# Has anyone ever offered a theory that Jesus was nuts? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 6, 2004, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-offered-a-theory-that-jesus-was-nuts/263325 "2004-09-06T13:33:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2004, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-offered-a-theory-that-jesus-was-nuts/263325/21 "2004-09-06T21:11:25Z")
**OP** : > [@](#): > > If we assume he was just a human being, then Jesus’s belief that he was the son of God in a literal sense would make him a candidate for the looney bin. The key phrase being “in a literal sense”, I suppose? You believe he considered himself to be the son of God in a sense different from a less-literal sense in which “we are all children of the Most High” (Psalms 82, IIRC)? Umm, cite? Psalms 82 is how he defended his right to refer to himself as such when accused of trying to make himself a God. Feel free to develop the assertion that he really meant, as Chevy Chase would have put it, that he’s the son of God and you’re not. But I don’t accept as a “given” that he meant anything of the sort. ---
**Author:** ![Grimpen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/82dd89/32.png) [@Grimpen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grimpen)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2004, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-offered-a-theory-that-jesus-was-nuts/263325/22 "2004-09-06T22:33:13Z")
> [@Loopydude](#): > > In Matthew, Herod is said to have killed all the newborn boys in Bethlehem. Nobody else felt this was worthy of record? Probably not. Remember that this is Herod, of whom Augustus said “It’s safer to be Herod’s swine than his sons.” I’m not at all sure the death of a few dozen peasant babies would have seemed unusual enough to record… Another aspect of the question would be, that people often tend to overestimate - vastly - the amount of information we have about the Roman era. For some things, yes, we have lots. But to the best of my knowledge, there is only one literary reference to the destruction of Pompeii. That’s a whole town, including fancy villas, gone in one of the more lurid disasters of history. The census presents other problems, because there by accident we actually have a little evidence. An inscription mentions Quirinius, and helps suggest his dates. But in general, I think it’s helpful to bear in mind that we’re missing rather a lot of evidence for the era. Much of what survived, survived by accident. And lots of things which (from a later perspective) we would have been interested in, nobody ever wrote down at all. ---
**Author:** ![MelCthefirst](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eada6e/32.png) [@MelCthefirst](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MelCthefirst)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2004, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-offered-a-theory-that-jesus-was-nuts/263325/23 "2004-09-06T23:20:05Z")
> [@Wesley Clark](#): > > I thought about this several years ago and I looked at the bible and compared it to the symptoms of delusional schizophrenia. > > In one part it says Jesus is reading someone’s thoughts, which is a sign of schizophrenia (feeling you can read minds) > > Jesus also feels he communicates directly with god > > He underwent a major lifestyle transformation > > He felt compelled to do things he didn’t want to do > > He felt the fate of the world rested on his shoulders > > etc. > > Of course there is no telling how much of what was written was actually true or not or how many of these things have alternate explanations. In my wanderings of some psych wards, many schizophrenics carry around bibles! ---
**Author:** ![John\_Kentzel-Griffin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ccd318/32.png) [@John\_Kentzel-Griffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Kentzel-Griffin)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2004, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-offered-a-theory-that-jesus-was-nuts/263325/24 "2004-09-07T01:30:40Z")
The factual answer to “Has anyone ever offered a theory that Jesus was nuts?” is yes. If you want to debate whether he was nuts, open up a thread in Great Debates. This is closed. **DrMatrix** - GQ Moderator [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-offered-a-theory-that-jesus-was-nuts/263325.md?page=1)