How the Christian Faith came about

I’m assessing how the Christian Faith actually came about, given that the Jews don’t even recognize Jesus as the Messiah. My theory is that the real Jesus was concocted from the teachings of a radical rabbi(s) but that much of the miraculous circumstances were attributed to him by legend. The problem is that there is no agreement on whether Jesus came from the line of David through Solomon (Matthew), or through David’s son Nathan (Luke). In effect, these geneologies are moot, since he is not born by natural birth but by the Holy spirit conceived in Mary. He also had no natural children to sit on the throne. Joseph’s lineage has no bearing on the messiah because he did not father Jesus, according to Matthew and Luke. Mary’s lineage does not factor in because that is not even recognised by the Jewish custom, since she is the mother. The Jews only recognise the biological father’s lineage by custom. Why would God choose to work his promises through the mother’s side or by a son through adoption when this would be automatic rejection by the Jews. More than this, one of the lineage of Joseph was cursed (the curse of Jeconiah, Jehoiakim and all their decendants) to never sit on the throne (of David) again. Also God detests human sacrifice and calls it an abomination. Thus, since Jesus is a human sacrifice for our sins, is this then contrary to God’s will? We as Christians believe Jesus is God incarnated, although it was his human nature that died, however, the Jews believe God cannot die, therefore it remains a human sacrifice.
Also, the true Messiah would bring peace to EARTH, not in heaven in a second coming. Therefore, there is even more trouble with the Christian Theology. The fact, however, is that Jesus perfectly fits the picture of Isaiah 53, as one whose death and suffering was the payment for our iniquity. The question though is... who is this suffering servant? Is this a messianic reference? If not, who is this passage referring to? The Jews say that the suffering servant is the Jewish nation which is despised by many and blamed for the world’s evils. The preceding chapters confirm this theory, as well as other verses in Isaiah speaking of the suffering of the Jewish nation which is considered "stricken by God and afflicted" and "carrying our iniquity". The problem is the wording in the English Bible that is slanted toward a messianic interpretation. The only reason we see Christ in this passage, is because we interpret it that way, even though the passage is still vague.
All the same, with Jesus portrayed as the Messiah, the Early Christians had to build up an entirely new theology to support Christ and a NEW covenant. It had to do away with upholding the absolutes of the Law and circumcision and based Salvation more on faith than works (of the law). The law, it states, was simply make our sinful state painfully obvious. The law only brought judgement on us because we are unable to achieve its demands. It makes the claim that we are under the curse of sin from the garden of Eden. Therefore we are SINFUL from birth, before a baby is even born, before it can even think at all. We are LOST outright, unable to do anything. We need Christ’s sacrifice and God’s divine election ( or random selection) to receive mercy. There is no guarantee that we are picked and no good deeds will give us any better chance.
These doctrines are needed to uphold the idea that Jesus died for our sins and that his sacrifice is sufficient for us. However, with conflicting ideas of the early believers and hold-fast to Jewish tradition, there is inconsistent doctrine and ideas. We are left with a circular approach to faith that we are: "saved by faith, not by works", however, our only guarantee of saving faith is if we bear fruit (works). Hence, the end result is, we need to do works. The more we do, the more likely we are to be elect.
The Christian doctrine shows that the early Christians and Gospel writers needed to make Christ fit with old Testament doctrine. However, they are misinterpreting some of the verses in Genesis about why Adam and Eve were kicked out of the Garden. God did not want them to eat from the Tree of Life and live forever and become immortal. Therefore, he sent them out of the garden and broke off the special fellowship he had with them. I don’t know exactly what He meant then, by "they would surely die". They didn’t "physically" die, therefore they must have died "spiritually" because God "couldn’t have lied" (perhaps, he said "you will surely die" as a threat but didn’t carry it out). The extent of the "spiritual death" should have been nothing more than what was already described in Genesis, the broken fellowship with God and the natural suffering and decay of life. In any case, the Christians believed that Adam and Eve’s disobedience was the sin that caused the whole world to be left under the curse and totally corrupted the hearts of mankind. This idea is extremely likely to be false. We are not totally evil, unable to do good. There is good in all/ most of us. For some reason, there are humans that are malignant. This could be because of generations of poor parenting, social-economic status, dysfunctional upbringing and environments of abuse, selfishness and corrupted world view. Paul’s unfavourable view of an "unregenerate" person does not reflect reality and therefore this doctrine is suspect.
