"Jesus Is Probably Insane" - See if It Fits

• "Jesus Is Probably Insane": Diagnostic Surveys
• Example
• "Have You Seen That Demon?"
• Jesus Summary

"Jesus Is Probably Insane": Diagnostic Surveys

This page gives access to all the diagnostic criteria of ten main personality disorders. As you can see in the light of many of them, there is much biblical evidence to support the tentative diagnosis of Jesus as a histrionic, paranoid and antisocial psychopath. Uha.

What if "birds" of a feather flock together? What evidence do we have that Christian "angels" are OK, or exist? For one thing, simple goose wings fastened at their back will not carry them along.

Is there something in "Birds of a feather flock together" and "Like attracts like"? Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." [Mark 2:17; cf. Matthew 9:12-13] Well, is there any good reason to maintain that those who worship a multipsychopath, are wiser than other people? It might depend on how such a psychopath is and acts, but it is usually very good counsel to stay away from fools a lot, and psychopaths altogether, unless you are armed or something. The healthy do not need psychopaths around either.

Bible evidence may not be reliable, so take that option into account. This source makes claims to be the word of God, that is reliable and true. But it is clearly not. Scholars have found out, and many reasons for it are divulged too. [Link]

But such evidence is mainly what we deal with; and according to gospels and the like, Jesus was either a liar or insane, or both. It should not be too hard to find non-Christian experts on mental disorders and diseases to make a discursive diagnosis resulting in "Jesus Is Probably Insane" from carefully documented criteria applied to the gospel evidence. Modesty is not all there is to life, remember.

Jesus is the originator of one of the tensest sects in history. And Christianity generates wild sects "yearly", so to speak. Look to the fruits to determine the tree, is the teaching. The cult of Christianity took off from Judaism with ruins in its wake. Millions of its cultish members were made martyrs.

A wild and tense one

If you click on disorder headings below, you get to the definitions of about ten major personality disorders to compare him or anyone else with. The World Health Organisation's (WHO's) definitions are there, and those used by the American Psychiatrist Association (APA) go along with them. It helps to be informed, and also to be carefully guarded.

Train yourself a little as a diagnostician before you publicly claim that Jesus is a horrible Multiple Psychopath as judged by the gospel evidence. Blind belief and blind disbelief is not the solution. You may not be served by talking too big and as a result get a bizarre reputation; instead be well guarded. The proper procedure is: Make up your own mind and guard the privacy of your own thoughts for safety. And if at least three symptoms of any personality disorder seem to fit him nicely, do not be afraid to note it down and weigh him as well as you can.

The four requirements, are they merely asides?

The influence of Jesus with strange and self-molesting demands coupled with that of hard-headed followers around could mar the fare of lives of today. Think about how he really promotes the spread of great badness by decreeing that as his follower you should cut off your offending limbs, even eyes, give in to robbers and not press charges, and yield insistent beggars who want your housing even, choose poverty, cast mountains into the sea, and so on. See what well-off, so-called followers of Jesus actually do, and note how divergent his demands are. What is wrong in such a picture? Is is hypocricy and arrogance, or is there a good enough reason at the bottom of these things? Or a marring blend of not knowing and ignoring what is Christianity for non-Jewish followers [Acts 21:25], and disregarding the stiff demands of Jesus anyway?

Oh, the many dangerously misled Christians! Many cliché-ridden followers seem to be fake followers or rude hypocrites in that they do not obey him and do not show the gospel's key signs of true, poor followers! Mark their signs in passing here: [Things followers can do]. Commanding Jesus is reported to have condemned hypocrites to hell. That seems to include flaunting followers who disregard his key sayings too. And Merely to call him "Lord, Lord" in a strange "faith" that does not make mountains cast themselves into the sea, won't do the trick for those Jews who not do what he commands follower Jews. Yes, he said he came for Jews and would not deal with others. The later-added missionary command at the end of Matthew is made up and inserted long after. But as tough luck would have it, his commands are for Jewish followers and not non-Jews. They were made martyrs in the millions instead -

And all those who call Jesus "Lord" without doing what he appears to command, may not be that bad, after all. The vast throngs who think they fail miserably in following Jesus, have they been duly informed about those relaxed "rules of the game" for non-Jewish followers? There are four requirements for non-Jewish followers, just four, Acts state, and commands of Jesus are not mentioned a bit. So there may be hope for those who have ignored Jesus and not delighted in black pudding, odd as it may sound to the uninitiated.

