The most interesting thing I’ve realized is that Jesus himself is portrayed as a pretty liberal, empathetic, merciful man of the people.
You are picking and choosing, which I don’t blame you for since everyone is doing that. The further you get in time the nicer he gets. The earliest writings have him send people to hell. It took about 4 centuries for the Adulteress story of John to be invented. Heck, the author of Luke flatout omitted verse of him yelling because it made Jesus look bad.
but if you just listen to Jesus himself (and not the people/organizations claiming to speak on his behalf), you could do worse.
Those don’t exist.
This raises the question of if Jesus actually existed, which I’ll happily avoid getting into.
You are picking and choosing, which I don’t blame you for since everyone is doing that. The further you get in time the nicer he gets. The earliest writings have him send people to hell. It took about 4 centuries for the Adulteress story of John to be invented. Heck, the author of Luke flatout omitted verse of him yelling because it made Jesus look bad.
Those don’t exist.
Probably didn’t.