If all we have is what other people said about Jesus, passed by word of mouth, how do we know anything at all? It's the same problem someone might have trying to understand the historical Baal Shem Tov, the supposed founder of Hasidism. In fact, Jesus is even more difficult. We have the writings of people who actually knew the Besht and records that account for his residence. The words of Jesus can also be understood as the words of other people that were put in his mouth.
How was he a man of great love and compassion when he was so harsh according to the texts to gentiles and so often slandered the Jews around him? When you pluck out the compassion you deny history.
What othar scholars are you talking about? One person referenced to about Jesus, as an outside scholar, is Josephus, but the only manuscript of his that records such information was in the hands of the Church. All of the others make no mention at all. If they doctored that text you can bet they doctored others. So saying that about lions is thinking with your wants instead of your mind, trying to fill a desire.
Constantine's conversion is a subject of contraversy.
quote:
The religion of Constantine the Great, while generally assumed to be Christian in view of his pro-Christian policies, is disputed.
Bronze coins struck for emperors often reveal details of their personal iconography. During the early part of Constantine's rule, representations first of Mars and then (from 310) of Apollo as Sun god consistently appear on the reverse of the coinage. Mars had been associated with the Tetrarchy, and Constantine's use of this symbolism served to emphasize the legitimacy of his rule. After his breach with his father's old colleague Maximian in 309-10, Constantine began to claim legitimate descent from the 3rd century emperor Claudius Gothicus, the hero of the Battle of Naissus. Gothicus had claimed the divine protection of Apollo-Sol. In 310 Constantine reportedly experienced a vision in which Apollo-Sol appeared to him with omens of success. Thereafter the reverses of his coinage were dominated for several years by his "companion, the unconquered Sol" -- the inscriptions read SOLI INVICTO COMITI. The depiction of his personal tutelary god represents Apollo with a solar halo, Helios-like, and the globe in his hands. According to a number of historians and researchers, this is the god Constantine embraced with the omen at the Milvian Bridge (the deity of this omen was not publicly identified at the time): a syncretic sun god, Sol Invictus, with relations to Mithraism, which had many common points with Christianity.
Another aspect of Constantine that might indicate an incomplete acceptance of Christianity (from a modern view) was his notorious cruelty: he executed his own wife and eldest son in 326 for unknown reasons. He also had Licinius, the East Roman emperor, strangled after his defeat, something he had publicly promised not to do.
endquote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantine_I_of_the_Roman_Empire
He was cruel and, although following a mystery religion, it may not have been Christianity. Church history, of course, would have you believe otherwise.
I never denied there weren't real Christians striving for an ideal that was at some time created. And some would argue faith over deeds, right?