Acts 15 (and Acts 21:25) in the New Testament contains those pivoting passages, the very foundation for non-Jewish followers. There are only four requirements, it says. One of them is no to blood food, which is scoffed at nowadays, even though there is no Bible evidence that it is OK to discard or circumvene it. There are many bluffers around. Make sure you are not among them, and study well. Consider there could be worse things yet to come for all who have eaten black pudding, according to a Scripture. The kernel of the thing is that all the apostles and the Holy Spirit agreed on these four requirements:

The apostles and elders, with the whole church . . . sent the following letter: The apostles and elders, your brothers, To the Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia: Greetings . . . we are sending Judas and Silas to confirm by word of mouth what we are writing. It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things. Farewell. [Acts 15:22-29]

The four requirements are repeated in Acts 21:25. "As for the Gentile believers, we have written to them our decision that they should abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality." One of the marked rascality sides to current Christianity, at least where I come from, is to delight in blood food and looking down on adulterers, without even for a second consider that these things are rather equal, according to the Deal for non-Jewish followers - that is, almost all who call themselves Christians, without doing what Jesus tells followers are to do and are able to do anyway. And if you are honest, you may disregard and shoo Christianity altogether, for the sake of health, thriving, and sound development, for example. There are other good reasons too. And now, back to diagnostic surveys:

Diagnostic surveys on

Apply the key points of various mental disorders to the Jesus you find described in the gospels, and deal warily with the findings, since the gospels are not all that reliable witness accounts, for one thing. You may go on and grade the suspected symptoms you detect, into "(they are) there" and "more severe (ones)", for that is how mental disorders are diagnosed in outline: Pick your choice, try to excel in the art of matching the assembled, official characteristics and striking features of a person.

There is biblical evidence that Jesus was a histrionic, paranoid and antisocial psychopath, for example - not just outrageously garrulous. But do not be scapegoated for "canonising" your findings by making the verdicts official as your stand in public or whatever: Consider the consequences . . . for example that some that are set on being hailed as God, or banding with such a one, can be of sick minds, quite insane, even dangerous criminals under the surfaces. Such criminals and sickly sheep are not just marked by rude unconcern. And what is more, Jesus did not come for healthy persons, he says, and also told that being healthy is better than being ill - not to speak of better than being a slave and sheep (conform at it too). [Matthew 9:12-13]

Opposed to criminals and sick sheep, going for health of mind and spirit and survive thus is no error. Since the gospel's message is that healthy ones do not need him and therefore should not be called by him, sheep that escape from him, might have potential for something better, and lead good lives too.

"What is the use of worrying? / It never was worthwhile," writes George Asaf (1880-1951) in a song [Oq 423]. Many times it is, though. Do what is apt with mockingbirds and untruths, but furnish and keep some mental space or "room" for openings too.

Clearly maladaptive Jesus by quality criteria - selections

Note: The diagnostic criteria used by WHO and APA are shown on a separate page. Click on the headlines for getting to them. And see how he scores!

Antisocial Personality Disorder (Psychopaths and sociopaths):

• He wanted to create a new world order.
  
• Disparity between behaviour and the prevailing social norms.
  
• Relative unconcern for the feelings of most Pharisees and priests or scribes of Israel.
  
• Persistent disregard for social norms, rules and obligations, but speaking with two mouths in so doing.
  
• Having difficulty in establishing social relations. - For what it is worth, take into account such as: the authorities had Jesus killed, his relatives wanted to drive him out of a cliff, and almost all of his disciples ("the seventy") left him because of his hard words, and the remaining twelve disciples just let him be arrested.
  
• Low tolerance to frustration, as witnessed by his cursing a fig tree.
  
• A low threshold for discharge of aggression, including violence, in the same episode.
  
• Incapacity to profit from his punishment, insisting to be God throughout.
  
• Marked proneness to blame others for what brought him into conflict with society.
  
• Quite irritable as an associated feature.
  
• There could be ample reason to diagnose Jeshua ben Miriam as a psychopath (sociopath), then, by the most updated, current standards.

