I seen this documentary before and at first I was quite convinced. And it is such a romantic idea. Jesus the Boddhisattva. Tell that to the Christians. Hehe!
Anyway, recently I had a discussion with a friend and he told me to read the book "Jesus the Man". Just like to share with all on this forum below from Wikipedia. At the very least this version offers another perspective of Jesus' story. It must also be pointed out that the real founder of Christianity is St Paul ie Paul the Apostle (c. AD 5 – c. AD 67; variously referred to as "the Apostle Paul" or "Saint Paul"). But I will leave that for another time/post.
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From Wikipedia:
Jesus the Man: New Interpretations from the Dead Sea Scrolls is a 1993 book written by the Australian biblical scholar and theologian Barbara Thiering. Using a technique that the author calls "pesher", she purports to have uncovered evidence that effectively contradicts the biblical story, which she calls the "surface meaning" ("for 'babes'"), regarding the nature of Jesus and his mission. The book has primarily received scepticism by the scholarly community.
The central thesis of the book is that "Jesus was the leader of a radical faction of Essene priests. He was not of virgin birth. He did not die on the Cross. He married Mary Magdalene, fathered a family, and later divorced. He died sometime after AD 64".
By applying her unique interpretive method to the New Testament gospels and Dead Sea Scrolls, Thiering reconstructs a new history of early Christianity which she contends was hidden in pesher coding. She sees Jesus as a prominent member of this movement, because of his descent from the Davidic kingship, as well as the efforts of his great grandfather, Hillel the Great, and his grandfather, Heli, to establish schools of religious instruction for Jews of the Diaspora. Being technically born out of wedlock, his fortunes changed depending on the views of inheritance of the high priest in power. Unlike Simon Magus, the second most important figure in the New Testament, Jesus was a pacifist and opposed the zealots, calling for a reform and renewal of religion leading to a Jewish empire which would overrule the Roman Empire by its appeal to reason and morality.
Thiering finds that the biography of Jesus hidden in the New Testament shows him to have been born in Qumran, an Essene community beside the Dead Sea, in March, 7 BC. His brother James was born (within wedlock) in September, 1 AD. In March, 17 AD, he was initiated at the age of 23, and took a political stance in favor of his (spiritual) "father", the Annas high priest, "who taught peace with Rome and the promotion of Gentiles".
Rebaptized by John the Baptist in March, 29 AD, he was soon involved in a schism from him, together with a party "called the Twelve Apostles",some of whom (including Judas Iscariot and Simon Magus) were zealots and others (including Jesus), pacifists.
Thiering examines each of the miracles in the New Testament and finds in them nothing miraculous, but rather events marking turning points in the history of "the Fig Tree", as the movement was called.
