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There are so many I would like to spend time with. Thomas Jefferson, Albert Einstein, and Socrates are all are near the top of my list, but if I had to choose only one person, it would be Jesus of Nazareth. Of course, I would also need a Star Fleet Universal Translator, a crash course in first century Aramaic, or a Babble Fish in my ear so I could understand him.
So why Jesus? I find him fascinating. I think he was a religious genius who boldly introduced new ways of thinking about God. In a society that was bound to tradition and strict adherence to written scriptural mandates, he was progressive enough to say, “You have heard it said, an eye for an eye, but I say...” This is pretty radical stuff; apparently he was no Scriptural literalist.
There are so many things I’d like to know about him. Was he bi-polar? If his biographers are to have any credence, he could be magnanimous one moment and cursing fig trees the next. His own family thought he was off his rocker. Did he consider his mission to be a universal one, or only limited to Israel? In a patriarchal society, he dared to travel with women and count them among his followers. What were his personal views as to the role of women in society? How much of what we call Christianity originated with Jesus and how much originated with Paul? Would he even recognize his teachings in modern Christianity? Personally, as a non-Christian who has spent many years considering who Jesus was, I suspect that he and I would have more in common than he would have with your garden-variety Bible-believing fundamentalist—beginning with the fact that I don’t believe he was God Incarnate, and I don’t believe he did, either.
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