A Gospel of a Jesus

Introduction

I am an atheist. I think it’s fair to say that upfront, because what follows is a text about Jesus, and I don’t want anyone to read it under false assumptions. My atheism, however, doesn’t mean disinterest. On the contrary: I have spent my entire life engaging deeply with various belief systems, including the Bible.

Even more than religion, though, I concern myself with the question of how unjust this world is for many people: exploitation, concentration of power, and the tendency of the privileged toward indifference. The more often I heard the repeatedly-told story of Jesus in the Bible, the more parallels I found between our time and the story of Jesus: a society ruled by the few and endured by the many.

Among other things, it was the Pope, of all people, who inspired me to write this text. In his encyclical “Magnifica Humanitas,” Leo XIV wrote about artificial intelligence, new forms of slavery, exploitation in global supply chains, and the power of the few over the many. A religious leader who finds remarkably clear and good words for a deeply worldly emergency. If the Pope can succeed in viewing a worldly emergency through a religious lens, then perhaps I can succeed in the opposite direction: writing a worldly parable for a religious story.

The “Gospel” is an attempt to tell the story of Jesus without miracles and without God. It relies on neither theological nor historical studies, but is a parable built upon a famous story. Of course, this makes this text a form of exegesis, a truth-seeking interpretation of a text. However, it is far from my intention to create a new religious movement, especially not within Christianity.

I’m also well aware that I am not the first person to portray Jesus from such a perspective. Given the context I want to create, however, I consider the overall product original and relevant. I want to convey certain specific points with this parable. I will address these in detail only in the closing remarks, so that one can draw one’s own unbiased conclusions first, and compare them afterward with my intention.

Foreword

What follows are the thoughts of a Jesus as he might have been: without miracles, without God, but not without a plan. It is not a diary, but a portrayal of the impressions and ideas of a person whose world will feel more familiar to us than we might like.

Understand this neither as an attack on any faith nor as a history lesson, but as what it is: a parable about people who want to change something. About how much it takes, and what the price for that can be.

A parable that takes two world-famous religious figures as its basis: Jesus and Moses. At the same time, one doesn’t need to know these stories to understand this parable. Because it’s more about the Now than about the Then.

The Testament

Sometimes I wonder if others see what I see. The exploitation, the arbitrariness, the indifference. Maybe they see it and don’t care. Maybe they see it and consider it normal. Maybe they even consider it just.

Today I delivered another table. A good table, honest craftsmanship. The buyer haggled, of course. I was left with barely half a day’s wages. Naturally, I nodded and thanked him. That’s my life: I build things, others own things. And I stay silent about things that others decide. On my way home, I saw the tax collectors humiliating an old man who couldn’t pay his dues. No one looked. Nobody cared. Yes, I looked away too. I can pay my dues. But what could I have done anyway? I’m just a craftsman. My hands can shape things, but not the world. And I’m too old to take a different path now.

Tonight I can’t sleep, and my thoughts keep circling back to those old stories that shape our lives so deeply. Like everyone, I’ve known them for as long as I can remember. My mother told them to me, the teachers drilled them into me; I could recite them backward. And yet I don’t believe them. At least not all those miracles. As a child, I waited: for a sign, a whisper, the smallest thing would have sufficed, anything at all. Nothing came. Never. I see sick people who pray and still die. And I see thriving people who trample everything good underfoot and are still rewarded.

But one thought won’t let go of me. Moses, climbing the mountain and coming back down with the tablets of the law. If I set the miracle aside, I simply see a man who had to lead a people that had spent generations in slavery: uneducated, divided, frightened. How do you explain to such people why they shouldn’t steal, murder, or cheat one another? You can’t debate with each person individually. But you can climb a mountain, think for forty days, write down the rules, and then say: they come from God. One can argue against Moses. Not against God.

I don’t believe Moses was a prophet. Maybe he was a man like me, who wanted to change something and used the only tool that works. This thought impresses me far more. He knew his people and knew what needed to be done.

If Moses could do it, why not me? This question digs deeper and deeper into me, like a splinter you can’t get out. People’s faith exists whether I share it or not. It’s like a river: you can’t wish it away, but perhaps you can put a mill wheel in it. I don’t need a God to believe in the good. But people may need a God to do it. Is that deception? I think about it for a long time. If a lie brings people to love one another instead of exploiting each other… This thought stirs a certain unease in me.

The unease that something about this is wrong gnaws at me. And yet: it seems to me to be the only possibility in our world. The world resembles the world Moses lived in almost eerily. Everyone is preoccupied with surviving and serving. We have no time for explanations that would only lead to debates.

I’ve started planning. It’s strange, at over thirty years old, to have a plan for my life for the first time. And I notice that circumstances even play into my hands. There has always been whispering about my origins. I was born far away under mysterious circumstances. Certain dates don’t quite add up, and people like to do the math. My whole life, this whispering has been a shame. But it could also be a foundation. If no one is certain whose son I am, then I am… God’s son. Oh my… yes, thinking that feels wrong. It’s outrageous. It would cause tremendous offense and outrage. But it’s probably exactly what’s needed. They’re already talking about me anyway. Maybe I should steer the narrative.

