I am a scholar of religions with four degrees, including one in the New Testament and fluency in Biblical Greek, who has been studying the origins of Christianity for two decades, who also happens to be Muslim.
In truth, Jesus did not, in his own time, attract much notice.
The vestiges of pagan religion in Christian symbology are undeniable. Egyptian sun disks became the halos ... The pre-Christian God Mithras ... had his birthday celebrated on December 25 ... Even Christianity's weekly holy day was stolen from the pagans ... Christianity honored the Jewish Sabbath of Saturday, but Constantine shifted it to coincide with the pagans' veneration of the day of the sun ... To this day, most churchgoers attend services on Sunday morning with no idea that they are there on account of the pagan sun god's weekly tribute- Sunday.
I have long been convinced that the Christian Eucharist is but a continuation of the Eleusinian mysteries. St Paul, in using the word teleiois, almost confirms this.
To a philosopher like Nietzsche, the Jew is culpable not for rejecting Christianity but for inventing it.
I really believe that to have a full impression of Jesus, both as Christ as a man, you must know about the world that gave shape to him - the world out of which he arose.
Nothing in Christianity is original.
The careful reader of the New Testament will find three Christs described: - One who wished to preserve Judaism - one who wished to reform it, and one who built a system of his own
