Jesus was "The Buddha of Nazareth" for sure. His teachings and his life story are identical to that of the Buddha (500 years earlier). They just are a folk representation (i.e. hebrew) of the same elementary ideas.
As for the exact literal nature of his life and how it's expressed, I'm certain we can never actually say what he actually did in his lifetime.
If you want details about what possibly led to the rise of jesus and his teachings, I recommend looking at the creation of the roman silk road to the east and of the missionaries of Ashoka the Great (the first buddhist emperor of India). The foundations are clear and span hundreds of years prior to jesus' teachings.
Christianity is a folks expression of the elementary ideas of buddhism mixed with the approach of rome. There is nothing that jesus said that is in any way unique when cast in the light of the buddhist teachings available at the time. Even jesus' birth story and spiritual birth story (i.e. temptation in the desert) are identical to that of the buddha on many levels.
I don't think that its really all that important to know the exact facts about it. If people are hung up on reading the life of jesus as a newspaper report, they have much deeper problems that things like evidence can fix.
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