Now something has happened that occupies me more than this plan. A few days ago I was with the woman next door, who is said to be possessed. She screams at night, trembles, speaks incoherently. Everyone avoids her. I don’t know what moved me, but I sat down with her. Simply present, listening. She spoke of her dead child, of a loveless but violent home, and of the constant fear and grief eating away at her. I said almost nothing. When I left, she was calmer. We met again yesterday. Today she’s even calmer. Some are now saying I drove out the demon.

It troubles me that people think I drove out a demon. Maybe I did? But I don’t believe in demons. There is exactly as little evidence of them as there is of a God, for me. But there are people whom no one listens to. So I think much of what is called illness and possession is loneliness, fear, despair. Much seems more curable than thought. Not with miracles, but with time and compassion.

But it becomes clear to me: if people want to call it a miracle, I should let them. The miracle serves the plan. The listening serves the people. Both are true.

Now everyone is suddenly talking about a John, the Baptist at the Jordan. From what I hear, he seems to hold similar views to mine. And the crowds are flocking to him. He baptizes, he preaches, and has a great deal of attention. I think I should seek him out too. Should I simply let him baptize me?

Today, in the evening, I sought out John and spoke with him. My goal was to gauge the situation—or rather, his character. I felt an immediate, deep connection to him and his nature. He himself made some critical remarks about faith itself, criticizing how it is used above all for oppression. So the truth suddenly burst out of me. I should have lied to him, was my first thought. I told him about my planned narrative and how I had already brought a person or two on board—perhaps with the lie, perhaps with the true message. I told him I wasn’t doing it for myself, but for what could be achieved with it. I expected anger or mockery. Instead, he was silent for a long time and finally said: “I would never call myself the Messiah. Because I fear too much for my life. I believe what you’re doing is playing with fire.” But he smiled as he said these words. “If I’m honest, I’ve actually been waiting for someone like you. I believe the world is waiting for someone like you.”

We now plan together. It begins with a baptism before a large crowd, where I will remain inconspicuous. But John will loudly pick me out of the crowd, calling me the one he had been waiting for. We discuss where I should appear, when, before whom.

The baptism was some time ago now, and the desired effect has indeed set in. We’re still discussing what kind of miracles might be shown. It sounds cynical, I know. But honestly, it doesn’t feel cynical. For the first time in my life, I feel like my hands are building something other than tables. And I see it too in the behavior of the people who understand our message. We are not many, but we do much good.

Months passed, John and I go our separate ways as the narrative requires. And I now have a close circle of people who also believe in the goal: twelve people who travel with me and believe the message, but also the lie. We are met by ever larger groups of interested people. I preach what I truly believe. The strangest thing is that I almost never have to lie. Love your neighbor; be aware of your own sins; know your privileges and use them for good; question your wealth. I’ve only borrowed the framework—the God, the Father in Heaven.

But I must also be honest with myself: it’s too few. Yes, a few hundred people have listened to us and said they too wish to pursue our goals. But will they truly internalize the message? Will they carry it forward? In this land, no one even knows my face. In every place we must practically start from scratch. We Thirteen will be old before anything comes of this. If we even live to see it. I don’t want to die like Moses at the mountaintop, without reaching the goal.

This problem has truly occupied me for a long time now, and I have a plan. It is risky already. John’s words creep into my mind. But I also believe it’s necessary. Attention doesn’t come to those who simply preach. Attention comes to those who are persecuted. If I were arrested, everyone would know my name. And I’m certain many would consider an arrest unjust. After all, I haven’t done anything illegal. I’ve only spoken of love. Fine, I also call myself the Son of God. But what would the punishment for blasphemy even be? Perhaps lashes, perhaps imprisonment. They will have to release me eventually, since I’ve committed no crime under Roman law. The injustice of my arrest will preach louder than I ever could. The risk is calculable, I’m sure of it. It is calculable.

We’ve been in Jerusalem for a few days now. Passover is approaching and the city is boiling, the Romans are on edge, the temple council too. Today I put on a small show in the temple: I overturned the tables of the money changers and condemned them loudly. Oh, what that stirred up! They’re talking about me, and they don’t like me. Not at all. I threaten their system. But they don’t know who I am. We’re about to change that now.

It wasn’t a difficult decision, whom I would choose for the hardest task. I know my Twelve so well, so intimately. So this afternoon I took Judas aside. He is the only one I can ask this of, and the only one I trust to do it. His task was simple but, for someone close to me, incredibly difficult: he must betray me and hand me over to the guards. Naturally, he refused. He wept and begged me not to make him do it. My compassion for him was so strong, yet I had to follow my conviction. “My Father in Heaven protects me, it’s part of the plan. Just as he protected us crossing the sea.” I feel terrible for this lie, spoken into his tear-streaked face. It feels so wrong. I would have loved to tell him the whole truth. But what would that have accomplished? Might he have betrayed me out of anger instead? I don’t want to lose a friend.

