Like the rainbow bumper sticker, people get what they want to out of a symbol. For instance, here is a random sampling of statements held to be true at one time or another by passionate believers in Jesus the Christ.

Jesus is a space man

In his book 'God Drives A Flying Saucer', published in the 1970s, author R.L. Dione used the Old and New Testaments to "prove" that God was an alien buzzing around in a flying saucer above his son (who was, of course, the product of other-worldly artificial insemination).

Jesus was the front man for the operation, shunning high-tech gadgetry in order not to scare the locals. "It seems doubtful," wrote Dione, "whether Jesus carried with him any saucerian devices, such as paralysing ray guns or mind-reading and brain-manipulating machines. It would have been far simpler, when the occasion demanded, to have a nearby UFO perform these tasks."

Jesus survived the Crucifixion

Not in itself a theologically controversial assertion, except when applied to the period immediately after the Crucifixion. In her 1995 book 'Jesus of the Apocalypse', theologian Barbara Thiering makes the claim that the New Testament proves that Jesus did not die on the cross.

"Above all," she wrote, "the Book of Revelation contains evidence ... that Jesus survived the crucifixion and remained active for many years afterwards."

Jesus was a drunkard. Terrible news for the Temperance League, but apparently true, according to respected historian A.N. Wilson in his 1993 biography 'Jesus'.

Wilson's research led him to conclude that the historical Jesus was a man of very healthy appetites.

"He is described in the Gospels as a glutton and a wine-bibber," he noted, "(and) certainly no ascetic."

Jesus lived In Britain

The 19th century philosophy of British-Israelism held that the Poms were the lost tribes of Israel. Believers claimed that Jesus visited England several times in the company of Joseph of Arimathaea.

He was said to be particularly fond of the Somerset village of Glastonbury.

Oddly, this theory received a reworking in 'The Marian Conspiracy', a book written last year by UK author and lecturer Graham Phillips.

Phillips attempts to prove that Jesus built a church on the island of Anglesey that later provided a cosy retirement home for the elderly Virgin Mary.

Jesus is a woman

In the 18th century, a Manchester Quaker, Ann Lee, was put in prison for disturbing the peace. When she was released, she claimed that she had been visited by Jesus, who had "become one with her in form and person".

Some of her Quaker colleagues pronounced her the female Christ.

Ms Lee and her mates later sailed to America, where they founded the Shaker movement. Later generations of Shakers came to doubt their founder's claims of divinity -- mainly because she died.

Jesus was a woman

According to British biochemist Anthony Harris, who is formerly of Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, and Kings College in London. The evidence, he says, lies in records dating back to the Inquisition.

According to the records, Harris explains, Cathar relics found in the preceptory of Villeneuve, France, included a hinged casket shaped like a woman's head. Reportedly within the casket were two pieces of a female skull labeled CAPUT LVIII. The Cathari had claimed to possess Christ's flesh and blood, and as far as Harris is concerned, Caput LVIII was the skull.

Harris wrote a book called The Sacred Virgin and the Holy Whore (Sphere Books, London). In it, he claims that Jesus - whom he calls Yeshu, a variation on Jesus' Hebrew name - suffered from Turner's syndrome, a form of degeneration of the gonads. Women with this condition are short, with wide chests but have undeveloped breasts and overgrowths of small blood vessels in the skin. An absence of menstrual bleeding is another symptom.

In her agony in Gethsemane, says Harris, Yeshu literally sweated blood. Because she knew she was about to be arrested and crucified, her capillaries burst under intense blood pressure, while the powerful beating of her heart and her high adrenaline levels combined to cause blood to flow.

Jesus is commander-in-chief

Jesus as the bringer of peace was nowhere to be seen in 11th century Europe, when warrior saints were venerated and the faithful crusaders set out to massacre non-believers.

In her 1993 book, 'A History God', theologian and former nun, Karen Armstrong noted that Jesus was seen as the feudal lord of the crusaders rather than the incarnate, Logos: he had summoned his knights to recover his patrimony -- the Holy Land -- from the infidels".

Clearly, the figure of Jesus can be all things to all people, and one person's blasphemy is another's devotion.

People often ask whether Jesus will return to earth.

The more pertinent question is whether anyone would recognise Jesus if s/he did.

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