However, just as the good poet Kahlil Gibran was into, a thread in a web (Jesus among his people) may break if the web is wrongly made. The Scottish psychologists Ronald Laing takes that point into account too, when someone deviates markedly from society and is not welcomed for that reason, or turns bad or mad from it. Simply put: It might be the fault of the society, or might have been so at first! There is still much to consider.

Also, not a few multinational corporations may be diagnosed thus too, as psychopathic. They are marked by striking unconcern with long-range profits. One may see a psychiatrist's diagnosis of the multinational corporation in the Canadian documentary The Multinational Corporation. The Norwegian TV channel NRK sent the eye-opener on 21 April 2007. Dr. Robert Hare, a consultant to the FBI on psychopaths, draws parallels between a psychopath and the modern corporation. His findings confirm the following behaviour:

1. Callous unconcern for the feelings of others;
2. Incapacity to maintain enduring relationships;
3. Reckless disregard for the safety of others;
4. Deceitfulness: Repeated lying to and deceiving of others for profit;
5. Incapacity to experience guilt;
6. Failure to conform to the social norms with respect to lawful behaviors.

Source: The Corporation, a 2003 Canadian documentary film written by Joel Bakan, and co-directed by Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott.

Anxious (Avoidant) Personality Disorder :

• Feelings of inadequacy from early childhood, where innocent babies were ruthlessly killed and his family fled to Egypt.
  
• Feelings of inadequacy versus Jews; they refused him.
  
• His original mission failed.
  
• Pervasive feelings of apprehension.
  
• Excessive preoccupation with being criticized and rejected by scribes and priests and Pharisees in social situations, not to speak of being rejected by the people while hanging on a cross.
  
• Abnormal restrictions [and demands for it] in lifestyle.
  
• Avoiding occupational activities due to blunt rejection.
  
• He spoke many times as if hypersensitive to rejection.

Borderline Personality Disorder:

• Outbursts of threatening behaviour in response to criticism by others; he used the concept of hell that way, for example.
  
• Significantly unstable interpersonal relationships.
  
• First he was for Jews only, later, when they discarded him almost totally, he seemed to focus on other peoples.
  
• You should ask whether or how far he showed suicidal or self-mutilating behaviour when steered right into torture and death and foretold that his followers would be cruelly treated too.
  
• Unstable self-image may be sniffed at by insistence that he was the son of David (of that line) by his stepfather, and not son of God by an angel - or both.
  
• Self-mutilating threats against those in charge of the temple and the religious life of Jews at the time.
  
• Irritability with a lot of people.
  
• Difficulty in controlling anger, display of anger in such as whipping temple people.
  
• At times what may be taken to be stress-related paranoid ideations of wickedness, as when he charged against Peter that wanted to build a hut on a mountain. "Get thee away from me, Satan."

Dependent Personality Disorder:

• Unable to make any decisions or take an independent stand on his or her own - must leave it to his so-called Father that almost no one sees.
  
• Considerable personal distress may become apparent late in his life.
  
• Significant problems in social performance: he was crucified.
  
• Subordination of one's own needs to a top-dog, so to speak.
  
• Undue compliance with top-dog wishes.
  
• Feeling quite helpless before taking up his cross, praying in a garden.
  
• Left to care for himself, his village wanted to hurl him over a cliff, even.
  Limited capacity to make everyday decisions without an excessive amount of advice and reassurance from others.
  
• His reported victory for all over all is a self-defeat, which one has to consider as a disorder, maybe a long standing one, since his calls to followers included many demands on self-molestations and self-denials.

Histrionic Personality Disorder:

• Inappropriate displays of emotional reactions, cursing fig trees, even.
  
• Approaching theatricality in everyday behaviour.
  
• Sudden emotion expressions.
  
• Steadily seeking approval as the Messiah, or attention; over-seductive attractiveness (he has followers despite the long list), and martyrised a lot of them.

Narcissistic:

• Utter, fancied grandiosity, a call to be admired, an inability to see the viewpoints of others, etc.
  
• An excessive sense of how important they are.
  
• They demand and expect to be admired and praised by others and are limited in their capacity to appreciate others' perspectives.
  
• Need for admiration ("You are the Messiah (Christ)") - a grandiose sense of self-importance, expecting to be recognized as superior (God, even).
  
• Often occupied with quarrels on account of it.
  
• His (or her) fantasies that serve to illustrate a drive for extreme admiration can hardly understood by close ones at first, only on sound inspection.
  
• Takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends - for example by "shanghaiing" disciples.
  
• Peter was taken away from his wife, in fact. Haughty dealings in telling off others that he came from above, they from below.

Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder:

• Hinged on perfectionism with inflexibility, etc.
  
• See further down for details.

Paranoid Personality Disorder:

• Garrulous.
  
• Extreme distrust of scribes and Pharisees, others.
  
• Lack of trust in Herod the King too.
  
• Suspicious of their motives, never trusting himself to the leaders of his people, who diagnosed him as devil-possessed, insane, and at any rate a blasphemer.
  
• A pervasive suspiciousness of the doctors and clergy is seen in the gospels; their motives for upholding the Law given by his so-called Father when Jesus wanted differently, are interpreted as malevolent.
  
• He suspects them of harming intent, is reluctant to confide in all of them, reads threatening meanings into being rejected by them, even.
  
• Holds grudges against Jews by saving "all others" instead of them, even after given all power, allegedly.

Schizoid Personality Disorder:

• Hardly enjoys being part of a family.
  
• Seems to have little, if any, interest in having sexual experiences with another person.

Schizotypal Personality Disorder:

• Odd beliefs, and eccentricities of style and thought (e.g., belief in having magical powers).
  
• Very eccentric behaviours, perceptions, and thinking.
  
• Note his ideas of reference; odd beliefs or magical thinking; belief in clairvoyance, telepathy, or "sixth sense"; and bizarre-looking preoccupations of casting demons out of people.
  
• There is very over-elaborate speech in John.
  
• Suspiciousness or paranoid ideation - "You must all be victims, for I was" - which is constricted affect and peculiar behaviour from someone who died for all, to the end of putting them right with God, not having them killed in millions in the first place.
  
• Excessive fears may be halfway suspected behind many commands of self-mutitation, and denigrations of most others (competitors).

It adds up. A power-hungry psychopath shares many traits with Jesus of the gospels.

Example

Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder (301.40): Diagnostic Criteria

The theoretical claim that Jesus had an obsessive-compulsive personality disorder rests on gospel passages mainly. Perhaps some other early writings too, like the Gospel of Thomas may be taken into account, but at present such texts are not widely accepted or canonical.

If you go ahead like a mature psychiatrist and not airily, you may "build with the logs (the diagnostic criteria) detected", as if joining logs for a rough but sturdy cabin. Three weighty points will do, remember. Those who think Jesus conforms the diagnosis by the first three points alone, may not be mistaken.

It helps to approach "the case of Jesus" with a frank, unbiased mind: Consider what would be the appropriate response if anyone else claims to be God, demands willing self-sacrifice, and confuses followers, having a strange attraction and so on. Do not let any ceremonial, allotted respect demand overshadow your diagnosis and bullyrag you further.

As for the tentative example below, one may fill in quotations and extracts or gospel references - there are lots of them.

1. Willing to sacrifice for control.

A pervasive pattern of preoccupation with perfectionism, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by his being preoccupied with laying down rules, and organise his disciples to the extent that he wanted them to sacrifice and even die for him, leaving families behind as if they were dross, and so on. The major point of his "mission lost" may have been victimisation of his servants - millions of them were martyrised.

"I am God", "the son of God", "one with the Father", and so on is excellent to indicate one such rigid pattern in Jesus.

"Be ye therefore perfect (in mutilating yourselves as I dictate, or there will be sulphur and brimstone and gnashing of teeth)."

2. Preoccupation with details, rules, lists, order, organization, or schedules to the extent that the major point of the activity is lost.

"I have come to fulfil the Law and the prophets, and the Law details cold-blooded murder of animals as part of scapegoating and vicarious sacrifices - such rituals. Obey my commands or fall by the wayside."

3. Unreasonable insistence that others submit to exactly his or her way of doing things, or unreasonable reluctance to allow others to do things because of the conviction that they will not do them correctly.

"If you do not do as you say and drop your relatives for me, you are not worthy of me (Thank God for that, in case)."

4. Excessive devotion to work and productivity to the exclusion of leisure activities and friendships (not accounted for by obvious economic necessity).

"Go out and make disciples of all peoples, teaching them to obey everything I have told you."

5. Indecisiveness: decision making is either avoided, postponed, or protracted, e.g. the person cannot get assignments done on time because of ruminating about priorities (do not include if indecisiveness is due to excessive need for advice and reassurance from others).

