If Jesus wasn’t the Christ as He claimed to be, then who was he?
It’s hard to answer this kind of question, because you come into it with a set of assumptions that I think are very different from mine. Maybe it would be easier for you to understand if I changed the name. Say a Moslem were to ask you, “If Mohammed wasn’t a prophet as he claimed to be, then who was he?” Probably you would be a little puzzled and think to yourself: “In his religion, Mohammed is central, but in mine, he has no real importance. I have a whole system of thought, of how to understand the world, and Mohammed doesn’t play a role in it at all.”
I will mention one thing, though. It says in Deuteronomy 13(1-6) that there will be people who come along (performing real signs and miracles!), who try to tell us to do other than just what it says in the Torah. Miracles can be very impressive. Therefore, G-d gave us a special section of the Torah to stress the point, to warn us: Never listen to such things. G-d knows what he’s doing. He’s sending you the true Torah, via Moses our teacher, exactly what he wants done. Don’t vary from it in any way. G-d is perfect, and his Torah is perfect; it doesn’t need fixing.
How does one know whom to believe? How can one know that this religion is true or that one? Maybe we should believe the later prophet – who says that his prophecy is less true or convincing than Moses’ own?
The truth is that the question is really backwards. Miracles don’t mean anything. Signs and wonders are not enough to know the truth. Lots of prophets of many religions have come and gone. They can’t all be true – they all contradict each other! They all claimed miracles, and maybe they really could do them. The world is a complicated place, after all; none of us really understands all of what goes on in it. Logically speaking, we should not listen to any of them. Why should we take someone’s word for it on the most important questions of our lives? Why should we take Moses’ word, or Mohammed’s word, or Jesus’ word, or Joseph Smith’s, or Buddha’s? We wouldn’t make someone pay a penny in court on that kind of testimony! It’s an insult to G-d’s infinite intelligence, and to ours, to suggest that he would try such a stunt. The Master of the Universe can do better than that.
G-d did do better. He didn’t just send a prophet to join a crowd of claimants. He arranged that the nation who would serve him would all know for sure. He wanted a relationship with us – so he spoke to us directly. The children of Israel weren’t all ready to be prophets, but he gave them all the gift of prophecy anyway at Mount Sinai. It almost killed them. They begged him afterwards: Please – never do this again! But they knew from personal experience and personal relationship; G-d showed them in the only way that counts that Moses was his true prophet. This is why Moses is called the Father of all Prophets. From then on, any prophet who comes along is only believed by attachment to Moses’ prophecy.
You said in your background information that you’re Jewish by blood, not by religion. I don’t know about your level of education, but you should know that you’re completely Jewish. We are not a proselytizing religion; G-d has different goals for different nations, but G-d certainly needs every Jew to be doing his or her job according to his holy Torah. There is no more joyous or rewarding way to live than by doing his will. I hope you’ll think about the reasons that you believe what you do, and try to sort out what G-d really wants from you, according to what he actually told us. As I promised, I didn’t talk about Jesus at all, but I hope I’ve answered your question anyhow.
Best wishes,
Michoel Reach