I've been reading "The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man" by Robert Price and he has often remarked that his writings are not to necessarily be adopted as truth but simply an alternative point of view for one to examine and spit out whatever bones one finds. I have learned a lot (and will continue to learn until I finish the book) but I cannot accept everything he has stated wholesale. He has helped me develop my thoughts quite a bit and this is sort of where I am at the moment:

Christ perhaps started off as a historical figure but is now lost completely in legend. During his time and after it, legends spread of his mighty works and words. These legends were simply rehashings of various mythologies well known to the contemporary audience (and such things still continue to happen today and are strikingly similar as Price’s book goes to show). This is an unfortunate aspect of humanity where a fish *this* big seems to grow to enormous lengths given enough time and the right people.

In a very quick space of time it was almost impossible to discern fact from fiction and a great wealth of tales were available to various writers. As time passed these writers began to write their gospels. They used the various stories available to them as it suited their agenda. Sometimes they modified them to fit their theology and other times they made up stories completely to function as device to further their theology and correct others.

As more time passed, the stories began taking on a greater and greater Christology in response to perhaps criticisms of pagan believers around them where Christ was magnified from a mere mortal, to demigod, to finally God incarnate. Revisions occurred over past documents and further documents were written to push forward this theology. Finally one point of view grew dominant and overtook the rest and dictated what were the canonical documents and what weren’t. And we know the story from there pretty much