# Did Jesus Christ have Asperger's? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 21, 2011, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-jesus-christ-have-aspergers/600388 "2011-10-21T19:40:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Enola\_Straight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dec6dc/32.png) [@Enola\_Straight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enola_Straight)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2011, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-jesus-christ-have-aspergers/600388/1 "2011-10-21T19:40:11Z")
Looking at this site…specifically Sherlock Holmes: > **[6 Beloved Characters That Had Undiagnosed Mental Illnesses](https://www.cracked.com/article_19336_6-beloved-characters-that-had-undiagnosed-mental-illnesses.html)** > > While these serious illnessess may be unintended, we would be remissed to not bring them up in the most immature fashion possible. It made me draw a conclousion…correctly or incorrectly…that most if not all savants have some degree of autism spectrum disorder. As a child, Christ was portrayed as being a prodigy, having a knowledge of scripture that astounded the temple elders. Could Christ been a high functioning autistic? ---
**Author:** ![PrettyVacant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/49beb7/32.png) [@PrettyVacant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PrettyVacant)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2011, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-jesus-christ-have-aspergers/600388/2 "2011-10-21T19:41:58Z")
No idea, but I’d guess whatever David Blane has, he had. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2011, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-jesus-christ-have-aspergers/600388/3 "2011-10-21T19:54:23Z")
Being a prodigy is not the same thing as being autistic, and diagnosing a historical person or fictional character is always going to be pretty dodgy. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2011, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-jesus-christ-have-aspergers/600388/4 "2011-10-21T20:10:49Z")
Well, here is a [list of the symptoms of autism](http://www.webmd.com/brain/autism/autism-symptoms). Jesus doesn’t seem to have demonstrated any of them. When Christ demonstrated His knowledge of Scripture, He was twelve years old - close to the age of His bar mitzvah. Being unusually knowledgeable about the Torah is not exactly evidence of being a savant, let alone being autistic in any form. Regards. Shodan ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2011, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-jesus-christ-have-aspergers/600388/5 "2011-10-21T20:34:05Z")
Jesus was exceptionally charismatic. I don’t think that is a typical attribute of autists. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2011, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-jesus-christ-have-aspergers/600388/6 "2011-10-21T20:41:07Z")
Well, let’s see… He had a narrow and intense interest in scripture and carpentry.\* Preferred to be in the presence of adults, rather than his peers. Really had trouble making friends. Strong fight or flight response. Confrontational only when provoked, but mostly a pacifist. Verbose. Not sure if he was considered awkward, but his disciples seemed to have a hard time figuring him out. Perhaps even tangential with his parables; could’ve taken a lot of work by his disciples to tease out what he was getting at. No way to know, though. Problems with stubbornness, non-compliance and authority. A strong tendency for structure and and routine. Contradictions: His empathy seemed off the charts. Dexterity was certainly not a problem. The dude could walk on water, and his slight of hand must’ve been way before his time. Loved to travel and roam, seeking out new people and experiences. Chaotic environments and crowds didn’t seem to bother him. Master of metaphor and allegory. \*And look where both of these got him. They nailed him to a crude structure of rough wood, because of his stubbornly prolific teaching of judaic heresy. Oh, the irony. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2011, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-jesus-christ-have-aspergers/600388/7 "2011-10-21T21:55:55Z")
[Definitely.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ass_Burgers) He sees the world clearly as shit, discovers even deeper and more disturbing truths, also discovers enlightening and inspiring truths but they’re, like, way off there, in the end He has to turn to drink to face it all and get out there knowing He’s just gonna suffer . . . ---
**Author:** ![Dan\_Norder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4af34b/32.png) [@Dan\_Norder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dan_Norder)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2011, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-jesus-christ-have-aspergers/600388/8 "2011-10-23T17:44:43Z")
Might as well be asking if Hercules was on steroids. Legendary characters have legendary attributes given to them to fit the nature of the story being told. Those details are driven by religious, philosophical and political needs, not real life. Jesus is a historical character like Robin Hood is historical: there may possibly have been somebody, somewhere that the stories were told about, but the only parts that made them famous were the stories that were lifted wholesale from myths and religious prophecies already told about other legendary characters and were often grafted onto the figure hundreds of years later. There were a lot of people calling themselves messiahs running around. Most likely none of them had Asperger’s, as the cult of personality thing falls apart if you don’t relate to people well. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_w](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/df705f/32.png) [@Rick\_w](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_w)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2015, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-jesus-christ-have-aspergers/600388/9 "2015-09-29T18:28:08Z")