I think it is possible that there was a man named Jeshua (Jesus) from Nazareth, who believed he was the Messiah and preached in that way (Never-mind that his lineage is not from the David line through Solomon). He believed he was the Christ, Messiah and deliverer. He knew his Jewish Theology and that of the promised Messiah. He knew the old Testament books inside out (the Bible says he was unschooled, but this is likely false.). He had read all the prophetic writings and all the predictions of the long-awaited annointed one. At one point, he also took a donkey and tried to make a Messianic approach into Jerusalem, like the scriptures. This, however, is one of the easiest of prophesies to fulfill. This was the first time that many people dared believe that he might possibly be the true Messiah. This is why they lined the streets on palm Sunday. They saw him as ushering in a powerful new kingdom. It is also highly likely this story is an invention.
The more difficult prophecy to fulfill was to die a sacrificial death, though nowhere does it specify, "on a Cross". I can’t imagine that he would take himself to the point of dying on the cross to fulfill a prophecy. He would have to either be insane, extremely delusional or the true Christ. He was also silent to his accusers to fulfill the scriptures according to the gospels. It is more likely in my view, that he was indeed crucified, but that it was not his intent. (This approach only works if we view many of the gospel words of Jesus as fabricated) He was likely crucified by the Romans because they saw him as a threat in starting an uprising or rebellion to usher in a new kingdom. At the time, religion and politics were intertwined and they saw the Jewish "kingdom of heaven" prophesies as real opposition to the Roman government. The crucifixion was later redefined to show that this was Jeshua/ Jesus’ purpose all along, and a fulfilment of God’s plan, and thus the Jesus movement was born.
He claimed that he was the "Son of Man", whatever that means. This term is used extensively in the book of Enoch, which may have been the source since it was written well before the time of Christ. There are many references in the Bible to the words, "son of God" as well. Even Adam was called a "son of God". However, he had said the father was greater than he, therefore denying that he was equal to God. Also, God had forsaken him on the Cross, according to last words, therefore, he cannot be equal or one with God. The Jews believe that God cannot die or take the form of a human. (However, the old testament God also took human form several times) The Christians also needed to make God into a 3 part Trinity even though God in the old testament says that "God is One." The doctrine of trinity is very confusing and makes it appear that there are 3 God’s or 3 parts of a God or 3 persons of God that obviously can be separated, that one can take the form of a human, die (even go to Hell) and be resurrected. The spirit part can indwell in thousands of human hearts at once.
I think it is also possible that the Gospel writers wrote the Gospel much later, after some legends arose, attributed to Jesus. There is high possibility of some pagan (meaning other religions of the day) influence in Christianity. (It was common for a newly fashioned god to be compared to other gods of the day to rival their power and influence.) He may have been a miracle worker, but likely many of these stories are mythical. Although the Gospels and Christian writings were meticulously copied, there were some early legends that had already crept in about Jesus. For instance, if Pauls letters were first, there is no mention by him about the virgin birth or angels and shepherds announcing the birth. There is very little detail about his life and his bouts with the Pharisees. Also it doesn’t mention that he was buried in a tomb which was visited by angels. Wouldn’t he at least have eluded to these events?
