was already dead: It may be wrong even to label Jesus a "sect leader." Quote: Originally Posted by Maastricht Jesus fit the bill with his delusions of being able to walk on water, cursing a fig tree for not bearing fruit out of season; and of being cleverly ambiguous of saying he was the returned Eliah, or the son of God. IIRC, Jesus never claimed the ability to walk on water. Others claimed that others witnessed it. Quote: Originally Posted by Maastricht His more violent outbursts "All those who don not want me to be their king, bring them before me and I shall kill them" ... also fit. Because several parts of the story seem to be heavily embroidered, skeptics tend to feel that those things weaken the likeliness veracity of the accounts overall. Maybe they all got ahold of some of those red and white mushrooms from Scandinavia or something. Which brings me to my answer, expecting to find a guy who keeps a lot of powdered mushrooms on hand: he sprinkles some into water to make the stuff as intoxicating as wine; he ups the dosage to flip impressionable folks into suggestible ones -- including impressionable-but-uptight folks who (a) suffer from psychosomatic illnesses built around religious hang-ups, and who (b) just need to relax while being forgiven by a reassuring hypnotherapist playing authority figure from on high -- and he goes all-out when a cocktail of bona fide hallucinogens are called for. He's also got a lot