Tonight I ate with the Twelve. I broke bread and shared wine, and oh, I know them all so well. Peter swore to me today that he would die with me. Peter, the loud, big, faithful Peter. At every storm on the lake, he was the first to cry out. I laughed and said, prophetically: before the rooster crows, you will have denied me several times. He was appalled. But he doesn’t know what is about to happen. That wasn’t a prophecy, just simple knowledge of human nature. But we’ll see—maybe he’ll surprise me when it comes down to it. I also don’t want them to be arrested with me. The movement needs them out there, not locked up.

We’re heading into the garden soon. I’m nervous—no, I’m afraid. But no one may notice. It’s only an arrest. Nothing will happen to me, and in a few days I’ll be free, and they will know not only my name and my face, but also my message.

Here comes Judas.

Now comes the interrogation, yet something is happening that I don’t understand.

I can’t believe this. Something has gone terribly wrong. I completely misjudged what they’re after. Because what they desire is an example. That I did nothing wrong was entirely irrelevant. But it’s not even about me at all. It’s about the system they must protect, because they profit from it. Of course I had considered this, but not that they would go so far as to sentence me to death. But of course, they must set an example. I am to become their warning sign: this is what awaits you if you open your mouth. The judge could have saved me, yet he too stands on the profiting side of the system. The crowd let itself be roused against me by a single voice. The judge looked away, just as…

I can’t go on. They force me to carry my own cross. They mock me. I can’t bear it. With every burning step I hope… for an uprising, for Peter with a sword, for a pardon, for anything, for anyone at all. But the people at the roadside just gawk at the spectacle. Some weep. No one does anything. Everyone looks away, just as I did back then.

I lie on the cross. The first blow. My consciousness, my life, everything drifts away. And the pain simply doesn’t stop. At some point I hear myself crying out for God’s help. Of course it doesn’t come. I didn’t even notice when they raised the cross. It was all for nothing. I have achieved almost nothing, except destroying Judas’s life. The delirium takes the pain from me, and everything slowly turns dark.

I have sacrificed my life for nothing.

Afterword

For some time, Jesus’s final thought did not correspond to the truth. After all, one of the greatest religions of our species emerged from his short period of activity. However it happened, the remaining eleven disciples decided not to let the movement die. Out of a failure, they made a martyr, and finally the Messiah. They may have paid people to play Jesus after his death. Here an apparition before the women, there the stranger on the road to Emmaus. Interestingly, the fact that he sometimes wasn’t immediately recognized didn’t even turn out to be a problem.

Without a God, the resurrection must have been their doing. Probably out of the deepest desire that this death not have been in vain. Especially since more people believed in his vision than just in him.

And yet the lies claimed their first victim in the shortest time. Judas could not go on living with what he had done. This lie, meant to protect him, became what broke him. He lost faith in everything and eventually took his own life.

Closing Remarks

tell the story this way because it works without a single miracle and still loses none of its power. One doesn’t need a God to be impressed by the life’s work of a person. A human being who recognizes the injustice of their time and uses everything to change it is impressive enough. Perhaps even more impressive without divine assistance.

And this Jesus was neither a politician nor a recognized religious leader. He was a simple craftsman who considered himself insignificant and powerless, perhaps even too old. These are feelings many of us know. Yet in the end, it took only eleven people who believed in this cause for something to emerge that has endured for two millennia. A few people are therefore not necessarily just a small force.

This is not a Christian text. Should there have been a historical Jesus, he had, among other things, exceptionally good approaches: radical love for one’s neighbor, solidarity with the weakest, criticism of money and power. Other religions have other prophets with other good and also similar approaches. I chose Jesus’s story because it is the one most familiar to me. But like so much else, his ideas too fell victim to hunger for power and later to capitalism. Churches became rich, powerful, and political. The opposite of what he probably stood for. Perhaps the Jesus of my interpretation was even right with his final thought.

But this is also not a criticism of believers. Faith can give one a great deal, and in the end none of us know what actually awaits us, or whether something or someone created us or protects us.

But it doesn’t matter what one believes. Because it makes no difference whether a story is true or invented. Whether someone has superpowers, was sent by God, or was just a carpenter with a plan. “Love thy neighbor” is not a great, important message only if the speaker is the Son of God. “With great power comes great responsibility” is worth no less just because it comes from a comic book.

Wisdom and insight can be drawn from anything: from sacred scripture just as much as from novels, films, songs, or paintings. Even from the smallest conversation on a bench with a stranger. What a story teaches us depends neither on whether it happened nor on what the author intended. Every person reads with their own life as the background, and what one finds there is real.

Even though I understand the motives for lying held by historical figures, I still don’t see it as a good solution. The Jesus of my story admired Moses for the ruse but failed to recognize that little good remained of Moses’s message either. A lie feels like a good tool. But it is a tool that can be used by all sides. By now we should be living in a world where people no longer need to be forced into their “happiness” through lies—especially in democracies. At the same time, it feels as though lies are still, in many places, a central catalyst for steering the masses—especially in democracies. It has simply proven effective. For good, yes, perhaps. But also for much bad. And especially for a great deal of unjust power structures.

Let’s change that.