Who was Jesus?

We have no direct knowledge of who Jesus was, what he was like, or what he really said. There was no film, or video at that time. All we have are the sayings attributed to him, and the biographies written a century or more after his death. These biographies attribute all kinds of meaning to Jesus' life, that nether neither he, nor his disciples appeared to believe. We were taught in speech class there are three types of listeners:

1. Those that agree with you.
2. Those that will never agree with you, and
3. Those you can convince.

The person giving a speech has to concentrate on the third group, the ones that can be convinced. The writers of the gospels were writing to convince a particular audience that Jesus' way, was the only way. In doing so they made Jesus into a God in human form, deifying Jesus in a way that he, and his original followers never did. To his original followers he was an exceptionally wise man, not a God. In the early gospels, written for a Jewish audience, he was presented in the form of Moses or Jonah. When the later gospels were written, they were written for a pagan audience they made him a god, which the people of that time, and place could understand. Look at the Greek, and roman myths of children born of gods and human mothers, or the demigods that became gods by their sacrifice, like Hercules. This was the helenisation of the gospel, primarily spread by Paul and his followers. He created a tradition that a pagan could understand, but is far from the original message.

It is time you met the man Jesus.
Historians have deduced that there was a collection of Jesus' quotes collected just after his death; historians call this the "Q" gospel. There is no copy of this gospel in existence, but by tracking the differences, similarities and timeframe of the canonized gospels they have recreated some of this text. This text fits with what we know about Jesus' behavior and that of his original disciples. By following the changes in the rules and practices of the Christian believers throughout the centuries we can see how traditions have buried the truth about Jesus. As Jesus is quoted as saying

"setting aside the word of God for your tradition that ye delivered; and many such like things ye do." (Mark 7:13)

Or, as it has been commonly paraphrased, 'by your traditions you make void the word of God.'

The gospel of mark is the earliest gospel we have, and is commonly dated between 63-68CE. Mark is thought to be the second source used to create the later gospels, and