"I came for Jews only, and that is the Father's plan. However, now that they have dropped me, I drop them, so go to the Gentiles and throw your nets over them instead".

6. Over-conscientiousness, scrupulousness, and inflexibility about matters of morality, ethics, or values (not accounted for by cultural or religious identification).

"If you eye offends you, pluck it out" is an insane command. Other commands for self-mutilations are very bad too. You do not have to comply.

He walked into the desert and did not eat anything there for forty days. [Luke 4:1-2] this might be held up as a good sign of "goddamn" inflexibility.

7. Restricted expression of affection.

One may say he condemned religious leaders for hypocrisy.

8. Lack of generosity in giving time, money, or gifts when no personal gain is likely to result.

He did not want to give salvation to non-Jews all through his life, and they were the receptive ones. His own family was not, the gospels tell, most other Jews likewise. He spent his efforts on the wrong people, and hardly reconsidered his approach over the years (inflexible, adamant, yet mistaken) - till he had entered "a pit" and was executed.

9. Inability to discard worn-out or worthless objects even when they have no sentimental value.

He or his apostles seemed unable to discard his worthless family tree (genealogy) by Joseph. They used fraud to legitimise him in two ways: as a divine one by an angel, as a Messiah of the blood line of David by someone else, and you cannot have it in both ways. TIP: If it is God you aspire to be hailed as, drop David's blood line. [Matthew 1; Luke 3:23].

Further descriptions as quoted

"People with this disorder are always mindful of their relative status in the dominance-submission relationships. Although they resist the authority of others, they stubbornly and unreasonably insist that people conform to their way of doing things."

There you have Jesus in a nut-shell.

"People with this disorder tend to be excessively conscientious, moralistic, scrupulous, and judgmental of self and others".

There he is in another nut-shell.

"These people have an unusually strong need to be in control. When they are unable to control others, a situation, or their environment, they often ruminate about the situation and become angry, although the anger is usually not expressed directly . . ."

Oh yes - He was marked by that too.

"Others often perceive these people as stilted or "stiff."

Quite so.

Standards or Principles Require Consideration to Become Your Own

The rise and current size of what is a sect is not the main problem, but its intrinsic characteristics that point to a hardened criminal gang on top, one that sees it fit to discard the "rules of the game" for the sake of perceived great profit at any time. See where the money goes. Bad leaders discard high principles for money, prestige, and power, as the case may be.

The Church in history was far from innocent in demoniac crusades, the Grand Inquisition, slave-capturing, exploitations, murders, massacres, and robberies on other continents for centuries.

But as luck would have it, you have found that Buddha talks plain sense and that his teaching goes against multiform insanity at large. Hurrah for that. Beginning research has found out that Buddhist really are happier folks than others. Many sects and orientations exist in Buddhism too, but you do not have to embrace any of them to benefit from sound counsel. There is much material to probe into on-site. [Link]

"Have You Seen That Demon?"

This chapter shows a bit of the writings of someone who has had enough, but without any diagnostic test to help him:

"JESUS WAS INSANE" (Religion is Lies. 11 January 2008 is a Net page where one central idea is that Christianity is a con and its members are being exploited. In Jesus was Insane most of the following points may be found, and many others. We may note that the unnamed author strikes out against all religion and advocates atheism, and often overshoots the mark. For all that we may enjoy some of the good points made.
[www.religionislies.com/deranged.html]

Blind speculation versus becoming rationality

There is a proverb to accommodate to, "Twin fools, one doubts nothing, the other, everything. Believers talk of God out of belief, without minding that sound proof that he exists may be wanting. Disbelievers, including atheists, say there is no Higher Being because they have made up their minds like that. They cannot furnish any valid proof either. Phlegmatic people - somewhere "in the middle" between the two fools - may assess: "Since proof is lacking, both of these stands may rightly be called speculation. At any rate, if we do not know, why should we rashly and prematurely make up our minds in such a vital matter?" Agnostics belong to this group.

You have these options initially: Yes, Maybe, No. If you say "maybe", you are free to put the whole matter aside, at least for a while, to let it rest, to calm down, think about it further, whatever. You are also free to explore the issue if you are up to it, and know how to handle such investigative activity.

