My best guess from the scholarship I have seen/heard is that most likely he was an actual person, but nothing like what the gospels portray him to have been. And from the Roman political shit-storm drama that was going on at the time, it was certainly never his plan to have gotten himself crucified. P. Pilot may have been providing him protection from the Jewish priests who wanted to kill the heretic. Once Pilot got himself on the Emperor's shit list, the pharisees were free to string up Jesus, which they promptly happily did. Christianity is really about what early generations of desperate believers were able to cook up to replace the shattered dream of their one-time guru. I think Jesus thought himself a replacement for John the Baptist, but the son of God image was likely constructed by the gospels writers.

@MikeInBatonRouge check out John Dominic Crossan's book, Jesus: A Revolutionary Understanding. He introduces the human Jesus. He's helped me find respect for him again.

@rickster58761 I do not DIS-respect Jesus. The teachings attributed to him in the gospels are mostly lovely. (He was a thousand times better than Paul, whose name claims most of the new Testament.) But they are also constructed. Conjecture, poetic license, and wishful thinking. If you examine the gospels in chronolical order of their authorship, they get progressively more fantastical with their miracles angle. I respect the New Testament for what it attempts to create, in terms of encouragement of the human spirit and promotion of love and compassion. But it is clearly not a history book. I am sick of our fundy American countrymen treating it as such.

@MikeInBatonRouge mike, I never believed you Disrespected Jesus. Just was letting you know how my relationship with the human Jesus grew after reading Crossan's book. I've heard the theory that Jesus took over John's ministry as well. I totally agree with you, my FRIEND!!!! Whisper down the alley information. It grew and grew until we have the present view of a simple, peasant rabbi.

@MikeInBatonRouge check out Crossan's book. Very informative. Rick from Maryland