Having thoroughly explored the failures of Christian apologetics and why the gospel stories are likely fictional, one eventually comes to notice that some of the things Jesus reportedly said make slightly more sense if he was just a human preacher rather than a divine, all-knowing figure. He can be wrong about things and put forward ideas different from the Old Testament without creating an inconsistent God. More grounded motivations and explanations for his teachings make these teachings more coherent. Of course, one need not be a skeptic to begin to notice this. During my years as a Christian, a long time ago now, I was always struck by Matthew 27:46. It startles many Christians when Jesus cries out from the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” It sounds less like the cry of a deity willingly fulfilling his destiny and more like that of a mere mortal who is surprised by his circumstances, feeling betrayed in some way. I did not think this back then — I pushed it all from my mind — but did the Jesus of History believe his god would protect him from execution, or end his agony on the cross sooner, or make it less painful? Did his torturous crucifixion make him question his faith? As religious texts are mixes of real people, places, and events with total fictions, perhaps this is the man momentarily visible beneath the sea of myth. Do his words make more sense if we consider him an ordinary person rather than divine? What else is out there?

Jesus thought the world was about to end — wrongly, it turns out. No one is perfect; to err is human. Look at Matthew 16:27-28, when Jesus, after describing returning with his angels and rewarding all according to their deeds, says to the people with him, “Some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” Matthew 24:3-35 says at “the end of the age” the “stars will fall from the sky,” with “the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory,” sending forth “his angels with a loud trumpet call.” Jesus tells his followers that “this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.” (The same is promised in Mark 8:38-9:1 and 13:24-30, with the same context: they would live to witness “that tribulation” [NASB] where the stars fall. Same for Luke 21:25-36.) This very much sounds like the Last Judgement later predicted in Revelation, which would “soon take place” (1:1), with Jesus “coming with the clouds” (1:7), the “armies of heaven” (19:14) with him, but also his “reward,” to “give to each person according to what they have done” (22:12). The stars will of course fall (6:13). Yet the people Jesus spoke to are all dead! He did not return, the world did not end in their lifetimes. Similarly, in Matthew 10:16-23, Jesus gives his apostles instructions for their ministry, describing how they will be hated, arrested, flogged, and so on. “When you are persecuted in one place, flee to another,” Jesus says. “Truly I tell you, you will not finish going through the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes” (NIV). Wrong again. Believers may tie themselves in knots trying to explain this — he wasn’t being literal, he was actually speaking to us, he wasn’t speaking of the End Times but rather the resurrection, and so on. (In each of these gospels, Jesus makes these promises just a couple chapters before he is resurrected, after he arrives in Jerusalem for his final Passover and eventual arrest and execution. Why insist a generation will live to see something that is about to happen in a couple days?) The simpler and most likely explanation is that Jesus the Man was like countless apocalyptic prophets, traveling around insisting “The End is coming,” that came before and after him throughout human history and across religions: wrong and full of inventions. That seems more likely than a god making an error, or suddenly deciding to delay his return for thousands of years and thus breaking his word. (The Gospel of John, written much later, when “this generation” had about died out, does not include these types of promises. This is likely not a coincidence. Mistakes must be edited out.)

