Who was Jesus?

 Every fictional character ever created drew from real-life elements of some real people's lives. To make some of those natural elements "super", those elements must be exaggerated beyond the abilities of humans.

That includes Dracula, Santa Clause, Wonder Woman, Jesus, and even SpongeBob SquarePants. Humans are literally and entirely incapable of imagining anything except to borrow, bend, and stitch from things we've already seen and heard from the world around us. This was talked about several years ago at the World Science Festival. It's a hard limit that experts are hoping A.I. can help compensate for by generating images and concepts that there's no precedent for. This is one of the very few reasons why I say "there was a guy" when I'm asked if I lean historicist or mythicist about "Jesus". They really did have to be borrowing elements from real people's lives. However, I will NOT say "Jesus existed". Why not? Because "Jesus" is the name given to the fictional character in Christian mythos. No matter how much of any real person's life made it into those stories, we really need a different name for the real person(s).
Why?
Firstly, we should avoid giving Christians a useful opportunity to misunderstand and quote-mine us for endorsements.
They do this all the time with sound-bites from Bart Ehrman. I think we could learn from his mistakes. We could decide to speak more carefully. Ethically responsible use of language means making a good effort to avoid confusion and misunderstanding.
If someone asks if you are a "historicist" or a "mythicist" about Santa Clause, you are surely going to identify as a Santa-Mythicist.
But if they ask if you are a historicist or a mythicist about Saint Nicholas, ... Neither a "yes" nor a "no" are sufficient, until the question is reworded.
To avoid that problem, the questioner must frame the question so that the NAME they give is uniquely specific to either Santa Clause OR something like "Nicholas of Bari" (whom the Santa legends were inspired by).
Only then would this be a fair "yes or no" question.
This is the problem inherent to asking someone if they think "Jesus" actually existed or not. That name has already been reserved by the writers as the Iron Age equivalent of Superman.

