Jesus claimed to be a Jewish Messiah and was later misrepresented to create Christianity

I am going to start by making an important issue clear: I DO appeal to New Testament to find truth about Jesus, but I DON'T consider the entirety of the New Testament to be true. In particular, my claim is that New Testament was possibly tampered with or produced to show misrepresented story of Jesus in the first place. I argue with the presupposition that it is possible to infer the true historical Jesus from a story that intentionally misrepresents him.I did not establish its veracity in one hundred percent, to find out who historical Jesus was only on the basis of New Testament or the Fathers of the Church (who simply repeat established oral tradition). In fact my opening arguments (both in the Round One and Two) were that of historical evidence versus what the NT claims. Con only made appeals to authority of New Testament to determine who historical Jesus was and did not address my objections to the narration on the grounds of historical plausibility, e.g. that of the reason why Jesus was crucified.Virgin birthAlthough I don't think this particular dogma is of relevance to the subject stated (few Judeo-Christian groups possibly believed in virgin birth of Messiah as well), I will respond nevertheless.The problem with arguing about virgin birth that was supposedly prophesized by Isaiah is that a Hebrew word meaning "young girl of marriageable age" was directly translated into Greek Septuagint as "virgin". (1) Whether this translation was permissible or not remains arguable.As to the argument the Con makes in this case, it rests entirely on acceptation of the doctrine of the original sin, which Jews did not believe at the time. Neither I think there is any evidence that Ignatius' epistle gives credence to the argument that "it was necessary for Jesus to be born to a virgin so that he wouldn't inherit the sinful nature passed on through the father". In fact the doctrine of the original sin appeared much later, and Ignatius doesn't attribute the neccesity of virgin birth to sinless nature of Jesus. There can be serious doubt about the origins of this dogma. Arguing that it was thanks to Holy Spirit's guidance that only later Church was able to "determine" the reason for which Jesus must have been born of a virgin misses entirely the point of providing direct source of this claim, which may as well have been pagan. (the issue of Paul's Hellenic influence and alleged "Pharisaic background" will be mentioned in the next phase)Moreover, curious silence about Jesus' supposed virgin birth in the earliest Christian writings (preceding Ignatius) casts another doubt on the validity of the dogma. (2)Radical claims"But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins”—He said to the paralytic (Mark 2:10)"First at all, I am going to look at Greek translation:http://biblehub.com...It looks therefore Jesus had "authority" to forgive sins, not literally, "power". Let us look at the lines before:"When Jesus saw their faith, he said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, thy sins be forgiven thee." (Mark 2:5)"Whether is it easier to say to the sick of the palsy, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk?" (Mark 2:8)This is consistent with the Greek translations. ( http://biblehub.com...http://biblehub.com... )Why would Jesus use third participle, instead of directly forgiving sins?There's one quite good answer: Jesus spoke those words just as if a priest would. I contend that it is not very logical to argue for the "authority" of priests to forgive sins (by God's grace of course, priests being a proxy) and claim at the same time Jesus' authority to do so implies his godly nature. It is not a direct proof of his godhood.As to why Jews marvelled about Jesus "forgiving sins" - whether this really was the case or not is debatable. New Testament often makes extraordinary claims about Jews having adverse reactions to Jesus practices or teachings which were supposedly wrong to Jews. On several occasions - purification of hands, healing on Sabbath (also mentioned my Maccoby), picking up grains on Sabbath to eat them - New Testament claims Jews (in particular Pharisees) were mad at Jesus for such things, when in fact evidence about Pharisees themselves being fairly liberal and loose on the Law (supplying it with Oral Tradition) stands in great contrast with those claims. For instance, Con quoted Jesus "working", when in fact he was healing people - Maccoby contends no such practice was banned on Sabbath.Would Jews consider "forgiving sins by proxy" a blasphemy? Perhaps, but this depends what kind of sin the man committed - against God or against human. (3) Jews of the time knew many methods which would supposedly help people free themselves of sins. Also remember, that even not being