Jesus was highly critical of the wealthy — after God bankrolled them? Jesus’ critique is fairly well known (often simply ignored by Christian conservatives), but the fact that it seems to counter God’s own messaging goes largely unnoticed. “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God,” Christ said. “But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort” (Luke 6:20-24). When a wealthy man asks how eternal life can be attained, Jesus replies: “Sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.” He then explains to his disciples that it is nearly impossible for the rich to be saved: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God” (Matthew 19:20-26). Jesus warns against having too many possessions (Luke 12:15) and “the deceitfulness of wealth” (Mark 4:18-19), calls a poor woman more generous than the rich (Mark 12:41-44), says one cannot serve both God and money (Matthew 6:24), and makes a whip to chase sellers and money changers out of the holy temple (John 2:13-16). It is interesting to consider how this class animus might stem from his status as a humble carpenter. Perhaps Jesus said such things not because he was God, but because he was poor. Further, it is important to note that Jesus’ perspective was subversive. The disciples were “greatly astonished” to hear that the wealthy were unlikely to reach heaven, even asking “Who then can be saved?” (Matthew 19:25). If not the rich, who? As Christian sites will tell you, while the Old Testament does feature some warnings of the dangers of money and the wickedness of some who have it, God often showered wealth on the obedient — a bit odd for a deity that would later say woe to the rich, they probably won’t be saved. See Joshua 1:8, Proverbs 10:22, Abraham, Joseph, Job, David, Solomon, and so on. The biggest heroes of Jewish scriptures were often prosperous because they were faithful, creating a perspective, reportedly held dear by the Pharisees and others, which Jesus must work to undo. Even today, churches must battle the idea, now called the “prosperity gospel,” that wealthy people are wealthy because God has rewarded them for their righteousness. A lower- or working-class figure like Jesus might have been disgusted by the notion that the rich are more moral, pious people and therefore on the fast track to salvation. Jesus the Man would simply be working to change the ideology of his society and religion; Jesus the Messiah would, embarrassingly, be working to undo a way of thinking that God’s own actions (his own actions) had encouraged for centuries.

Jesus thought God’s Law needed serious improvement. Jesus states in Matthew 5:17 that he came to “fulfill” Jewish Law, not end it, which is believed to at least partly mean that he would give a full interpretation of God’s moral rules. Adultery, banned in the 10 Commandments, was not just the act, for instance. The thought itself was included under this sin: “anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:27-28). One would certainly expect Jesus the Man, the teacher and philosopher, to have his own unique views on God’s Will, on how people must act, on the practices, rules, and ideas of the faith and society, as we have already seen. But if Jesus was God, it raises thorny questions. If it’s morally important for people to know that adultery is not just an act but a thought, why would God not make this explicit in the 10 Commandments? Why let the Jews commit thought crimes for centuries? Or was this not a sin until Jesus decreed it, raising humanity’s moral standard? But why, as a god who is all good, demand a lower standard of behavior in the past? It’s the same with divorce — Jesus also had stricter views on this practice. In Matthew 19:3-9, he opposes the Old Testament implication that men can divorce their wives for any reason: “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard… I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.” (He leaves out this exception in Mark and Luke.) But Moses was speaking for God (made clear in Deuteronomy 6:1-2) when he seemingly outlined more permissive divorce laws (if a husband “dislikes her,” etc., Deuteronomy 24:1-4). God permitted men to divorce their wives. Why was it acceptable then but not later? Further, Jesus also famously replaced “eye for an eye” with “turn the other [cheek],” was more lax on Sabbath rules, and probably threw out Judaism’s strict dietary laws in Mark 7:18-19 (“Jesus declared all foods clean”), which is why Christians today can eat what they please. Clearly, Jesus has new instructions for how we are to live. Believers might insist God provided the faithful (including the rich!) with different rules for different historical contexts and societal needs, so Jesus asking more of us (or less of us, in the case of diets and the Sabbath) later on is no big deal. Jesus’ arrival, death, and resurrection changed everything, right? Accordingly, he changed his own Law. But it seems strange that a perfectly moral deity would be inconsistent over time concerning what constitutes a sin — early on, divorce is acceptable and eating a pig is not; later, these are reversed. And how we are to treat others obviously shifts massively: God’s demand for blood becomes love thy neighbor, break bread with and show mercy to sinners (Matthew 22:37-40, 9:10-13). It’s the Old vs. New Testament Problem. As I wrote elsewhere, “What should you make of a deity that instructs you to murder your homosexual friends on Monday, but to love them and treat them with kindness on Wednesday? All because of what happened on Tuesday?” Instead of a god staying silent for centuries on the full scope of a sin, or dramatically changing the rules of moral behavior, why not a more obvious explanation? Jesus was a mere mortal who personally disliked parts of the Law and did not think they could possibly represent God’s true wishes, some too strict and others too lenient, many barbaric and lacking mercy, and thus sought reform. A more humane, righteous Law. Perhaps he wanted to eat as he pleased, finding silly the idea that the wrong food would somehow offend the all-powerful creator of the universe.

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