@KaseiJin,
KaseiJin;152186 wrote:I'm thinking that it is very likely that no Juda ever kissed any Yeshua in the circumstances of which you are presenting. In that case, the general Christianity that became, is what would have happened anyway we look at it.
Now, if we were to ask what 'Christianity' might have come to look like in the event that Constatine had not (holding the general history to be correct) won that battle there, under that 'cross in the sky' (with diamonds....hee, hee, hee....sorry), we might have to do some hard thinking. It might have been stamped out by the yet to remain Roman empire after that.
7skullz,
I think KaseiJin's point here is that the story/myth of Judas betraying Jesus with a kiss is likely to be just that: a myth. As with most of the stories in the Bible, they are not meant to be understood literally, as a news report. The Bible is an amazing piece of literature; to take it as factual in nature would take away from the true meaning of the story, IMO.
I guess the point to your question, though, is,
what if Jesus had not been crucified and had lived on for some time as a prophet and teacher and died a natural death at the age of 87?
That is a very interesting question. Of course, Christianity would not be what it is without the resurrection story and the crucifixion story. It is central to the meaning of Christianity itself: you can be "resurrected" from your old life, full of sin and death, and pass into a "resurrected life" in Christ. So, I think my answer would be that Jesus would have fundamentally changed a branch of Judaism (which Christianity fundamentally is anyway) in a profound way, but that branch of Judaism would probably be more closely related to the core of Judaism than we know it as today. That's just my $.02.