Why care who Jesus was?

Does it matter whether the historical Jesus was aggressive and snarky?

Towards the end of the comments on David's thread about the tabernacle, OldBathrobe started to dissect the character of Jesus, as revealed in the gospels. He was, apparently,

A millenarian prophet and exorcist who was obsessed with the imminent end of the world and with getting as many people as possible onto the right side of the coming judgement. Agree with him, and he was delighted- he'd do anything for you and smother you with love. In a modern cult, it's called 'love-bombing'- and we are dealing with a cult here. Give up your job and your family, we're your family now, the end is nigh- it's all there, even the expensive presents to the Leader (remember the ointment on his feet, worth a year's wages?).


A narcissistic obsessive who wants you to tell him he's the greatest thing ever before he'll even engage with you? Remember that he was a child prodigy at scripture and sermons- not the sort of detail that says 'socially well-adjusted and a top bloke', is it?

If you read the gospels as a biography, this is entirely plausible. In any case, I don't want to argue with it. Let's take it as read that Jesus would have been moderated very heavily if he had turned up on Cif belief.

The question, and it's a serious one, is whether any of this matters. Could the mythological Jesus be diminished at all by a historical one? Obviously this is a question that orthodox Christianity would say is impossible to ask. The whole point of the incarnation is that the mythological and the historical were one. But it seems to be worth asking anyway; and my instinct is that the mythological will always trump the historical because we are myth-making animals. There is a sort of radical Christianity which would say that because of this, the historical Jesus doesn't matter at all. What matters is the effect that believing in him had. I suspect that this is what lies behind the arguments about the physical resurrection. Very similar arguments apply to the person of Muhammed.

In any case, I thought it was worth hoicking above the line, to provoke, if possible, some unpredictable debate.

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