Here is a reprint of a great article by a good Christian Apologist, In my opinion:"Paul Tillich, the noted existentialist theologian, traveled to Asia to hold conferences with various Buddhist thinkers. He was studying the significance of religious leaders to the movements they had engendered. Tillich asked a simple question. "What if by some fluke, the Buddha had never lived and turned out to be some sort of fabrication? What would be the implications for Buddhism?" Mind you, Tillich was concerned with the indispensability of the Buddha-not his authenticity.
The scholars did not hesitate to answer. If the Buddha was a myth, they said, it did not matter at all. Why? Because Buddhism should be judged as an abstract philosophy - as a system of living. Whether its concepts originated with the Buddha is irrelevant. (As an aside, I think that the Buddha himself would have concurred. Knowing that his death was imminent, he beseeched his followers not to focus on him but to remember his teachings. Not his life but his way of life was to be attended to and propagated.)
So, what of other world religions? Hinduism, as a conglomeration of thinkers and philosophies and gods, can certainly do without many of its deities. Some other major religions face the same predicament.
Is Christianity similar? Could God the Father have sent another instead of Jesus? May I say to you, and please hear me, that the answer is most categorically No. Jesus did not merely claim to be a prophet in a continuum of prophets. He is the unique Son of God, part of the very godhead that we call the Trinity. The apostle Paul says it this way: "[Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the originator of all creation. . . God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him." Jesus Himself prayed, "[Father], You have granted [me] authority over all people that [I] might give eternal life to all those you have given [me]. Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." (Footnote 1: John 17:2-3)
As many have observed, Christianity is Christ. Indeed Englishman John R.W. Stott writes, "If Jesus was not God in human flesh, Christianity is exploded. We are left with just another religion with some beautiful ideas and noble ethics; its unique distinction would then be gone." Jesus is the word and the incarnation". I like Ravi. The guy uses his head.