know, well after it got hijacked and filtered again by the clerics appointed by Constantine, and so on.
And it all fit a pattern of many similar stories in many other cultures beforehand, such as Buddha, etc.
The real Jesus story is that when the blindfolds are removed we all understand the essential nature of the common good and that it cannot be achieved by selfish means alone. There is hope then that we can work together.
Jesus appears to have been very well born, with both of his parents having leading Royal blood (and they were cousins too) and literally being the grandson of the last greatly respected King of the Jews. The second in line only to his elder cousin John the Baptist, and after John's murder Jesus becomes a replacement public figure...a new contender for a good new King.
He rides into Jerusalem in phrophesized style with his followers, and attempts to start a debt jubilee by turning over the money changers tables. Economist Michael Hudson believes that debt jubilees were a great idea which should be brought back. In any case, it's a brash populist-socialist move on the part of a new aspiring king-to-be, and also portrays his populist socialist tendencies.
But the Romans are having none of it, and kidnap Jesus' own son. Judas, Jesus cousin and closest confidante, works out an amazing deal with the Romans in which Jesus' son is freed, and Jesus himself gets to spend a mere 3-6 hours on the cross just before the Jewish holiday...and most importantly not having his legs broken...and to get hauled away by his father to his father's royal tomb. He was well attended, quickly recovered, and ultimately escaped to live a life in exile, where he is occasionally recognized but otherwise keeps a very low profile. To his followers, this is a symbolic watershed which they will soon avenge--but even with their support newer generations of Jewish Resistance face ultimate defeat, with the multiple sackings of the the too-independent-thinking Jerusalem by the Romans, who ultimately found Israel incompatible with the Roman Empire principles and renamed it Palestine for the long co-inhabitant "Philistines" who remained after the departure of the more well placed and known diaspora Jews.
Jesus never made an issue of his god-ness, but once Jesus had passed on, an antagonistic outsider named Saul changed his identity to Paul and hijacked the identity of Jesus for the godhead he was enterpreneuring, declared that Jesus had not merely escaped death but arisen from the dead, with "gospels" ultimately created to blend his new religion-of-idealist-deity with the old Jesus-was-the-good-king-who-showed-the-principles-of-courage-and-love-and-survived-and-will-be-restored, and that became the Christianity we know, well after it got hijacked and filtered again by the clerics appointed by Constantine, and so on.
And it all fit a pattern of many similar stories in many other cultures beforehand, such as Buddha, etc.
The real Jesus story is that when the blindfolds are removed we all understand the essential nature of the common good and that it cannot be achieved by selfish means alone. There is hope then that we can work together.
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