For most people, this is starting out all wrong. The prevailing opinion amongst Christians is that Jesus was the most perfect human who has walked upon the face of this earth. To begin any discussion saying that Jesus made mistakes is to challenge one of the most cherished beliefs of Christians. For them, he was the manifestation of God on earth. He was the only son of the Father God. He was so perfect He died for our sins in order to give us salvation. He gave us the morals to live by for the rest of our lives and the lives of our children. He was part of the Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Ghost, each of which is perfection clothed in different array or appearance. He was so perfect and powerful that he healed the sick. He brought the dead back to life. He walked on water. He even died and brought himself back to life. That’s true power and perfection!
Or was he perfect? Is there some doubt about this person being the most glowing example of humanity that ever existed? There is not only doubt; there is evidence to the contrary.
Jesus scholars tell us there is no evidence that Jesus had a formal education. It is likely that he was illiterate. It is likely that he was poor. He had to rely on the dole from others to exist. He had no job of his own. He was itinerant. He had no home of his own. He traveled from town to town preaching his messages, and relied on the generosity of others for food and a place to sleep. He was a Jewish peasant preacher with a raggedy band of followers, a sight not too uncommon in Judea at that time. There were a number of preachers with itinerant bands of followers, each of whom was claimed separately to be the Messiah. Rather than the fanciful mythology that has been added around his death, it is likely that he died an ignominious death. It is likely that he came to Jerusalem with an excited band of followers, for a festival that had been the seat of riots on previous occasions. The Romans weren’t going to put up with any more riots; for this festival they figured the only way to stop those riots before they started was to arrest the chief rabble-rousers, try them, convict them, and put them to death in public humiliation. They did just that to Jesus and other likely troublemakers. It is likely that Jesus not only hung naked on a cross to die, but also was thrown to the dogs to be eaten after death. It was a degrading, abjectly humiliating death. There was no way this little band of Jesus followers was going to cause a riot at that festival, or at any time in the future.
And there is more. Jesus had a temper, was an egomaniac, and was manipulative of his followers. He was a great deal less than perfect.
There is no doubt that he sometimes flew off the handle. There is, in the Gnostic gospels, an account of another child displeasing him, so he put a curse on that child. There is clearly an account of his getting mad at a fig tree, which didn’t produce the way he thought it should, so he cursed it, willing it to wither away to near death. There is a very well described event in the temple with the moneychangers. There was clearly reason for him to be angry about the usury involved amongst the moneychangers, charging people for animals and birds that could be used for sacrifice on the altar to prove their allegiance to their religion, at inflated prices. Not only was he was right to be angry, but he sure showed it too. He caused a scene that probably sealed his fatal demise in that city. He had a temper.
He was also an egomaniac. The most glaring example of this egomania is the account of his conversation with his mother, when he says, “What do I have to do with you, woman?” If that doesn’t turn your stomach, very little will. He says that unless those who follow him give up their allegiance to their wives, their children, their parents, they are not worthy of entry into the kingdom of heaven. This is pretty bad. What it means is that if you don’t believe everything that he believes, and give up every tie and/or responsibility you have to your loved ones, all for the sake of his creed, you aren’t worth dirt. In other words, creed becomes more important than the love one has for those who have provided the most sustenance in the life for each of us. There is something drastically wrong with that concept. We would ask you to consider if this is any different than the egomaniac demands that Koresh or Jones made of their followers before they led them all to an early death. Probably not. All of Jesus’ disciples came to an early death too, because of their beliefs in his cause and his message.
And last, but not least, Jesus was a manipulator. He was without doubt charismatic. People who came to know him would drop everything that they were doing to follow him and hear what he had to say. There is no account of any disciple who was not immediately overcome by his presence. They were all involved in trying to make a living in some way. As soon as they heard or saw Jesus, there wasn’t anything else for them to do but to follow him. They dropped their work and became disciples. There are people like that. It is difficult to get enough of them, regardless of what flaws that they have. When we are in their presence, we feel that we are in the presence of what is happening in life. We feel that there is no other place that we would want to be. We feel that very little in life is more important than being with this person.
There are charismatic people who are not egomaniacal. We have all known some. We can’t get enough of them. We are happy only when we are in their presence. That does not mean to say that those charismatics demand our presence and our allegiance. They may have a personality that attracts us to them, and makes us always want to be with them, but they do not demand our constant attention. Jesus, on the other hand, did that; he did that because he was, in addition to being charismatic, also an egomaniac. He believed that his presence and his message were the only important things that existed on earth.
Something happens when you are both charismatic and an egomaniac; you become manipulative. This is precisely what Jesus did. He used those who surrounded him to his best advantage. He demanded their total allegiance to him. He demanded that they accept his beliefs wholly and without question. If they became upset because he had a lover, whether that lover may have been male or female, he chastised them. If they questioned his teachings in any way, he chastised them. Even though they wanted nothing more than to be with him, they sometimes found his beliefs too unrealistic. His response to their questions was often one close to anger. What happens when a charismatic egomaniac becomes in conflict with a true believer? Does anyone truly understand the Judas story? We would ask you to consider that Jesus manipulated Judas in a way that was untenable to him, and that Jesus was betrayed not because the Devil had taken Judas into his camp, but because Jesus manipulated and betrayed the trust of the true believer, Judas. The shoe may well be on the other foot.
This does not mean to infer that Jesus was incommunicative or unintelligent. We know that he used the spoken language powerfully, and knew how to weave messages of meaning into stories and allegories that are among the most classic of all time. This does not mean that we are all not indebted to this person for reiterating the most important moral lesson that exists among all humans. He did exactly that.
History scholars do not place Jesus as the most important figure in human history. They place Muhammad first and Buddha second, primarily because they have not been so obtusely covered in mythology which is nonsensical and counterproductive. Both Muhammad and Buddha
were more realistically human. Both had a message of compassion and self-improvement. Both have had a more productive effect on the actions of humans as far as education, scientific advancement, and cooperation amongst diverse groups are concerned. They each deserve that status as being more important contributors to human advancement. Both of them achieved that status by being a bit more real, and less mythical.
There is no other human, however, who has given this one message so clearly and so succinctly. Muhammad and Buddha came close to it, but they didn’t say it quite as well. There is this one passage, Mathew 22: 37-40, which says the only two things which are important in all of the Bible, the Koran, or any other religious literature of any age or any time: “You must love the Lord your God with your whole heart, your whole soul, and your whole mind. That is the great first command. There is a second like it: You must love your neighbor as you do yourself. These two commands sum up the whole of the Law and the Prophets.”
It doesn’t get any better than this. There are no other laws any of us need for all of our lives. These laws have nothing to do with a Trinity, a God on earth, or the only Son of God. They have nothing to do with Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, or any other religion anyone wants to name. They have to do with our recognizing that we are all in this mess together. If we don’t learn to live with each other with compassion , deeply respect our planet home, and the Laws of Chance that govern it, we are dead meat. Take heed, all personal-god-believers. The callous, impersonal God of Chance is watching with a baleful, unforgiving eye.