So now we need a different name to talk about any possibly-existing real person(s) that the legends may have been inspired by.
THEN we could finally have a clarifying discussion.
NOW is when I attempt to do exactly that.
The writers simply had to be drawing from ideas, attitudes, and actions that they had either personally seen in the world and/or had heard about from others. Thus, we can be sure "there was a guy" (or several). Moving beyond that very basic idea, I would also site Paul. He wasn't a witness to any of it. Saul/Paul even admits he wasn't. Having a vision of Ghostly-Jesus doesn't count. But he did say one thing that I think has weight. He admitted to being a serial killer/hit-man for his Jewish sect.
It was a religious mafia; if we're being honest about it.
For them (and for himself), he had been hunting down outspoken members of a specific rival group. It's very much what mainstream Catholics and Protestants would later do to the first version of the Anabaptists.
It's also what Hitler, Stalin, and other mafia cultists would later do; and for exactly the same reasons. This is how mafias operate.
They don't like it when rival mafias compete over the same territories. So the more power they have, the more violent lengths they'll go to, to "do something about it". It seems unlikely that anyone would admit doing such a thing if they hadn't. This is why I think the proto-Christian messianic cult existed before Saul/Paul started writing. He wouldn't kill people for being in a cult that didn't exist. Nor would he write about doing something so self-injuring to his moral (and legal) reputation if he hadn't ever actually went on that killing spree.
It seems to me that he was trying to secure a fresh start with his society ... with a fake conversion into (and over) the very cult he had been butchering. Survivors of that group would be much less likely to pressure Roman authorities to arrest Saul for all those crimes ... if Saul takes over that group. Some might argue that Rome didn't have the authority. But of course they did. It was their territory. The Romans ruled it. They didn't share political power with any Jewish sect. They 'turned a blind eye' to some of the various Jew-cult shenanigans. But they were going to quickly run out of patience for Jewish death-squads operating with impunity on Roman soil. The "right to kill" is the most powerful symbol there is ... for identifying the rightful authority of any land. It's a wonder Saul avoided arrest for as long as he did. He needed a way to ensure avoiding the death penalty for all those killings. But I think it's much more than just that. I think Saul always intended to take it over and change it. I think he duped the locally most powerful Jewish mafia into sanctioning the killings. That way, Saul could launch his plan with mitigated risk; with some measure of protection from the Roman authorities. From what I've seen said in discussions about it (between qualified students of history) (and from Saul/Paul's writings) it seems that in order to keep the peace (albeit, an uneasy peace), the Romans would ignore some cases of Jews killing other Jews. This is a bit hard for me to believe. After all, if it was an accepted practice to just order hits on rival gangs, then why did the Pharisees need Pilate to kill Jesus for them? But as a layman, I'm willing to just grant it for the sake of argument. No matter how much of Jews killing other Jews over religious reasons Rome would tolerate, ... Saul claimed to have killed members of that smaller movement; at least some who were publicly visible enough to locate and identify. Why? I think it was so that there wouldn't be any serious challenge to his 'hostile takeover'. After he got all serious contenders for that "throne" out of the way (by killing them), Saul made up a story where the ghost of that cult's dead founder appointed Saul as the new leader of that small sect. Apparently, Jesus forgot to say some important stuff and forgot to explain what he "really meant" (about whatever he DID say) when he was still alive. So he needed Saul to fix his mistakes. Clearly, I'm not buying it. But strangely, he was able to sell that obvious crap to somebody. However, what started the group that Saul took over? I think Paulogia has the most likely explanation for how the legends of "risen" Jesus got started. Peter had a very common post-bereavement hallucination.
From there, the idea of "he has risen" spread.
From there, people found a way to rationalize that as "what was supposed to happen all along".
From there, more and more post hoc rationalizations turned into post hoc doctrines. For that, cultists and ghost-writers would need to creatively re-interpret existing Jewish texts. Beyond that, I have reasons for thinking that a lot of the real guy's life made it into the rumor-based legends (legends that the eventual writers gave selectively creative upgrades to). Why do I think so? Because the writers sucked at telling stories. I know that's going to annoy some fanboy scholars who think the writing was GREAT(!). But oh well. They can take that up with a therapist. Those writers sucked at telling stories; no matter how much of it was rumor, fact, or intentionally fabricated. How does that lend credence to the idea that a.) "there was a guy" and b.) a lot of his real life made it onto those pages? They lacked the talent it would take to create such a *true to life* tragically mentally ill person. They didn't even understand mental illness well enough back then (nobody did) to be able to accidentally paint such a vivid picture of one man's struggle with it. This is why I think all the parts of the stories that accidentally reveal that struggle ... are probably pretty much what happened. Someone very "true to life" bleeds through the otherwise poorly written pages. Back then, they wouldn't have understood what it means when: *someone gets a reputation for preferring wine over water (self-medicating), *he also gets a reputation as someone who pontificates (a lot) but is so hard to understand that even his most devoted followers usually can't tell what he's rambling on about. *He also hears voices, * they tell him what to say and do in the world, * he always obeys those voices, * he take no credit (nor responsibility) for anything he himself ever thinks, says, or does in the real world, and * he is convinced it's all the voice of his "God" (the Creator of the Universe). That "God" is an amalgamation of other/older religion's fabricated deities. That religion is a false history of the cosmos, the Earth, and all life on said Earth; borrowed and adapted from other/older religions' myths. And yet, he's doesn't realize any of that. That ignorance leaves him available and convinced to think that the currently favored Jewish deity is both the source of the voices he hears AND (more importantly) is his 'real dad'. [Screw that Joseph guy. No need to even ever mention THAT GUY. He never appreciated me anyways. My real dad lives in a floating sky castle made of of gold. I learned about him from "his chosen people". Eventually, he personally told me the rest . He will accept me for who I am, after I prove myself! And then I'll be glorified, and given riches and power. I'll be the one who everyone seeks approval from.
I'll be doing all the judging, ass-kicking, and deciding who to throw away like trash!] But this does not make me angry to think about.
It breaks my heart. He didn't kneel down to befriend the broken. He was one of them. He was just another habitually homeless, jobless, penniless bum in the park. Sharing wine and stories about how greatly 'extra' he is. Wandering aimlessly from village to village. Advising everyone to abandon all of their earthly responsibilities to self, and community, and family; to help spread the news that the end of the world was going happen any day now. -- Parental neglect, abuse, and the unhealthy psychological pressures of religious fundamentalism created "the perfect storm" of dysfunctions. That commonly relatable chaos later proved essential to building a highly marketable, mafia-grifting, easily customizable ("create your own adventure") tool of sociopolitical power. It is no measure of wellness to be well-adjusted to a sick society; not even when that society's sickness is romanticized with religiosity. Neither is it a measure of wellness to be so mal-adjusted in a sick society that we sacrifice health; defiling or destroying the temple of our body (or someone else's) for the sake of an ideology. It is a religion of-and-for the unwell. That is the appeal of it. It's even openly marketed as such; hiding every fatal flaw in plain sight. It had such great appeal to the masses because of how messed up the average man actually is.
It would appeal the most to "the least of us"; those who are unprepared to ADULT in a cruel world.
For that, it would need to be based upon someone who exemplified and glorified humanity's worst dysfunctions.
-- [Ad campaign for both traditional and modern evangelical Christianity; if their "outreach" were actually honest] -- But to understand all of that in context, we must understand how it all began. The voice of "Father" was real to him. That convinced him that he's the one true and literal son of that god. That made perfect sense to him, because somehow he always just knew he was better than everyone else. However, he eventually got into an argument with that voice because it wanted him to un-alive himself. He pleaded with that voice not to make him do it. Ultimately, he surrendered to the pressure excerpted by that voice. That means he did not lay down his life willingly; he did so under duress from the voices in his head. That is when he finally lost his lifelong battle with mental illness that he didn't realize was happening. Later writers were incapable of recognizing that for what it was. Although, at least this way Jesus gets to martyr himself. That way everyone can feel bad for not being more supportive when he was around. The pervasively unhealthy psychological pressures of religious fundamentalism, along with parental neglect (and probably other forms of abuse) created a schism within his psyche.   

Today, science has made some progress understanding the correlation between religious fundamentalism and schizophrenia. [I could have picked out one single link to share for that. But this is my version of "teach a man to fish". Start anywhere.] But back then? They saw everything through the lens of their religious cultural narratives. That religion created the partition, gave that partition its own voice, and gave that voice an identity. His parents handicapped him with a permanent need for a larger-than-life "Father" figure and a persistent need to earn that figure's approval. To accept The Adventures Of Super Jesus as true and as good, any level of raw intelligence will do. Even the smartest man could accept it all uncritically; if that's what he wants to do. Otherwise, we could be very unwell and in desperate need for a lifeline. And then not have sufficiently better coping skills to draw from. For accepting that character "as written", it helps to also be a rather shitty person; so that the un-ethics of it all won't be a problem. However, we could sift through the rubble of that ruined life and find healthier inspiration. The question "who was Jesus" is an interesting question with potentially sobering answers. But the questions I think matter more are ... Who are you? Who do you want to be? And is anything in the way of that self manifesting? Could you reach towards your best self with ANY conceptualization of Jesus? My answer to that might surprise you. But I think the answer to that is "yes". You won't need that. Many have managed without it. But you could make use of it. However, for that, you'll need to stop letting Bibles and churches define him for you. Forget what religious people told you. Start asking yourself what you've learned in your life about love. Follow that instead.
And yet, you might ask ... "James, aren't you being rather..."