I once told an atheist, "You say God does not exist, but have you visited the whole universe to check it first-hand? Maybe he is sitting in an underground cave on one of the moons of Jupiter? How can you tell he is not there or anywhere else?"

That silenced him all right. Some people are able to reflect if they get clues that suit them.

Buddhism allows good questioning

Buddha himself left open the issue of whether there is a God or not. He never categorically said there is no God, no Self, and so on. What he taught focused on life-improvements by meditation, adjusting actions to high morality (sila), and a suitable fellowship (sangha). It is not perfectly correct to say that Buddhism is atheistic. You are free to find out for yourself to the degree you can.

As for Jesus, what we can talk about is what is presented in the four gospels and Acts, maybe with additions like the Gospel of Thomas. The fact that different gospels tell different versions of the same happenings, mars their credibility. For example, in one place we are told that Judas Iscariot hanged himself [Matthew 27:5], and in another place, Acts 1:18, that his belly burst and his intestines fell out. But "You cannot first hang yourself and then walk on a field where your intestines fall out of you - or maybe you can swing in your intestines? Can you?

Both tales are written in the New Testament. One day you read one version and believes it gullibly; another day you read the other version in Acts and hardly notices there is something wrong somewhere?

Now for one atheist's claims - in essence:

Church leaders pick and choose what they like out of Jesus' teaching and then claim to be his honest representatives.

Jesus' anger against the Pharisees and the scribes in Matthew 23 was definitely over the top.

Jesus condemned wealth as sinful, and made great, great claims about himself. Christian faith is based on what underdogs wrote about Jesus later.

Jesus own family believed that he was mad (Mark 3:21)

Jesus would lose fans if they could see that the choice he left them in the sermon on the mount etc. was letting bullies walk all over them, to the end that bullies and evil ones got the upper hand. Jesus gave such bad advice it might signal deep insanity.

He taught that demons abounded. Have you seen one? He stated in Matthew 12 that a demon can be exorcised and come back to take over the victim with seven others. (2)

Jesus went into a rage in the Temple and endangered his own life and that of other people and his friends, for it drove him to cause a riot. He knew about the temple practice before, for he was in the Temple often enough. So why snap then? (3)

Jesus said many irrational things such as God of the deceased Abraham, Isaac and Jacob meant that God was God of the living, not the dead, so the dead were still alive. There was no reason to take such a bizarre interpretation. (4)

There is no evidence for Jesus' sanity and plenty of evidence against it.

The generation he was a part of he described as an "evil generation". He also stated that nobody was good or to be called good, not himself either (Mark 10:18) (5)

Jesus said that a man who looks at a woman with lust commits adultery with her in his mind and therefore sins (Matthew 5:28). He didn't say married woman. He meant that looking at any woman with desire was a sin of adultery.

The gospels do not give us any confidence in the sanity of Jesus. The four gospel variants of the resurrection tale differ considerably. And that definitely weakens the resurrection faith in some.

The Christian faith has the hallmarks of being created by . . . the biggest psychopath of the lot. (6)

If anybody else made the same claim as Jesus [dying for all when sacrificing a goat and shepherding another goat into the wilderness had been far easier] they would dismiss him or her as insane.

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus forbade sexual desire, forbade standing up for yourself and your property and commanded helping your enemy, though this was helping them to oppress you. If that is not mental impairment what is? Jesus said that when you were struck on one cheek turn the other. So you are not allowed to be fitly assertive. Also, Jesus was studiously provocative.

The declarations of Jesus about the whole generation of his time being evil and sinful and nobody being good is . . .

When he was on the cross he cried that God had forsaken him. Wasn't he God himself?

The evidence for the divine origin of the claims of Christ is so flimsy that who believes in Christianity wants to believe. They may have been conditioned. (7)

People still fear demons even though they do not deeply believe in them.

The Christian system was designed to produce psychopaths and neurotics. If its bloody history is anything to go by, it has plainly succeeded to a great extent.

He went into the desert and claimed he saw the Devil there!

We have to be on guard . . . because . . . Christianity was founded on the ravings of a madman. (8)

Jesus Summary

Jesus of Nazareth was most likely born 7–2 BCE and died 26–36 CE.

• AD or A.D. = CE = Common Era.
• BC or B.C. or BCE = Before Common Era.

The name "Jesus" is an Anglicization of the Greek Iesous, from the Hebrew Yehoshua or Hebrew-Aramaic Yeshua.

