What do you think of Jesus the man? His philosophies? Do you think that the Bible represents his teachings coherently, or do you think their own two cents were dropped in as word-in-his-mouth?
Do you think he had a sense of humor? That he had a normal childhood? Where did he go during his lost years?
It's funny. Reading Lamb, by Christopher Moore, for the second time, I came to wonder what Jesus really DID do during his missing years. Even as an Atheist I am sure that Jesus was a real person-- not a special person, just a philosopher, a teacher, more than likely. So this is based on that assumption that he may have been a real man, regardless of whether one believes he's the Messiah or not.
Well, I decided to do some research, and it turns out that Christopher may not have been far off in his story about Jesus traveling to the East.
http://reluctant-messenger.com/issa.htm
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-davids/jesus-lost-years-may-fina...http://www.otherplane.com/am/amselene.htmThere's a strong theory that asserts he went to India and Tibet during his eighteen unrecorded years. I think I can see strong influence of Taoist philosophy in his teaching, so this isn't far fetched at all to me personally.
I'm curious to see how many Atheists believe Jesus was a historical figure at the least.