My theory about who Jesus really was.

 I wouldn't say I "know" it.

But I recognize that the writers were really bad at writing believable stories.

And at the same time, there are elements of the Jesus character that seem (to me) to bleed through as a very believable character;
which I think is how we can tell which parts are probably based on a real person.

Not the magical bits; which don't really make sense, and get more fantastic with each retelling.

Just the true-to-life bits about a man who was trained in a marketable craft, but then doesn't maintain employment.

A man who hangs out with disadvantaged people, ... not because he's some humble rich guy trying to connect with a lower class, but (rather) because he is a poor person. That is his sociodemographic.

So then it's not charitable or humble. It's just one poor nobody hanging out with other poor nobodies.

If we pass a park and see some homeless guys hanging out with each other, as they pass around a bottle of wine, ...

Which of those homeless guys is a "champion of the poor", for hanging out with the others?

And if one of those homeless guys gets a local reputation as the guy most likely to show up with the wine, ... how likely is it that he isn't an alcoholic?

And what of the guy who normally only seeks the company of other men? 

-as they oil each other up, and nuzzle each other's bosoms, and while some of those friends have been known to argue about who Jesus loves the most?

The guy who stayed the night at a female prostitute's place once.
 But no one that knew him personally ... ever even wondered or asked if they slept together.

The guy who claimed the Devil once tempted him to sin, but was never tempted with the one thing most straight guys wound find the hardest thing to resist?

The guy who just coincidentally never talked about the issues "Father" has with gay people?

The guy who seemed gay, but was living in a community that would not have been accepting about it.

Meanwhile, none of his special friends were out chasing tail either.

It's gotta make you wonder.

Meanwhile, he also had a reputation among his friends for being really preachy, ... but fluctuated between being calm, coherent, and wise ...
vs
being unhinged and hard to understand. 

 Sometimes, even his closest peeps ... couldn't figure out what he was going on about.

Shouldn't we wonder if that's either the wine, mental illness, or both?

This is a guy who once had the Iron Age equivalent to a Snicker's Hunger Attack ... and cursed a fig tree to die(!!!) for not bearing fruit ... out of reason;
- which is exactly when his "God" (per their lore) designed them not to produce any.

This is the guy who was angry at free market capitalism ... grabbed a whip, stared overturning tables, and chased out the operators of the Iron Age equivalent of a Christian Book Store.

How DARE they peddle overpriced goods to poor people in his place of worship?!

 But he didn't even attempt to have a conversation with those men about it. He didn't try reason, or diplomacy. He didn't appeal to whoever was in authority in that temple. He went strait to violence.

But at other times, he was the most peaceful, zen guy on the scene.

I think he was bipolar; because of his extreme fluctuations.

I think he was schizophrenic, because he was known to have conversations where he claimed to hear the voice of his father, and claimed that the voice told him things to say and do. 

I think that was related to his inability to take personal responsibility, 
and it was a way to inflate the authority of his own words.

I don't think the writers invented the claim of hearing voices. 

I don't think the person being written about lied either.

I just think there was an interplay between his different psychological dysfunctions.

I think the voices immerged in response to traumas.

I think the mental illness, worsened and defined (gradually, over time) by his culture's religious narrative, ...

 literally "gave a voice" to a fractured part of his psyche. 

I think that is always the "living God" believers (in all different religions) testify about.

But it became more pronounced for Jesus, in the context of the especially fertile soil ... of an especially troubled mind.

I think he developed a codependent relationship with that mentally immerging parental figure. 

I think he had severe unresolved Daddy Issues, because of the subservient personal relationship he had with "God".

"The Father", according to him, was his actual father (not just the usual meaning of calling their deity "Father").

Meanwhile, he obsessed over pleasing his father. 

He even eventually had the delusion of a father who wanted to see what extremes he was willing to go to,

to earn that Father's acceptance, love, and validation. 

Only then
could they finally be together.

That's when the father would welcome the son home; with Jesus finally having nothing further to prove.

Packaged with all of that, was the need to also prove himself to be great ... to other humans.

A fragile narcissist, pained by feelings of self-loathing, driven by rejections of an earthly father who didn't regard him as his own son.

Joseph had married a young Jewish girl with extreme mental illness of her own; having been under the delusion that her GOD (who turned out to be a Deadbeat dad; leaving her to struggle through poverty and adversity) had "blessed her" by impregnating her without consent.

Joe probably never knew who the real father was.

Joe probably didn't treat Jesus very well.

That would explain why he vanished from the story, but Mary was still around.

That would explain why Jesus adapted a continuing version of his mother's delusion; so that his "real dad" was still around, and waiting for Jesus to prove himself worthy of the love and validation he craved.

It would also explain the messiah complex, and the martyr complex.

Self-martyring personalities suffer from frequent feelings of being overlooked, and rejected, and looked down upon.
They seek to be seen, and heard, and validated.
They seek to affirm their greatness, as a humble yet righteous person being treated unjustly.
They look for opportunities to provoke people, so they can be the righteous victim.

And isn't that exactly what Jesus did, in the stories, when he set out to intentionally provoke the leaders of his own religious community, and the larger Roman community, towards the goal of getting himself killed?

Per the stories, he waffled about it, very emotionally.

The voice of his father pressured him into it.

The father's ultimate goal was to bring glorification to himself.

A dad seeking validation at the expense of a son, even to the point of pressuring the son to KILL HIMSELF, via horrific prolonged torture ...
and a son surrendering to that pressure, in order to please the father, ... and in order to martyr himself (the lowest of the low) ...
 into greatness, ...

means that Jesus did not have a healthy relationship with himself, and was probably (almost certainly) denied the benefit of a healthy relationship with Joseph, during his formative years.

But we can't blame a "God" for that, if the "God" is fiction, and the only real thing about the story was the troubled guy who imagined it.

Jesus, in those stories, was not a psychologically well person.
 
He then committed a lie of omission, every time he passed on the chance to set the record straight about what he was-and-wasn't guilty of.

And yet, to fulfill the self-martyring purpose of his demise, ...

He "forgave" the people that he himself USED in order to get himself killed.

 -Not that they (his accusers) were justified in seeking his death.
But it is what Jesus set out to manipulate them into doing.

But then Jesus took no responsibility for it.
He played the victim, after provoking people into doing ... exactly what they ended up doing.

Those behaviors, and the psychology underpinning it all, ... 
 paint a very believable character;
totally consistent with what I've observed about the most troubled people in our world;

- in the midst of otherwise terrible writing.

So then, it floats to the surface as the truth.

It was beyond the writing abilities of those writers ...
to invent someone so true-to-life.

 So those were probably the true parts of what they wrote.

I think that was the true person bleeding through the otherwise fictional and poorly written narrative.