To the Muslims, he was the Messenger; to the Jews, a heretic and charlatan; to the Christians, the Son of God. In these postmodern times, Jesus belongs also to the sociologists, the historians, the scientists who speculate on the transmission of culture; to the electronic media, to the distributor of religious products, to the politicians.

Why do the questions persist: Did Jesus ever live, or was he invented? Why are there no contemporary accounts? What are the secular views of Jesus? How did the central concepts of Christianity evolve, and continue to evolve today?

Jesus the Man

There are no contemporary accounts. There are no firsthand portraits, no credible autobiographies or remains. Some historians conclude that Jesus never existed, that he was a synthesis of older gods and myths, shaped to meet the needs of an oppressed people in their struggle for survival and independence.

For those who lean towards the existence of Jesus, the questions multiply. The gospels, those portions of the New Testament purported to be written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, may not be very reliable. They were composed at a later date by people who probably were not the four apostles and who may have had no firsthand information of Jesus.

Historians have tried to carefully peel away the veneers of poetry, politics and propaganda to arrive at the bare truths of the Jesus story. From the writings of Renan and Schweitzer in the 19th and early 20th century to the scholars of the Jesus Seminar in the 1990's, naturalistic explanations have continued to refine the secular view of Christian history.

Secular historians, such as Burton Mack, carefully develop a context for the inception of Christianity. That context includes the political, economic and cultural environment which incubated the movement for generations before it spread like wildfire throughout the world.

The image of Jesus which emerges from the current generation of naturalistic historians is that of a Jewish man, fairly orthodox, tending to be rather zealous, yet not violent. He prophesies and performs miracles. not unlike a shaman or a guru; indeed, some of the Talmudic commentaries regarding Jesus describe him as knowing the magical arts of the Egyptians. He may have been influenced by the Essenes, by the Qumran community, by the teachings of Hillel.

Jesus the Christ

With the death of Jesus came the birth of the Christ. It was left to a man who never met Jesus, Paul -- an early Christian convert and Roman citizen -- to lay the basic foundations of Christianity. Paul taught much more than the sayings or actions of Jesus; Paul told a meaningful story about Jesus, complete with a language and imagery that would fuse with pagan symbols and concepts over the coming centuries until it spread across the entire planet. The deification and theologizing of Jesus had begun. No longer was Jesus to be seen as a man; he was the Son of Man, and a host of other titles: the Savior, the Redeemer, the King of Kings, and the truly heretical title among the Jews, that of the Son of God.

The conversion of Jesus into a mystical abstraction allowed for an explosion of apologetics. As the early Christian churches developed creeds, schisms took place. Competing theologies led to purges, as the Gnostics and other heretics were driven from the Body of Christ.

Generations later the followers of Jesus, refined and energized by persecution, finally won over the Roman empire. Even after that empire fell, the war for souls continued. Within a thousand years after the fall of Rome, Christianity had spread over Europe, Africa and Asia, and would soon reach across the ocean to the New World. In that time the church had become many churches, had endured reforms, created monastic orders, established universities, copied and destroyed countless books, financed breathtaking art and bloody crusades.

The meek Jesus had become a weapon of the powerful, but he was still confined within the limits of the church and the cathedral, the ministrations of the priests, the Latin liturgy, the traditions of centuries. All of that would change with the invention of the printing press.

Jesus the Software

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.
--John 1:14

With the death of Jesus, the Word that became flesh was back to being the Word. The most sacred duty of Christians was to spread the Word, through the "Good News" of the gospel.

The Bible was printed and exploded across the literate world. Christians who could read began to consider Christianity without the filter of the clergy. A major result of this Reformation was the shift of authority, at least for many believers, from the Church to the Word. The struggle between ecclesiastical authority and scripture continues to the present. It may be that new groups tend to rely more on revelation and scripture as they emerge, rather than upon authority, which accumulates as the weight of the institution -- its traditions, assets and experiences -- increases.

What explains the power and longevity of Jesus long after so many other religious figures have faded?

Viewed from one perspective, Christianity was successful in becoming a medium for the transmission of concepts and control or influence of behavior. The Word was accompanied by instructions for understanding and applying the Word.

We are witnessing, not just Jesus as an institution, but even Jesus as software. In a more or less metaphorical sense, religious instruction resembles programming. It is usually downloaded from a group of family or friends and internalized by the recipient by modifying emotional and cognitive processes. The Jesus application had to run on an operating system of Biblicism, and, once it became patched and strengthened, it was robust enough to handle the additional processing required by a sect. If the installation in an individual is done well, and maintained frequently, the program will run without ceasing and will then replicate itself. "What would Jesus do?" is a classic example of the internalized program in action.

Proponents of the controversial theory of memetics describe Christianity as a "meme-plex" of self-replicating units of cultural information which has evolved into a powerful, living entity.

It is possible to view Christianity (and other major religions of maturity) as the product of a sort of cultural "natural selection." The analogy can certainly be abused, but the parallels are striking. Concepts of Christ may serve to improve the comfort and even survivability of believers, at least until the believer can transmit the beliefs to another. Religions which promote large families increase the probability for transmission of the religion itself. Those groups which teach abstinence for all believers (such as the Shakers) are at a great disadvantage when competing with their more fertile rivals.

What can a secularist learn from the Jesus story and the Jesus experience?

For one, that there is little to be gained in persisting in questioning the physical reality of the man Jesus. The historicity of Jesus does not appear to be as important as having the experience of Jesus. Religious ritual is theater; theater is designed to evoke strong emotions in the audience. Emotions are the core of the religious experience, whether a feeling of oneness with God, a feeling of shame and contrition, a sense of being seized by a divine spirit, or even the experience of evil.

So, whether or not Jesus ever lived, ever existed, he does now. His dwelling place is with the various other gods and demigods, old and new, in a virtual heaven that spans cyberspace and literature. Every believer has their Jesus, the one who mirrors them. To the soldier, he is a holy warrior; to a mother, a devoted son; to a working man, he is a carpenter; to the preacher, he is the greatest story ever told...

--Richard Garrard