Was there a man named Jesus, called Christ, who was crucified?
I have followed various comments from various 'hues' of people, with a lot of interest...
Apparently, a remarkable, revolutionary historical man: who was very iconoclastic in his ideas and made a remarkable impression on the people around that he became a hero figure (to a great majority of commoners) and adversary (to those in power)--preaching sacrifice, austerity, simple life, sharing things with people---like modern day socialists--and finally 'deified' and went into folklore and made the 'christendom.' His ideas, teaching are simple, remarkable, but threatening to people in authority and rich and hence he was banished and punished/crucified. sadly the historical facts are always very unclear, as those we get are written by powerful and influential people who would like to be benfitted and who believed people would be benefitted. what we know is info from people who 'deified' him-probably 'spiced' it up inadvertantly (due to respect/faith) or intentionally(to influence more people). but the undeniable fact-even if you are believer or not-- he is truly reamrkable, revolutionary personality, who appeared in history as they say 'too soon for his age. if you--both believers and non-beleivers--would like more--frank & interesting--discussions about the gospels and historical issues about jesus, you could read books by one of the professor of divinity in university of north carolina, Dr.Bart Ehrman (check 'amazon') or if don't feel you don't have that muchof time, money or energy, you could listen to his interviews with Ms. Terry Gross in 'NPR's program 'FRESH AIR'from WHYY philadelphia--also broadcast by many of the public radio stations (NPR stations) all over the country. I hope to see the discussions in this forum to be civil and non-hurting--in these kinds of situations which arouse a lot of passion and heat--, realizing that this is not for pleasing or hurting anybody