Jesus and Billy the Kid: a Strange, Blasphemous, Yet Totally True Comparison

These are the coincidences between Jesus the Christ and the Billy the Kid legend.

1. Both had an identifiable mother but a father of mysterious origins.

2. Both have a "title" for a name.

3. Both have a childhood shrouded in mystery wih no records to show where they were or what they did.

4. Jesus died at age 33. Billy the Kid died at age 21. 33 minus 21 is 12. Jesus had his first teaching and interraction with the Temple priests at age 12. Billy the Kid ran away from home forever at age 12, and legend says that he killed his first man at age 12.

5. Both have legends built up around their lives that people today still believe. (And with Jesus, there are many extra-Biblical legends).

6. Both were very charismatic.

7. Both had women of ill repute in their company.

8. Both were apparently single.

9. Both had a career of about 3 years.

10. Both were itinerant wanderers.

11. Both spent that career eating and sleeping in others' houses with no true home.

12. Both had scant records of their lives during their lives and in the years immediately afterwards, but both have sparked new studies and evidence of their lives in the 20th and 21st centuries.

13. Both have been viewed as having a heroic stance against the state on the side of the poor.

14. Both had a small band of followers.

15. Both have just one "photograph" of themselves, and each one is equally suspect.

16. Both apparently did things that shocked even their followers.

17. Both were said to be threats to the political existance of those in charge at the time and in that place.

18. Both came from a poor backwater society and had volumes written about them (the Kid is the most written-about American outlaw), both have a lot of movies about them (the Kid more than any other outlaw), and both are now household names around the world.

19. Both were passionately hated by many locals, yet eventually passionately received by much of the general public.

20. Both had special gifts. Jesus knew and taught esoteric Truths and Love and healed the sick, while the Kid had an uncommonly fast and accurate draw. (Okay, this one is stretching it).

21. Both were hunted by specific groups.

22. Both were betrayed by friends from within.

23. Both were tracked down and found at night.

24. Both were sentenced to death.

25. Both died young.

26. Both were killed by the state working for a specific powerful group.

27. Both died quicker than expected when executed.

28. Women who believed in them attended to the bodies of both.

29. Both had an uncommonly hasty burial.

30. The bodies of both were "lost" for a time (although we think we have the Kid's now).

31. Soon after the deaths of both, a controversy arose as many claimed to see each alive again.

32. Both had mentally disturbed individuals who claimed to be them long after they died.

33. Many seek to see their "true" graves today.

That's about it. The point? Just a fun way to show how the mind works when developing legends (and I believe there are common threads running through all legends) and drawing comparisons, even when the original people were totally different.

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