It's a phrase bandied frequently in the early years of the last century and, for some, still true today.  It is this:  there is not one Jesus, but two.  There is the Jesus of history, and there is the Christ of faith.
     What does this mean?  At a conference a number of years ago, I met a young philosopher who, when I asked him why he had dismissed Jesus as having little to do with the belief system of the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, he replied, "Are you talking about the Jesus of history or the Christ of faith?"
     In other words, he meant that although we can talk about Jesus as a historical entity, we cannot know, precisely, who he was or what he did.  The gospel records, this narrative goes, are unreliable and therefore inadequate for determining who this man was.  Better, this narrative continues, to focus on belief.  Better to focus on what Jesus means to us today, what Jesus means to each of us in our life of faith with, we presume, God.  Don't worry, this narrative concludes, about what Jesus did in history; concentrate on what he is for you today.
     Without offering this person copious proofs of the historical veracity and reliability of the gospel accounts, I asked, "If we cannot know who Jesus was historically (or if he even lived at all), on what rational basis can we claim to find a meaningful faith in him?  We're grounding our present trust in a myth.  Billions of people live this way, of course, every moment of every day.  But it's not an honest way to live."
     If Jesus never lived, and if Jesus did not do what the gospels claim he did, there's no reason for us to believe in him.  There are enough myths floating around the world right now.  We hardly need another one.
     If you believe in Jesus--and I encourage you to strongly consider doing so--understand that you are believing in a person who really did live, die, and rise again.  You have ample historical support for your belief, you have more than sufficient rational basis for your trust in him.
     Take away the historical Jesus, however, and we are left with the observations of playwright Samuel Beckett that, "The greatest sin is that we are born."
     Belief, of any kind, no longer has point.