I am trying to see what people who have not read the Bible, or who have read it only a little, understand about the nature of Jesus. I don't care if you believe it or not, just trying to get an idea of what people think it says.
Do people already "know" that Jesus is God before ever cracking the book. In other words, if and when they do open the book for the first time, do they have preconceived ideas about Jesus?
Thanks!
We can say these things about Jesus.
He may or may not have been a historical figure.
If he was ─
─ not a single contemporary left any record of him,
─ he may have been active in Jerusalem religious politics about 30 CE,
─ he may have been a follower of JtB with JtB's message, Get ready, the Kingdom is at hand,
─ he may have been executed by the Romans; and if he was, that may have been on matters of civil disorder,
─ the earliest we meet Jesus in history is in the letters of Paul. (The letters weren't known before Marcion's time, and their authenticity has been questioned because they conveniently support Marcion's gnostic views; but I doubt anyone could forge a dingbat character like Paul) Like the other gospel writers, Paul never met Jesus, and his earthly biography of Jesus would fit in two lines.
─ the only purported biography of him that we have is that of the author of Mark. It moves Jesus through a series of scenes based on what the author takes to be messianic prophecies in the Tanakh; there's no suggestion its author had any actual knowledge of Jesus, with the possible exception of some sayings and the scenes in which Jesus fights with his family.
─ the authors of Matthew, Luke and John rewrote Mark to express their own Christologies and theologies; they keep the scenes in which Jesus fights with his family (only once, on the cross in John, does he mention his mother without vituperation),
─ the result has two levels : a popular level of redemption and rescue (salvation) and postmortal bliss, and on the other hand, five incompatible Christologies (Mark's Jesus has fully human parents, Matthew's and Luke's follow Greek tradition of divine insemination, and Paul's and John's are gnostic beings who preexisted with God in heaven and created the material world, serving as mediator between it and God).
(There's no coherent explanation why Jesus had to die. What could possibly require God to sacrifice his own son to himself?)
Finally, none of the five Jesuses in the NT is God; each of them expressly says he's not. Jesus doesn't become God until the Trinity doctrine is invented in the 4th century CE; and as even the churches admit, the Trinity doctrine is incoherent too.)