do you believe there was a historical figure the Jesus story was built on?

[customerserviceguy]

154. Thank you for injecting some scholarship into this discussion

I would imagine that the Gospels (both those accepted and those considered heresies) were inspired by several itinerant street preachers of the time. Funny how many Christians think they are contemporary writings of a bunch of illiterate fishermen.

I clean and collect Roman coins of the 4th Century, they span from the first to the last decade of that century, and you can see the transition from Roman gods being depicted on the reverses to Christian symbols on the back sides of the coins. It's the transistion of the Roman Empire from paganism to Christianity, and it's helpful to explain to those who see my collection that THIS was the time when Christianity was "formed", in other words, people who lived many, many years after the events of the New Testament deciding without any sort of scientific method which texts were holy, and which were heresies. It helps to give them a perspective on where the leading religion of the West came from.