The main sources of information regarding Jesus' life and teachings are the gospels. Each gospel portrays Jesus' life and its meaning differently.

Matthew and Luke give different accounts of Jesus' genealogy. The lists differ between David and Joseph.

At the height of his ministry, Jesus attracted huge crowds.

During the Sanhedrin Trial of Jesus, the high priests and elders asked Jesus, "Are you the Son of God?" When he replied, "You are right in saying I am," they condemned Jesus for blasphemy (Luke 22:70–71).

According to all four Gospels, Jesus died before late afternoon at Calvary (Golgotha).

Views of scholars differ

Over the past two hundred years, however, the image of Jesus among historical scholars has come to be very different than the common image of Jesus that was based on the gospels. Historians generally describe Jesus as a healer who preached the restoration of Yahweh's kingdom. Most historians agree he was baptized by John the Baptist.

The titles "Divine", "Son of God", "God", "God from God", "Lord", "Redeemer", "Liberator", and "Saviour of the World" were all applied to Roman emperors.

Some scholars hypothesize that Jesus led a new apocalyptic sect.

Contemporary textual critic Bart D. Ehrman cites numerous places where the gospels, and other New Testament books, were apparently altered by Christian amateurish scribes. The scribes worked to make the gospels more similar and to remove verses that could be taken to support unorthodox beliefs common in early Christianity. For example, Luke portrays Jesus as implacable in the face of his crucifixion, contrary to Mark, which portrays him in agony.

A few scholars have questioned the existence of Jesus as an actual historical figure. Nevertheless, such views are regarded as effectively refuted by almost all Biblical scholars and historians.

Widely differing beliefs about Jesus

Christian views of Jesus vary. Many early Christian groups and theologians held differing views of Jesus.

Judaism holds the idea of Jesus being God, or part of a Trinity, or a mediator to God, to be heresy. Judaism also holds that Jesus is not the Messiah, arguing that he had not fulfilled the Messianic prophecies in the Tanakh nor embodied the personal qualifications of the Messiah. Judaism states that Jesus did not fulfil the requirements set by the Torah to prove that he was a prophet, and Judaism states that no prophet or dreamer can contradict the laws already stated in the Torah, which Judaism states Jesus did.

Among Hindu views: The International Society for Krishna Consciousness considers Jesus to be the beloved son of Krishna who came down to Earth to preach God Consciousness. Paramahansa Yogananda taught that Jesus was the reincarnation of Elisha and a student of John the Baptist, the reincarnation of Elijah.

Buddhist views of Jesus differ.

The New Age movement entertains a wide variety of views on Jesus.

According to the early 20th century teachings of the Ahmadi Muslims of Kashmir and Punjab, Jesus did not die on the cross, but after his apparent death and resurrection he journeyed to Kashmir, and that he then remained in India for the rest of his life. The general notion of Jesus in Kashmir is older than the Ahmadi tradition. Following Jesus' death of natural causes "at the ripe old age of 120 years," the Jesus of Ahmadi doctrine was then laid to rest in Srinagar, in a tomb of a sage known locally as Yuz Asaf (which in Kashmiri means "Son of Yuz," i.e. Joseph).

Literature  

Ay: Yogananda, Paramahansa. Autobiography of a Yogi. 1st ed. New York: Theosophical, 1946. Online. [oaks.nvg.org/pv6bk12.html]

Co: Watson, Burton, tr. The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu. New York: Columbia University Press, 1968.

Ebu: Encyclopaedia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica 2006 Ultimate Reference Suite DVD. London: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2006.

Eksy: May, Rollo, ed. Eksistensiell psykologi. Oslo: Gyldendal, 1971. (Existential Psychology, New York: Random House, 1961).

On: Mata, Daya. "Only Love". Los Angeles: Self-Realization Fellowship, 1976.

Oq: Ratcliffe, Susan, ed. The Oxford Dictionary of Thematic Quotations. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Pa: Yogananda, Paramahansa. Autobiography of a Yogi. 11th ed. Los Angeles: Self-Realization Fellowship, 1971.

Toh: Sirnes, Tollak. - at vi skal elske hverandre (- that we shall love each other). Oslo: Gyldendal, 1968.

We: Koestline, Henry. What Jesus Said about It. New York: Signet, 1970.



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