"We can know more about the lives of many ancient Caesars and many modern prize fighters than we can know about the life of Jesus of Nazareth." (Encyclopaedia Britannica 1973). We have the four gospels (which may well be faulty translations of corrupted sources) and no other original sources accepted as definitive by believers. It is therefore open to anyone to speculate what he may have been like as a person. Equally, it is true that firm conclusions about him, as a person, are very hard to draw.

The same uncertainties are not present in considering the teachings attributed to him. These are contained in statements written by the gospel authors (and 'passed on' by the selectors and translators) and would remain there in print to be examined even if the gospels were wholly fictional stories and Jesus a wholly fictitious character into whose mouth ideas were put by his creators.

Although most scholars accept that Jesus is a genuine historical figure, comparatively little of Christian teaching depends upon Jesus having actually lived as a human being; indeed his disciples were charged with carrying on after his departure. If it were proved conclusively that Jesus never existed the pious would not be deterred for very long. If his main teaching goes on without him it could as well have started without him. His, just possibly, being a fictional character in the first place need not make any difference to the value of the utterances attributed to him or to the myriad interpretations that can be placed upon them.

More or less serious theological considerations and shallow sentimental propaganda about him are both current. What, from reading the gospels, simply as stories, can we infer about the character, Jesus, and what questions can properly be asked in the light both of what is contained therein and of what has happened, or not happened, since. There are many statements attributed to Jesus which throw flashes of light on his personality and the result is a picture of a complex and not very lovable person. Indeed he emerges as a typical example of what we can describe as a prickly high-minded domineering enthusiast rather than as a gently persuasive guide.

Apart from the question of liking the Jesus who steps out of the pages of the gospels, the question of trust in him is all-important for believers. Christian faith is based upon such trust, not upon arguments about historical authenticity and any Christian who feels this trust to be slipping away senses trouble.

Jesus did not claim to be 'a nice chap' and it is no detraction from the act of trusting him to say that, in many ways, he seems to have been rather hard to take. The main question is - can we accept his status at the believers' valuation?

The essential claim is that Jesus came as God Incarnate as the fulfilment of an ancient prophesy, a happening foretold in the scriptures. The foretelling and the fulfilment are presented as supporting each other's authenticity and there is often a hint of circular argument in the way believers seem to see this. The prophesy has turned out right so it was genuine; the outcome is what Christians say it is because the prophesy, which is genuine, said it would be.

In view of the whiff of circular argument in this matter, perhaps it would be as well to consider foretelling the future as a general possibility.

Suppose I, ERIC STOCKTON in 1999, foretell that there will be a major earthquake in Italy around about the year 2140 and that many people will be killed by it. Suppose that, when 2140 comes round, it actually happens. People at that time, and presumably thereafter, would have two opinions open to them: 1) that ES was really able to foretell the event or 2) ES was unable to do so but got it right by chance (if enough people foretell enough events then some of them are bound to turn out right).

Now suppose, instead, that in 1999 ES foretells, that in about the year 2140 a woman will come to public notice as the Reincarnation of Joan of Arc and that in 2140 a woman claiming just that does indeed appear on the public scene.

Clearly the two possible opinions already mentioned would be on offer - ES did foretell the event accurately or he got it right by chance. But in this second, Joan of Arc, prediction there can be a third possibility - that the woman is not genuinely the Reincarnation of Joan. Perhaps she has heard of the prophesy and decided to act the part; perhaps other people may have heard of the prophesy and put her up to it; perhaps she allowed herself to be persuaded, genuinely but mistakenly, that she was the authentic reincarnation of Joan.

The fact of an earthquake causing many deaths, or the fact of no such earthquake, speaks for itself. People in Italy in 2140 cannot pretend that there is a major earthquake when there is not; those people cannot pretend that there is not such an earthquake when there is one. The genuineness of a major earthquake, or its absence, is not in doubt at the time or afterwards. The genuineness of a claim to be Joan Reincarnate is less obviously confirmed (or exposed as false as the case may be). It will be a matter not of observable fact but of acceptable belief.

The possibility arises 'Was Jesus a genuine fulfilment of the prophesy or was he a fake who had perhaps been put up to it by others?' The twin facts, that the prophesy was made and the claim as to its fulfilment was made, do not settle the question one way or the other. They may be mutually supporting nonsenses.

During the several days (according to Luke) when the boy Jesus gave his parents the slip and stayed in town, discussing serious matters with learned people, he MIGHT have been told about the old prophesy and perhaps half-jokingly advised "You are a bright lad - suppose you are the fulfilment of that ancient prophet's words?" (We have no authority for supposing that April 1st gags are of modern invention.)

The con-trick theory of the supposed divinity of Jesus has to be examined. It cannot, of course, be proved after this lapse of time; all the possible witnesses and direct evidence are long since lost. But since, as the encyclopaedia says, we can know so little we might try guessing. That, after all, is what believers do much of the time. To pull off a con trick (possibly one that involves self-deception as well as the deception of others) you must have huge confidence in yourself and you must have accomplices as well as dupes.

