I’m not sure what kind of information you’re after. I take it you’re asking for our take on how much Christianity is really shaped by Jesus himself. My response is that more than any other one person, Jesus determined the shape of the church that grew around him. It is difficult to say more than that.

Christianity has many authors. Judaism lays most of the groundwork for Christianity, and one could argue that it was a more important influence than Jesus himself. The New Testament represents a significant break from Judaism, but it’s unclear how accurately the modern document reflects the teachings of the historical Jesus. I would guess that Jesus is simply the best known Jewish dissident of his era and that he probably learned a lot from previous apostates (Jesus was not the only Jew who claimed to be the messiah, but mostly I’m just guessing here). These other dissidents may also have significantly shaped the religion that came to be known as Christianity.

Early Christianity exhibits a marked range of belief, and I am not aware of convincing evidence that the diaspora consisted of one “true” branch (that strictly followed Jesus) and a bunch of heretics (that made stuff up). It follows that Jesus’s message left much to interpretation, and the particular interpretation(s) we are left with are perforce the work of men (and perhaps a scant few women) who lived after him.

Some ideas just don’t get passed down through the years very easily, and the modern religion is doubtless shaped by this fact (akin to “natural selection”). If, for instance, if Jesus advocated celibacy, heretics who discarded this injunction would likely become more numerous than true believers. Though many early Christians were severe ascetics, it is unsurprising that the world was never dominated by severely ascetic empires. Thus, Christianity is shaped not only by Jesus’s intention, not only by the efforts of the early Christians, but by historical exigency.

Posted: July 20th 2010

See all questions answered by George Locke

One of the central tenets of Christianity is that Jesus rose from the dead. That means that Christianity as we know it didn’t exist until after his execution. By then the apostles were writing the scripture and calling the shots.

Posted: July 19th 2010

See all questions answered by SmartLX

It’s very unlikely, since the teachings of Christ vary so much from the teachings of Christianity. However, there is no clear answer to this question since there are no historically reliable records of the early church.

Posted: July 17th 2010

See all questions answered by Reed Braden