Jesus works immediately, chased by events, because he is without a real body

[Giuseppe]

7 Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the lake, and a large crowd from Galilee followed. 8 When they heard about all he was doing, many people came to him from Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, and the regions across the Jordan and around Tyre and Sidon. 9 Because of the crowd he told his disciples to have a small boat ready for him, to keep the people from crowding him. 10 For he had healed many, so that those with diseases were pushing forward to touch him. 11 Whenever the impure spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, “You are the Son of God.” 12 But he gave them strict orders not to tell others about him

(Mark 3:7-12)

It is too much evident here that Jesus doesn't want to be TOUCHED because otherwise the concrete risk is that the people will realize soon that he is without body.

This explain also why in Mcn Jesus enter immediately in a sinagogue to preach, after the descending to Capernaum. He has no time to waste.

[Giuseppe]

The same hurry is explained by Jesus himself by the enigmatic saying:

“Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”

Foxes and birds have a body. Jesus was without body hence he can’t place it nowhere.

[davidmartin]

If you want to feel Jesus didn't exist bodily, why not have him incarnating in various humans? There's plenty of candidates from Simon M, Dositheus, Paul, John the Baptist and on and on. Then, you'd be able to claim Celsus to back you up who complained about all the Christ individuals being promoted in his day
I mean, you could argue that 'Jesus' was just a favourite expected messiah name based on prophecy in Zachariah. Anyone 'the people' considered to be the messiah would then get called Jesus if the name was already there waiting for the person to arrive
Any messianic group based around a human embodiment of Christ would have a body and an earthly story to tell, it would work just fine
It wouldn't matter too much if a person called Jesus existed or not, so long as the spiritual essence was passed along to new believers
having said that, not just anyone could fill those shoes they would have to be a pretty unique individual who would have been loved by devoted disciples, as God's manifestation in human form or the nearest thing to it.

[Geocalyx]

Um... have you considered Jesus without a real body to be a hint that he never existed historically?
And the word became flesh and dwelt among men?

If you want to feel Jesus didn't exist bodily, why not have him incarnating in various humans?

Because you do not want to break your dominion over minds by leaving open the slightest possibility or precedent of having him suddenly incarnate in some random commoner in the future.

But our generation runs, because they do not even believe Christ lived.

I was sure Testimony of Truth contained this quote, but I guess it's from someplace else.

And he kissed my mouth. He took hold of me, saying, "My beloved! Behold, I shall reveal to you those things that (neither) the heavens nor their archons have known. Behold, I shall reveal to you those things that he did not know, he who boasted, "/I am God and/ there is no other except me. Am I not alive? Because I am a father, do I not have power for everything?" Behold, I shall reveal to you all (mysteries), my beloved. Understand and know them, that you may come forth just as I am. Behold, I shall reveal to you him who is hidden. But now, stretch out your hand. Now, take hold of me."

"And then I stretched out my hands and I did not find him as I thought. But afterward I heard him saying, "Understand and take hold of me." Then I understood, and I was afraid. And I was exceedingly joyful.

This is from the 2nd apocalypse of James. James was happy to understand that Jesus represents his mind, who is there with him all along, as the Savior turned out to be an incorporeal hallucination. Of course this is a normal NHL position - Jesus didn't exist, he was retconned into history. But then the same text also writes:

Once when I was sitting deliberating, he opened the door. That one whom you hated and persecuted came in to me. He said to me, "Hail, my brother; my brother, hail." As I raised my face to stare at him, mom said to me, "Do not be frightened, my son, because he said 'My brother' to you (sg.). For you two were nourished with this same milk. Because of this he calls me "My mother". For he is not a stranger to us. He is your step-brother /by your mom's milk/.

Again, he is a literal figment of the narrator's imagination here. He received the same milk he did (at the same time). Yet..he might not be a stranger to the authors of the NHC so to whom is he a stranger then?

.. a cult of men who believed in an alien God or a group of men who lost their minds by thinking they could have ever touched Jesus? Or both?

[davidmartin]

Um... have you considered Jesus without a real body to be a hint that he never existed historically?
And the word became flesh and dwelt among men?

My own position isn't quick to explain. I suspect a sucession of 'Christ bearers', ordinary people that had a certain mystical experience leading them to fulfill a certain spiritual role. If people chose to follow one or the other of them, or their own inner revelation so what? I'm ok with any of those. I can see Jesus as God incarnate in the flesh as well as from another angle that is how those people I mentioned would look like and actually be