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The quest to find the historical Jesus is doomed from the start, inasmuch as all sources are founded on essentially the same story, and that story is 2000 years ingrained in the minds and hearts of more than 2 billion believers. It’s like asking Socrates, the day he committed suicide, to reconsider the existence of the Greek gods.
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To summarize: when healings, miracles, and parables are sifted out of the New Testament, what’s left is an unmarried man, Jesus, a builder, stone mason, or carpenter by trade, coming down from Galilee into Judea to be baptized in the River Jordon by an itinerant preacher living an ascetic life in the wilderness, eating locusts and wild honey, prophesying the imminent coming of the kingdom of heaven, and in preparation therefor, practicing ritual baptism for the cleansing of sins. A man living a life not unlike the lives of the Essenes, whom Jesus later calls the greatest man ever born – John the Baptist.
As the account continues, after his baptism by John, Jesus went into the wilderness on his own for 40 days, and then returned to Galilee to travel throughout the countryside, preaching the essential message of the imminent coming of the kingdom of heaven (accompanied by the destruction of evil in the world), together with a gospel of peace, love, and righteousness toward all humanity, and the immortality of the human soul. Throughout this ministry Jesus practiced community ownership of property (as opposed to private ownership), once again not unlike the ways of the Essenes.
Jesus’ family consisted of his mother, Mary, four brothers, James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon, and two or more unnamed sisters. On one notable occasion, while Jesus was teaching inside a synagogue, he was told that his mother and brothers had come and were outside calling for him. Reportedly Jesus told those gathered inside that they were his family, not the ones calling for him from outside.
During this timeframe John was arrested and jailed by King Herod for disparaging Herod’s marriage to his sister-in-law, Herodias. After a period of imprisonment John was beheaded on Herod’s orders (reportedly at the request of Salome, Herodias’ daughter); and when Herod later heard of Jesus’ ministry in Galilee, he claimed that it must be John, who had risen from the dead.
When Jesus learned of John’s beheading, he went off by himself into the mountains to pray.
Jesus had twelve named disciples, some or all of whom likely were former followers of John.
Jesus’ story comes to its climax in Jerusalem, where, after less than a week in the city, Jesus was arrested, taken away, and killed. In the earliest account of Jesus’ death (20 years, or so, after the fact) St. Paul wrote that Jesus was crucified, dead, and buried, and on the third day rose again into life, and that Jesus died for the salvation of man, without which man’s salvation is not possible.
Many, many unanswered questions.
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Yes. Many, many unanswered questions. And yet, there is only one significant question: How much of the Biblical story is necessary, in order for a person to believe in the immortality of the human soul?
Buddhists believe.
Hindus believe.
Taoists believe.
Muslims believe.
Something at a core level seems to have happened to Jesus, when John died. Just as something at a core level happened to Paul when Jesus died.
If one believes in John’s eternal life, what’s the need to travel any further in search of the historical Jesus? Existence exists. After death. The rest is profession and politics.