)For instance being 'a child of Frya'is nothing moral, or elevating, or conditional, just a statement one is european kin, of a great mother. Ennobeling to know and work with, maybe. But not like "a child of God, or 'bride of Jesus". To me it is more relatable, matter of fact, grounding and clear. Similarly Abrahamists to budists to Shopenhauer detest reality and the world as evil from wich we need to elevate. I believe this is the core problem in western thought, this detachment, hypnosis and cerebral arrogance/paranoia.
Though I believe the manuscript to be real and even the text on Jesos as likely believed by the writer to be true, it could in my least charitable view be a selfagrandizing folkish tale to inoculate the children against tales of 'a cool relatable dude from the east'. So they would reply with'yeah we heard about him, he is a friend of us, he learned our ways, and told us not to trust or pay preachers'. This would not make the manuscript less real or authentic. It would be a bit dishonest, yes, the common language OLM is written in feels like it could be a tongue-in-cheek tall tale, and maybe this is the part the official authenticity-naysayers got their doubts from. Possibly also feeling discomfort from cognitive dissonance by engrained Christian thinking. (like OP seems to have?) Again, I don't believe that, since the tone overal seems descriptive of the general understanding among Fryas.
Also possible is what others pointed out, that a Krisna/Christ/Buda figure existed, after our OLM Buda as a school of (antipriesthood)thought, like 'Jesos's teachings', or as a tale of a saviorhero after 500BC in the eastern world up to the Mediteranean. Like many stories( Gilgamesh, Herakles)maybe inspired gurus(like Pythagoras, Mani, Paul the baptist),maybe even someone also called Jesus 'reincarnated' OLM's Buda.
My current view of Christianity is; all of it, stories and real events, got fitted together like a puzzle around this Jesus story with a bit of Judaism and west- and eastern pagan exo- and esotherics. An uberstory to rule them all, to ensure maximum interpretation, both by converts and priests, and smooth transition and melding of people familiar with these other stories and concepts. Open to insert Magi spells, construct ad hoc meaning and weight to very mundane purposes, as we see done in all Abrahamic religions. No reason to dismiss OLM, neither as historical nor as telling of a "true'/'better'religion. The filosofical truths of OLM or OLM's Buda are not depending on the historical truth of this sidestory, or the truth of any Jesus ever existing when- or wherever.
