OK, I can’t answer that question in 300 words or less. Pope Benedict (when he was Cardinal Ratzinger) wrote “Jesus of Nazareth” and, while it’s an excellent work of scholarship and writing, doesn’t completely answer the question.
But in John (especially chapters 7-9) Jesus keeps saying things and the people can’t figure him out. He mysterious. Is he the Messiah? But he can’t be, he’s from Galilee. He talks about talking with (not to) the Father (God). Is he demon possessed? In other places, he’s the most compassionate human being ever known. In another, he makes a whip from cords lying about and drives flea-market merchants out of the Temple. Who the heck is he?
To this day, millions of people think he’s a prophet. The blind man he healed (see John 9) calls him such. Moses who was a great prophet who talked with God (and scared the people who didn’t think you should talk with God) said that after him would come a prophet greater than he.
There are many today who follow prophets. In Israel even in the hottest day, I saw Orthodox Jews wearing fur hats. Others wearing various types of fedoras tilted at different angles. Why, we asked? Because the teacher they follow dressed like that (maybe in Poland), and they want to imitate their teacher.
We don’t know what Jesus looked like. He never sat for a portrait (that’s an amusing thought–Jesus sitting still while some guy painted his picture). Our pictures of how he looked and how he dressed comes mostly from Renaissance European painters. If we want to imitate him, we’ll have to choose a different way.
One thing I’m sure of. That small community of followers for whom Jesus was real would never have grown to such power and size were it not for the resurrection. If he were just a teacher who died, there would never have been the power of the Spirit that changed the world forever. People didn’t figure him out (even his closest friends) until after the resurrection. That’s what makes Jesus different.
Faith Venture 
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