Revealed:
I am not an atheist. I am a critical thinker with an open mind. Punk of Nice made a valid point that is provable with evidence. The point he made is this - There is no evidence of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, outside of the Bible.
We believe that the first writings about Jesus came around 25 years after the alleged death of Jesus. These were the Epistles written by Paul. The first Gospel account was written 40 years after Jesus' alleged death.
Outside of these writings there are writings by certain Roman officials. However, the first of these was written 60 years after Jesus' alleged death. About 80 years after Jesus' alleged death. The Roman governor of Turkey, Pliny, wrote that the Christians there worshipped Jesus as God and were followers of a dangerous superstition.
What we can see is that, outside the Bible, there are no writings of eyewitnesses of Jesus. Yes, there are writings about Jesus, but they either do not corroborate the Gospels or they speak disparaging of both Jesus and Christianity.
This is why I believe there was a man we now refer to as Jesus. I believe he gained enlightenment (try fasting in the wilderness for 40 days and see what happens). I believe that he had a message of peace that used Judaism as a means to explain his insight. He may have even been executed for it. It didn't take too long after his death that a religion was formed based on his teaching and he was made into a deity. Yes, it is a historical fact - Jesus was made into God by men shortly after his death.
As far as who Yeshua claimed to be - When he said "I am the son of God", looking at the original language of the text we can see that it is a saying much like the English saying "You son of a bitch". When you call someone a son of a bitch you do not mean that they literally were born from a dog. Rather, you mean they have doglike qualities.
Jesus claimed he was divine...just like you and me. That was his message. That is the Gospel.