literally a God, but his chosen prophet / messenger could bestow special privileges, i.e. mediating between God and the man who sinned, telling them that God forgave them their sins against him. Claim of Godhood"This is I'd say the clearest claim to deity that Jesus makes. If this doesn't sound like Jesus claiming to be God for you, I don't know what will."Jesus even makes extraordinary claim of 'having been before Abraham was'. The important problem considered here is that God did take his prophets to heavens (Genesis 5:24, Second Kings 2:11) to stay in there, and sometimes to descend back to earthly world. Jesus' claim was after resurrection and may as well have been interpolated. Judeochristians did also believe in his resurrection and ascension, but not in his godhood.Even in the Gospel of Mark itself it is inadvertly implied Jesus was a very important figure to the God, but not God himself, which would be a blasphemy to the Jews:"So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God." (Mark 16:19)The most obvious quote used by Jesus to deny his godhood is in the story of rich man:"And Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone." (Mk 10:18, Mt 19:17)Another, which I was going to quote in the 'weird stuff Apostles had no reason to include in the NT' section is this one:"My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46, Mark 15:34)"I will also show you that many disciples thought Jesus was God:"The story of Thomas in particular may have been interpolated. It is the only one in which someone so openly calls Jesus the God; one which justifies redemption through faith alone (which was a serious heresy both to Judeochristians and Jews). I won't deal with Acts in this context, because it was my very aim from the beginning to claim non-Gospel NT in particular pushes point of Paul who deified Jesus.Jesus, his purpose, and prediction of deathHere I reject authority of the Gospels on the issue of Jesus "predicting his death" and purporting to die on the cross.Maccoby claims: (4)"We come to the incident known as the Last Supper. It follows from the argument of the last chapter that this took place not at Passover time but during the Feast of Tabernacles. In the Gospels the Last Supper has been overlaid with myth serving three purposes: to show that Jesus foresaw and intended his own death on the cross; to show how Judas Iscariot became ... determined to betray Jesus; and to show that Jesus instituted the rite of Communion, with its pagan symbolism of eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the god. (...)Jesus had no foreknowledge of his failure and crucifixion. The Last Supper was a celebration with his closest disciples of his appearance as King and the imminent overthrow of the Roman power. After preparing himself by several nights of prayer on the Mount of Olives, Jesus was convinced that "the day of the Lord" was close at hand, and he called together his disciples for a final strengthening of the bond between them before their crucial testing time. The atmosphere must have been extremely tense. They were about to embark on a great venture on which the fate of their country and the whole world would depend. But the special poignancy and drama of the Gospel accounts are the product of hindsight and of the myths that grew up later to explain Jesus's failure."Is there any proof for his version of the events? Maccoby points to one of those curiosities which Apostles had no reason to mention, but which was most likely retained in the Gospels because it was part of the original story: (4)"Only Luke ... has retained the incident of the swords. He could have no possible motive in inventing it, for it goes against the whole grain of his narrative. The only possible explanation of its inclusion is that it is a survival from the original story which only Luke was not ruthless enough to excise. The Gospel writers were following the outline of an older Gospel. To twist this Gospel to a new meaning required courage of a kind; sometimes their nerve may have failed them. This would explain why bones of the old narrative can sometimes be seen jutting out uncomfortably from the body of the new. "The Gospel itself:"Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one. (...) And they said, Lord, behold, here are two swords. And he said unto them, It is enough." (Luke 22:36; 38)Why would Jesus buy swords? The standard counterargument is that just two are not enough to fight Romans. But with Maccoby's explanation that the revolution would have happened by supernatural means it does make sense. In the next phase I would like to present Maccoby's narration and outline arguments against Paul.Sources: (1) http://infidels.org...(2) http://www.rejectionofpascalswager.net...(3) https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org...(4) http://www.positiveatheism.org...