First Things: Sacramone: Robo-Jesus
January 2, 2007

Excerpt:
Here is a quick review of the startling authentic facts other “authorities” have unearthed about Jesus, which St. Paul, the early Church, the Vatican, and Fox News have kept hidden in a vault somewhere:

• Jesus was a woman.
• Jesus was a space alien and is buried in Japan.
• Jesus survived the crucifixion and is buried in Kashmir.
• Jesus was a Buddhist.
• Jesus was a Muslim.
• Jesus was a Mormon.
• Jesus was a magician.
• Jesus was a Gnostic.
• Jesus was the son of Mary and a Roman solider.
• Jesus never existed.
• Jesus was never executed.
• Jesus was married and had children.
• Jesus was a social revolutionary when he was not a mere Mediterranean peasant.
• Jesus was an itinerant visionary whose real teachings exist only in distorted, fragmented form.
• Jesus was insane.

What’s remarkable is that there’s no reason to believe this fevered Jesus industry will go out of business anytime soon, despite the authoritative scholarly thwacking delivered it by N.T. Wright in his masterful “Christian Origins and the Question of God” trilogy. Books, movies, websites, and religion classes will continue to argue that Jesus, who is the central figure of the largest religion in the world, was so uninteresting that no one could be bothered to record his words and deeds accurately, or was so insignificant that his followers felt compelled to invent pious lies to thicken his story. And so his early mythographers opted for the deification plotline (guaranteed to offend the fiercely monotheistic Jews), with a resurrection twist (guaranteed to send Gentiles into giggle fits). In fact, these Palestinian Clifford Irvings were so successful in selling their new edgy messiah that they were all either executed or exiled. Good plan. Nicely done. the rest