The historical Jesus and the Christ of Faith are not simply differing representations of the same person as the author of Acts would have us believe. The Christ and Jesus are as different as Tom and Jerry.
Whilst, as I have previously pointed out, we lack contemporary evidence of Jesus, nevertheless, it is possible to construct an approximation of his ideas and behaviours. We can do this through a critical use of the sources that are available to us. The first and most important thing to note about Jesus was that he was an observant Jew. He fully accepted the Torah (the first five books of the Bible), with all that that implied: the keeping of the Sabbath, the observance of the dietary rules, the celebration of the passover and other festivals, etc. Secondly, it is equally clear that he was a religious teacher, as was his cousin, John, and his brother, James.
It is also evident that he was seen as a potential Messiah. Now the Messiah is a very specifically Jewish role. The Messiah would be of the House of David. He would bring the Kingdom of God. This kingdom would occur in the here and now. It would bring about peace on earth and all would recognise the one, true God. So, in the context, this would necessarily involve the overthrow of the Roman colonisers and those who colluded with their rule, such as the Sadducees. Thus, Jesus' mission was unite the various factions of Israel, overthrow Roman imperial rule, and institute the Kingdom of God, ie, peace on earth.
After Jesus was crucified by the Romans for sedition, the people who had known him continued to believe in his Way. They remained observant Jews and James, the brother of Jesus, was their first leader.
If that had been the end of the story, it is unlikely that we would ever have heard anything about Jesus. There have, after all, been many Messiah claimants at one time or another. However, that was not the end of the story, for a Hellenised Jew, by the name of Saul, who had repudiated his Jewish identity, underwent a mystical, spiritual experience in which he felt himself redeemed in Christ.
Saul, now Paul, with all the ardour of faith, set about trying to persuade everyone else of the veracity of his Christ vision. However, he did not turn to the people who had known Jesus, rather he turned to the Gentiles of the Roman Empire.
If one reads Paul's letters, from this perspective, what stands out above all is how Paul makes no reference to the actual practices and teachings of Jesus. In terms of salesmanship, this was a master stroke. The cutting of this tie with the historical Jesus enabled Paul to deny the necessity of the Torah. The benefit of this was immeasurable. It meant that circumcision was not required. It meant that meat from animals that had been killed in pagan temples could be eaten. It meant that all the Jewish scriptures could be ignored. It removed the burden of Sabbath observance, etc.
Moreover, Paul's vision of the Christ, was an eclectic weaving together of religious elements that were already very familiar to his audience: the divine human, the virgin birth, the death and resurrection, and salvation through the eating and drinking of the body and blood of a god. These were all common elements of the pagan religions. They were all equally alien to the Jews.
It is not surprizing then to discover that when the people who had known Jesus, and continued to follow his Way, discovered what Paul was preaching, they were horrified and denounced his teachings as false. Paul was equally vehement in his denunciations of the Jews. Indeed the Letter to the Galatians, which was specifically written to deny the need to observe the Torah, claims that all Jews are cursed by God. It was in this way that Paul hi-jacked the person of Jesus as a figure-head for his new religion of Christ, and stripped Jesus of his historical context to justify the repudiation of the Torah, the religion of Jesus.
This radical re-working of the image of Jesus with the mysteries of the Mediterranean religions ensured that Paul's religion was accessible to all, except observant Jews. The later writer of the Acts, once the repudiation of Judaism had been securely established, was able to fabricate a link back to the religion of Jesus, through a mythical conference between Paul and James, and thus establish an ancient heritage for the new found religion, which greatly enhanced its status, especially in the eyes of the Romans.
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