re: #516 engineer cat

who was it then who wrote the sermon on the mount? who formulated the selflessness philosophy

That’s a different issue, but it wasn’t necessarily Jesus who formulated the Sermon. Although again, it is possible that he never said th Sermon, and yet he did formulate the selflesness philosophy in very different terms. The combinations are endless.

whoever came up with this stuff - that’s the person who is interesting

Maybe he is more interesting. Or maybe they both are interesting. But that’s a different issue from whether he (or even they, the author collective) can be named “Jesus” when there likely was a real, physical guy named Jesus to whom this sermon came to be attached, and those “they” were his followers and biographers.

(I’m not saying this is what happened. I have no idea, actually.)