Given these points about legend creeping in, we cannot ignore the possibility that the entire Christ story (or the bulk of it) and his teachings are a fictional account. There is good reason for the church to form a seemingly historical account of their saviour Messiah which was predicted in the old Testament. The old Jewish doctrine was getting outdated and impossible to maintain. The people needed something new and it was not difficult to glean together many old prophesies about the forthcoming Messiah-power-figure. This was the chance they needed to spring forth a new religion out of the old. Of course, the usual response to the vanguard is extreme polemic given by the reactionary and radical groups. The radical church led the way in forging a new gospel account of their new saviour messiah. Perhaps there had been a man named Jeshua (Jesus) who was preaching the new radical ideas and was crucified by Caesar. This would have been a great opportunity (60 years later) to build up great myths around this "historical" radical. So a writer (or writers) in the early radical church, brought forth by Paul (among others), had gone through the scriptures for looking for Messianic quotes. They found Isaiah 53. The perfect building blocks for a Messiah story. The gospel writer under the name of "Mark" wrote the first account of the legendary Christ. This was the beginning story that would form the building blocks of what would later arise. The early form of the story was simple and radical, proclaiming that Jesus was the Christ and that his crucifixion was actually an atonement for our sins. His sacrifice was meant to be the perfect Old testament sacrifice, and God would then powerfully raise him from the dead. The message of Isaiah 53 of the suffering servant fit perfectly. Even though it wasn’t specifically about a crucifixion and a little ambiguous, it was just what they needed. Several factions in the church would add their reactionary view to it, that Jesus was only for the Jews, for instance. Then, the established view arose that the gospel was for jews first and then for gentiles (dogs... who could lick up the crumbs from the table), a polemic by other radicals not yet confident that gentiles had a full part in the gospel. Once the this book was written, the stage was set for others to follow. The book of Matthew was written with radical roots but with heavy reactionary influence. There was also discord about whether Jesus was a son of David or a divine son of God. The book of Luke developed after combining parables and theology from Mark and Matthew (plus an additional outside source gospel of "Q"). The book of John came up later from the church faction that preached that Jesus was the Logos, the third part of the trinity and the divine "Word become Flesh". This book is also heavy in combining elements of Greek philosophy and predestination (and perhaps has Gnostic influence). This book shifts away from the typical works-based salvation approach.
The point I’m trying to make is that Jesus does not totally fit the bill as the promised Messiah. His acceptance by early Christians is partly due to ignorance of the real Jewish Messiah, Legend and myth that sprung up later, Jesus’ total self confidence and authority that he is the one Messiah (if he did exist, or perhaps he did not speak any of what is attributed to him), the Christians rising up and building up Theology to support Jesus’ claims that he is the Messiah, the many prophesies that were distorted out of context and applied to Jesus, and the building up of the Christian Bible and the work of interpreters that had a biassed view that Jesus was the total fulfilment of the prophecies. Also, they believed that Jesus would fulfill all his prophesied work in a second coming. This should not be necessary for the real Messiah.
So, why is it that the Saviour of the world has come, and I am sitting here debating if it actually is Jesus. All we are left with is a bunch of "extremely well preserved" ancient writings that are ambiguous and contradictory in nature. This is the only basis we have for forming our "faith". We don’t have any measurable "evidence" that we can depend on. Everything is left open to interpretation. Therefore, we have a mangled mess of Theology that we have to sift through and decide what is accurate. That is why we have different denominations that have settled on some core beliefs to maintain focus and not preach something different every Sunday. That is why I get the feeling that sermons today are very "safe", focussing on uncontroversial topics that don’t raise questions about the core of our beliefs. For instance, there will be no mention of why Jesus says, "the Father is greater than I" or that Jesus says, "How can the Messiah possibly be a descendant of David?".
The reason that I even began to question my beliefs is because of unanswered prayer, my perceived injustices I felt about original sin, and about the punishment of Hell. Why does the Church think that Jesus will live up to his promises about responding to prayer, doing seemingly impossible things like healing or giving us anything we need, when it is obvious he never does. This has hints of superstition (A widely held but irrational belief of supernatural influences.) Why do we pray for the outpouring and power of the Holy spirit, like the early Church when we haven’t seen that kind of outpouring in 2000 years. It could also be that we are delusional meaning: "a belief or impression that is not in accordance with generally accepted reality.
I speak all these things with growing frustration because it is so hard to understand the truth, and the Church has wandered so deep into these beliefs and held them so strong. It would be awful if nothing we believe about Christ is true. However, I also believe that if we are believing a lie, God is not about to enlighten us either. He certainly never has of any other "false" religion.