Hi Craig, thanks for your lengthy response.

I had another question, if you don't mind. And let me state up front that I don't have any ponies in this race, as about ten years ago I cast away the fundamentalist Christianity I was raised to believe in (but which I never actually did), and became a true, open-minded agnostic. After my "de-conversion", I became fairly atheistic and was attempting to debunk everything. However, the pendulum has since swung in the other direction, going a little bit over the center line, where I now have a somewhat "mystical" and (dare I say!) materialistic/naturalistic worldview. But my "naturalism" allows for all the kinds of things you talk about - so don't lump me in with the debunkers!

Anyway, I just wanted to understand this defense of yours of the historical Yeshua/Christ, to the point it looks like you cherrypick from the gospels. I suspect it might be because of your former divinity background, but I still wanted to ask.

Trust me, I understand your general stance about the incongruity between an allegedly "all-loving God" and a God who would condemn its own creation to an "eternal damnation". That one dominated more than a few of my thoughts! And I get all the historical stuff about how Paul - who never witness Christ firsthand - seemingly preached a very different message than Christ's disciples, and that it was this "Pauline theology" that had the largest influence on what became mainstream Christianity, etc. And, of course, there's the "paper trail" about how the 66 books of the Bible came to be: all the books that were left out, the translations and mistranslations, the insertions and deletions, etc.

And while "that Christ dude" seemed to be "cool" for the most part (the idea being that if you just ignored the Old Testament and anything after John, then it might be okay to read the Bible), the fact is that the Gospels report him saying and doing all kinds of stuff that just didn't jibe with what my mind and heart were telling me an "all-loving God" must be like. So I dismissed Christ as well. (Though, maintaining an interest in all things paranormal, I still like following topic like The Shroud of Turin, etc.)

Anyway, I just don't get how you can dismiss all the accounts of Christ casting out demons (demon possession); the demons calling Christ "the Son of God"; demons in general; the existence of the biblical Satan as a "Devil"-like figure; the existence of a place of eternal torment (separate from the issue of the any mistranslations of Gehenna/Hades/Sheol into "hell"); and its sister concept of "judgment" -- calling them all creations of the church or insertions into the Gospels by whomever ... I mean, why not dismiss it all?

You say, "We don\u2019t know what Yeshua really said. We do know, however, what his general message was. That comes through because it was repeated and is in the tone of the writings. Anything in conflict with that tone certainly was added later."

But HOW can we know that? It seems like a blatant contradiction. If we DON'T know what he actually said, then we CAN'T know what he DIDN'T say. Either way, then, we CAN'T know what his "general message" was, or what his intended "tone" was.

How can you dismiss the words of Paul, because he "wasn't there", but then also dismiss the words of the guys who supposedly WERE there? How can you take the words of one of the original twelve, and just because it doesn't jibe with your perception (because we don't have his texts!) of what Yeshua must have been like, completely dismiss it as some kind of fraud or insertion after-the-fact?

You said "Gehenna" was just a garbage dump. But clearly Christ used it to mean more than that. Whatever the word, he clearly was espousing some kind of eternal damnation or - at best - some kind of annihilation of the soul when he said in Matthew 10:28 (I used 2 translation that I think you'd like):

Young's: And be not afraid of those killing the body, and are not able to kill the soul, but fear rather Him who is able both soul and body to destroy in gehenna.

HNV: Don't be afraid of those who kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul. Rather, fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in Gehinnom.

It does not sound like he's referring to a mere dumping grounds for our carnal remains. He's talking about our souls being destroyed. ...Was this a fraud or forgery??

What if the Christ who said, "I came not to send peace, but a sword." is the real guy (you know, the one who turned over the moneychangers' tables and busted out a bullwhip), and all those more peace-loving, flower-in-the-hair, hippy parables (just kidding) are the real cons and deceits? Since we don't know what he said, what if Yeshua just wasn't the pacifistic, nonjudgmental guy you're hoping he was? How do we really know what is, was or would be "completely out of character for Yeshua"??

Okay, that's enough for now. Thanks for taking the time to read this.