Jesus certainly had plenty of self-confidence. As a boy, when retrieved by his parents from his discussions with the learned men in Jerusalem, he gave no feeble shame-faced excuse, no childish plea of ignorance, no complaint that THEY had lost HIM carelessly rather than HIS having evaded THEM. He simply said that he was about "his Father's business". That may be what he gleaned from those days of discussion. Where else did he learn about his 'Father' as distinct from his Dad, Joseph? This could be a mighty whopper from a precocious youth - a big one is more likely to be believed than a small one.

Later on, if Matthew and Mark are to believed, he displayed the same supreme self-importance when he induced the fishermen to drop everything at a moment's notice and follow him. Many parents would be horrified by such precipitate response to a plausible stranger especially when it involves deserting a family business. Margaret Thatcher would not have run out on her father in like circumstances; she would have clobbered the stranger with her handbag and given him an earful of 'family values'!! Again, there are other assertions of self-importance - "there is no way to the Father but by me" and the like. Where this leaves all the good people BC who wrote the Law, that Jesus started from, we may well wonder! There are repeated threats of eternal torment in store for people who question his authority. There is the harsh brush-off of Peter on the occasion of Jesus anticipating his own death. Peter says something like "surely not yet, that would be terrible." The instant reply is a dismissive put down ("stumbling block" and "satan" are words quoted) of the poor fellow who had, only seconds before, been fulsomely described by Jesus as the "rock" upon which the future would be built.

What are we to make of the reported last words of Jesus? According to Mark and Matthew (now thought to have been in that chronological order) his last words were "My God why hast thou forsaken me?" This very human reaction, to an agonising imminent death, is consistent with the disillusionment of one who has been kidding himself or perhaps of a con man who realises that the game is up; it is scarcely the sublime utterance of God Incarnate speaking his last words with his human voice to snatch spiritual victory from the jaws of bodily defeat.

Luke evidently saw the incongruity of God Incarnate, in his extremity, making so truly pitiful a statement. Luke (who tried, on his own testimony, to write up the already confused stories about Jesus in a coherent and, he thought, definitive way) reports the last words as being altogether different, altogether more appropriate to a divinity undergoing sacrificial temporary death, on our behalf, as a prelude to resurrection and ascent to the right hand of God. Luke attributes to Jesus the most sefless utterance reported of a human voice - "Forgive them Father; they know not what they do." The words reported by Mark and Matthew were perhaps not suited to Luke's purposes. Whether Luke is a more reliable reporter than Mark and Matthew or whether he, Luke, is a party to a continuing con trick and making the last words ring true to the divinity of Jesus - we do not know.

When you come to think of it, Luke's version of the recruitment of the fishermen to discipleship is much more flattering to the Christian position than are those of Mark and Matthew. The two latter simply present the fishermen as credulous men responding instantly to a commanding stranger. Luke has it that Jesus establishes some sort of credibility in their eyes by telling them to try once more after a fruitless night's fishing. They do try again and they succeed. This version portrays Jesus as much more followable and the fishermen as far more rational than do the other two accounts. Luke has been described as "beloved physician". It is at least arguable that he was a tireless spin-doctor.

So the hypothesis that Jesus was a deceiver or a self-deceiver about his true status, and that Luke was an accessory after the fact writing up the life of Jesus in flattering terms, begins to take shape if you let it.

But it is the lame anti-climax of the conflicting accounts of the bodily resurrection that add most weight to the self-deluded or the con man theories about Jesus. If such an event as a miraculous bodily resurrection had occurred then it would have been a truly gigantic turning point in human life. Historically, there seems to have been no such turning point at the time of Jesus and the years immediately following his ministry.

The world went on much as usual. His reported bodily resurrection is represented briefly in the gospels as a passing and furtive affair directly concerning a tiny number of people. It is not described in any of the gospels as the huge public event that it would have been had it really happened. One would have expected perhaps to read that the resurrected Jesus re-mounted the donkey and ridden again into Jerusalem saying - in the best King James's English - to the effect that "You crucified me last Friday and here I am back again. Pick the bones out of that, you sceptics." The Second Coming - which might well have authenticated the whole of the preceding stories has simply not happened.

The only 'turning point' we have had since the time of Jesus was somewhat more than a thousand years later - the emergence of the modern world. The Renaissance, the rise of Europe and the scientific revolution have more to do with the decline of institutional Christianity than they have with its reputed 'Good News'.

The deception (or self deception) theory of Jesus cannot be proved but it cannot be disproved. We are hasty indeed to try to build moral order in our lives by taking Christianity at its own valuation. Ultimately we cannot really trust the Jesus of popular, or sophisticated, religion, or the stories about him, even though many of the utterances attributed to him are of undeniable value.