Says something.

But I do think Jesus existed. He lived in the first century AD, and was a charismatic preacher and philosopher and was executed by the authorities because they saw him as a political threat, a potential, or even possibly a real, rebel. He had many followers, and after his death people remembered him enough that stories about him arose and were believed too. The stories were outrageous myths, of course, but were close enough to the real history of those times that I think his philosophy has survived in scripture pretty much as it was originally expressed.

And it survived because it was a good philosophy. Once you strip it of it tribal Jewish roots, it is quite revolutionary, actually. Everybody is equal, everybody is the same, and all you have to do to get to Paradise is be good to people and feel genuinely sorry for your sins. Of course, much of that philosophy was ignored by his followers through history, but enough survived to keep his religion popular, and growing.

I love these religious threads we have here in the Zone. I give my same little speech, Bowser tells us Jesus was a Communist, and Tom reminds us yet again how the Communists were shits.

I never read the novel but the TV production was excellent for 90s TV

It is actually a short story (novelette if you prefer) that was part of an Anthology undre the title Sandkings.

A complete pdf of the story is available online if anyone cares to read it.

His thesis was that Jesus didn’t exist and was invented later. There are a number of folks who make that argument, rather convincingly.