5 In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?”
6 They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger.
7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”
8 Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
Story says he knew how to write (historically, more dubious)
I'm not religious, but I think about this a lot. Like, if Jesus was real but Paul was just a grifter and not "divinely inspired" it explains away a lot of the weird new testament doctrine.
paul was an agent of rome sent to subvert and coopt jesus' revolutionary anti-imperialist movement, beginning the process of transforming that message into one compatible with the ideological superstructure of the roman empire, a process that culminated with constantine and the council of nicaea after three centuries of murdering "heretics"
Thinking about what would have happened to Catholicism if the Johannine Middle Platonists and mystics hadn't mostly supplanted Pauline Christology in the late 2nd century and it's not a good feeling.
I probably would have existed since I'm pretty sure the Jesus everyone talks about is pretty much a myth (probable) or an amalgamation of traits from other real people (possible).
Didn’t non biblical/christian romans attested to Jesus’ crucifixion? He was real, but he was Joseph Smith/L Ron Hubbard plus 3000 years to obfuscate his activities
I don't know nearly enough to wade into the discussion but I've definitely seen credible scholars say that he was certainly a real guy and other credible scholars say that he was certainly not a real guy sooo
As a true centrist I think half of Jesus existed. The crucifixion must've looked real weird
From what I've read (and it's been a while) I don't recall ever reading non biblical accounts of Jesus from the time of his supposed life. We know that a church that appears in the bible during the time of Jesus was built some time after he allegedly died so that's already... problematic. Some scholars have pointed out that Jesus got a lot of juice in the years after he was shooting bushes with laser eyes and raising the dead and then resurrected by his dad who is also himself - but to me that's like saying since I see a lot of Garfield movies, comics and coffee mugs in 2024 that therefore Garfield is or was a real cat because no one was pimping Garfield before he entered the zeitgeist as a character beloved by the commonfolk.
Miracle workers then and now are a dime a dozen. For example, here's the pagan version of Jesus who was a little younger than him: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollonius_of_Tyana. He's similar enough to Jesus that various pagans had written polemics on how he had cooler miracles than Jesus.
Every historical epoch will have their version of Joseph Smith or L Ron Hubbard. It just seems ahistorical that for this particular case of a miracle worker, people just made him up instead of doing the usual thing of attributing miracles to themselves. We all laugh about Joseph Smith sticking his head in a fucking hat to read a bunch of text. Imagine if Joseph Smith made up a guy who stuck his head in the fucking hat instead. Why would anyone bother listening to Joseph Smith instead of trying to chase after the imaginary dude?
Use my knowledge of advanced prosthetics (omniscience) and carpentry (trade school) to construct a set of breakaway arms and legs, hiding my real limbs in a secret compartment in my cross.
I would simply invent a machine gun. The prophecy says that I needed to sacrifice my life for humanity. Doesn’t say that I needed to be a meek ass pussy
Jesus didn't claim to be the child of God. He claimed he was God ("I am THAT I Am") and when someone suggested he was the child of God, he didn't deny it.
I would 100% ditch the monotheism. Roman religion was way more interesting. Keep the radical peace and communal living stuff though, maybe come at it from the angle of "What does Jupiter care which rich kid gets to call himself Caesar? It's on us to build a better world for ourselves."
I wouldn't have sieged Leningrad, just surge rushed it and took it immediately.
More seriously I would have done the thing Mohammed did and insisted upon not translating my word, so that it would be harder to corrupt (still allows for shit like including a bunch of discussion about my words, but at least the words are still there untouched). Also I'd hire a scribe or something to write things down in my time, so it would be definitive. And I'd talk a lot more about how being rich doomed you to hell, like he did in that book that's no longer part of the main canon
34 “Do not suppose that I [Jesus] have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. (Matthew 10:34)
36 [Jesus] said to them, “But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one. (Luke 22:36)
Gonna keep the vow of celibacy stuff so that when the priests and monks and shit show up in heaven I can be like "Nah I was just fucking with you guys, sex is awesome actually lmao."