Loving Jesus, Each In Her Own way

I CANNOT RECALL having ever met anyone who does not profess love and admiration for Jesus. Atheists, for example, tend to be contemptuous of organized religion, and to reject the concept of a suprme being God, but, even among those who know little or nothing about the Bible or the life of Christ as told in the gospels will generally agree that, from what they've heard, they like him. The overarching fact is that nobody knows much about Joshua ben Joseph, because, all told, the four gospels do not tell us much, and, as is well known, were written by unknown authors decades after Jesus died, by people who never met him. There has been and still is some debate as to whether he actually existed, or is merely a compilation of fragments of other lives, some fictitious. For the most part, however, scholars of early Christian history are in agreement that he most likely did indeed exist. In theory Jesus himself could have ended the controversy before it began, by writing about himself, with witnesses. Why didn't he? Why didn't any of his immediate disciples? The highly probable answer is that they all, including Jesus, were illiterate. Once again, there is widespread agreement on this among historians and scholars. Then too, Jesus, arguably, dd not live his life on Earth for the purpose of writing books, about himsslf nor anything else. And so ultimately everyone's image of Jesus is conceptual. Everyone who loves and admires Jesus loves and admires an idealized person rather than a substantiated historical human being. In the gospels, Jesus is portrayed as an apcoylptic preacher and teacher. His most repeated message is that major changes are coming soon, so get ready. Jesus has a somewhat different personality in all four gospels, ranging from very talkative to rather taxiturn. In the ancient world authors who wanted their work to be accepted and widely read tended to ascribe authorhsip to somebody better known and respected than the actual authors themselves; ancient literature is full of forgeries and wrongly attributed works. Such is the case with the four gospels of the Bible. Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John were named after Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John, who are the names given to four of the Jewish disiples of Christ through many translations, but were most definitely not written by those people. They were probably written by educated people in some Greek city, probably Corinth, by authors fluent in literary ancient Greek, the original language in which they appeared. The most refreshing, liberating aspect of Jesus, amid all the uncertainties and conroversies, is that, ultimately it might not really matter whether he actually existed, nor who the authors of the gospels actually were. What matters, in the final analysis, might well be only that we are able to conceive of a person of surpassingly beautiful wisdom, and that we are capable of loving,admiring, and pechance, even reomtely emulating him.