Aspies’ world of logic and thought often is just as real as the sensory world and often more intellectually emotionally satisfying. This world is full of colors and pleasing logic and satisfying beaut,drama and conherence. It is free from self aggrandizement and bias. It is truth seeking. It seems that the kingdom of God that Jesus referred to was the world of ideal values that he created in his mind. He referred to the bread from heaven that truly satisfies. This is an autistic structure of absolute and near absolute ideals. His eyes and ears to hear threads seem to be like the amazement mental emotions aspies often get around water and nature. His beliefs on caring for the disenfranchised were radical at the time and even today. Just listen to Pope Francis. He spoke clearly that all people were completely missing the basis for all decent human morality. Aspies that are focused on social justice often have this extreme sense of combined mental and emotional empathy. He was extremely confident in his assessments and felt a direct connection to the spiritual consciousness we all know. It is apparent to me that when aspies simplify their core values to what seems totally defensible and they use their very wide associative horizons to accept the possibility of knowing the source of all awareness mentally, they end up talking a lot like Jesus. This doesn’t, of course, begin to verify the myths and supernatural claims that his followers ascribe to him. Certainly mystics the world over throughout history have claims of supernatural actions. Who knows how true these are. Probably something to them beyond wishful thinking. To me, most religious leaders and truth sayers seem autistic because of their dreamy intellectual emotions. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2015, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-jesus-christ-have-aspergers/600388/10 "2015-09-29T18:39:39Z")
> [@cmyk](#): > > Well, let’s see… > > He had a narrow and intense interest in scripture and carpentry.\* There is no evidence that he had a “narrow” interest in either of those. > [@](#): > > Preferred to be in the presence of adults, rather than his peers. There is almost nothing in the NT about his childhood, only 1 day. How you can draw conclusions from that is beyond me. > [@](#): > > Really had trouble making friends. Quite the opposite. People were drawn to him. > [@](#): > > Strong fight or flight response. Confrontational only when provoked, but mostly a pacifist. He got quite upset once. Hardly a pattern that could be called “strong”. > [@](#): > > Verbose. Not sure if he was considered awkward, but his disciples seemed to have a hard time figuring him out. Perhaps even tangential with his parables; could’ve taken a lot of work by his disciples to tease out what he was getting at. No way to know, though. If only he had been MORE verbose. He was a teacher and a Rabbi. Being difficult to understand (if he actually was) in not the same as being verbose. > [@](#): > > Problems with stubbornness, non-compliance and authority. Quite the opposite. He surrounded and never resisted arrest. > [@](#): > > A strong tendency for structure and and routine. What is your evidence for that? I’d say most everything I quoted here is either wrong or there is no evidence to back it up. ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2015, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-jesus-christ-have-aspergers/600388/11 "2015-09-29T18:53:04Z")
Probably not, but his dad definitely has [IED](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermittent_explosive_disorder) ---
**Author:** ![MrQwertyasd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@MrQwertyasd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrQwertyasd)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2015, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-jesus-christ-have-aspergers/600388/12 "2015-09-29T19:15:42Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Being a prodigy is not the same thing as being autistic, and diagnosing a historical person or fictional character is always going to be pretty dodgy. Is this true ? Are there people who can flip through a telephone book and memorise it without being autistic savants ? ---
**Author:** ![MrQwertyasd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@MrQwertyasd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrQwertyasd)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2015, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-jesus-christ-have-aspergers/600388/13 "2015-09-29T19:17:59Z")
> [@Dan\_Norder](#): > > Might as well be asking if Hercules was on steroids. Tribulus Terrestris - Hercules ate loads of that crap. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2015, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-jesus-christ-have-aspergers/600388/14 "2015-09-29T19:34:39Z")
> [@Dan\_Norder](#): > > Might as well be asking if Hercules was on steroids. This/what he said/QFT and whatever else We can project whatever we want upon almost everyone in myth and Scripture, as we usually tend to get at most a two-dimensional representation of the character, constrained to the point of the story. The biblical account is useless for any sort of diagnosis. ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2015, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-jesus-christ-have-aspergers/600388/15 "2015-09-29T20:22:06Z")
> [@PrettyVacant](#): > > No idea, but I’d guess whatever David Blane has, he had. A [smoking hot ex-girlfriend?](http://www.fashionmodeldirectory.com/models/alizee_guinochet/showphoto/208983/)