Smiddy "I'm more inclined to think of him as a fictional character..."
And the world would be a sadder place with out its fictional characters. Imagine a world of literature with out Tom & Huck,or Sherlock @ Watson,. And what about our great comedians, or actors from Errol Flynn & John Wayne,to James Dean,De Niro & Pacino, the fictional characters they portray become real to us and in some strange and magical way enrich our life's.
Yet each of the fictional book characters, or the characters portrayed by the actors will be outlived by time, and yet our " idealist fool" (which is how Anne Frank described Jesus) lives on and on....maybe for many because of the message of hope? Ironically many a war has been blamed on that message.
The Rebel.