We know very little about the historical Jesus, since all our information comes from the texts of the New Testament, which were not primarily concerned with factual accuracy. (Karen Armstrong on p. 81 of The Case for God.)
In her view, Jesus, for reasons lost in history, was crucified by the Romans only to have his disciples have “visions” that convinced them he had been raised from the dead. (p. 82) The first Christians were, of course, thoroughly Jewish which she believes had no intentions of founding a new religion, though she admits they took the “highly unusual” step of converting gentiles. (p. 82) This eventually lead to Paul (and probably others) belief that the mixed Jewish and Gentile congregations were the first fruits of a “new Israel.” Using Midrashic techniques, these early Christians reinterpreted the Old Testament to contain prophecies — never originally intended — of a future redeemer who would be crucified and rise from the dead. She uses 1 Cor 1:23 to prove that these reinterpretations were often considered scandalous.
However, she asserts, “this was not simply a clever exercise in public relations. Jews had long realized that all religious discourse was basically interpretive. [Consistent with her view of the ancient God being a non-literal symbol of ‘being itself.’] They had always looked for new meaning in the ancient texts…” (p. 83) She backs this point of view up with Luke’s story of the disciples encountering Jesus on the road to Emmaus found in Luke 24:13-31. In this story, the mysterious man that turns out to be Jesus “[starts] with Moses… expounding ‘the full message’ of the prophets…” which causes the scriptures to be “opened” to them. This “opening” would bring them fresh new insight, though perhaps only for a moment – just as Jesus had vanished from them. (p. 84) She strongly emphasizes this story for another reason: it has Jesus vanishing in thin air which, to her, suggests a mere vision, not a bodily resurrection. [1] As Armstrong asserts throughout her whole book, “like any mythos, this would make no sense unless it was put into practice.”
Armstrong insists that the true and original message of Jesus was, just like ancient Hindu and Buddhist beliefs, really about (as she interprets in the ancient hymn recorded in Philippians 2:6-11) about ‘self-emptying.” In Armstrong’s view, Jesus certainly never intended to set Himself up as unique Son of God.
Even though Paul and the evangelists all called Jesus ‘son of God,’ they were not making divine claims for him. They would have been quite shocked by this idea. For Jews, a ‘Son of God’ was a perfectly normal human being who had been raised to special intimacy with God and had been given a divine mandate. …indeed, the scriptures saw all Israelites as the ‘sons of God’ in this sense. In the gospels, Jesus called God his ‘father,’ but he made it clear that God was the father of his disciples too.” (using Matt 7:11 as her proof text.) (p. 85)
Armstrong also believes that “no Jewish reader” would have understood the story of the virgin birth literally. She suggests, as proof of this, that the Hebrew bible is full of unusual conceptions as a motif. [2] And since only Matt and Luke mention the virgin birth, she deduces that “the other New Testament writers do not appear to have heard of it.” (p. 85-86)
If the virgin birth was only a means of figuratively suggesting the non-unique divine sonship of Jesus, it was not the only means. She points out that in Romans 1:4 that Paul believed (in her view anyhow) Jesus was not “‘designated’ the ‘son of God’ [until] his resurrection” [3] whereas Mark thought Jesus received his commission at his baptism being “‘adopted’ by Yahweh” at that event. (p. 86)
Armstrong’s view of Jesus miracles is that they ‘probably reflect the disciples’ understanding of these events after the resurrection apparitions.” (p. 89) She does not deny the existence of events that would have seen rather miraculous to the ancient pre-science era. Indeed, going to a priest instead of a healer given the poor quality of their healers.
Notes
[1] “This story [luke] also shows how the early Christians understood Jesus’ resurrection. They did not have a simplistic notion of his corpse walking out of the tomb. Henceforth, as Paul had made clear, they would no longer know Jesus “in the flesh” but would find him in one another, in scripture, and in the ritual meals they ate together.” (p. 84)
[2] For example, Isaac is born when Abraham was ninety.
[3] TT (a liberal scholar at FPR) made the same argument here.