Jesus is a literary legend, his character having existed at least since the early dynastic Egyptian times. For the sake of Jewish and for that matter Dionysian interest, the name “Jesus” was slapped on the back of this already very old fictional player and proclaimed as a real person. Not only ”real” but the man who miraculously overcame death and lived a second time. A written word who became flesh! (think about it) And the Jewish hopefuls believed.
There is no concrete evidence to prove Jesus’ life as a historical person which would satisfy modern historians, i.e. first hand eyewitness accounts from credible witnesses which would support his existence. Remember too there were many, many renowned writers of the Greco- Roman world alive at the time, who had he really lived, would have loved to have been able to testify to this supernatural marvel of a man. Pausanias, Tacitus the older and younger and notably Lucius Annaeus Seneca (the younger) amongst a host of other writers, gave no details of a wonder working god-man in their midst. They would most certainly have done so had he existed.
There is however evidence that unscrupulous promoters of Christianity such as Eusebius, the fawning biographer of Constantine, would happily insert spurious comment into the handwritten texts to make out that he really existed. Magical god-men like Jesus are the subjects of folk stories not the accounts of real people. The fact that he is believed is the result of mass propaganda for the illiterate under Roman rule in the fourth century and for the purpose of political control over them.
It is one of the biggest confidence tricks of all time.
The very mention of Peter as the “Rock” (his name in Aramaic) and the words put in Jesus’ mouth about Peter; betrays Mithraic origins in the Christian Church. As the myth would have it, the god-man Mithras was born virginally in the rock where the Catholic Church still stands today in Vatican City. The last Mithraic pope (Papa) or pater patras meaning ‘father of fathers’ was Vettius Agricola Praetextatus and he died in 384 CE believing in harmony with the Catholic teachings and with the Catholic Church correspondingly accepting the beliefs of Mithras the great shepherd. Evidences of this are found in the borrowing of Mithraic doctrines such as the nativity story complete with oxen, shepherds and three magi, also the last supper ritual, dying on a cross at the spring equinox, end times prophecy, a celibate priesthood, sacred Sundays etc. This is how the Catholic Church was indeed built on Peter, the 'rock' of Mithras.
It was always a case that the grandeur of power would bamboozle the poor and illiterate. The leaders did not ”believe” but the illiterate and downtrodden would believe anything they are told...just like fundamentalist Christians and JWs today.
Jesus is a fictional character, he therefore could not start a church.
Wakey wakey Jehovah’s Witnesses!