The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ by Philip Pullman is part of a series where various authors re-imagine well known myths. Pullman is best known as an atheist whose "bestselling His Dark Materials books, author Philip Pullman depicted the church as a corrupt and murderous bureaucracy and God as senile, frail and impotent." This book is if anything much more kind. It imagines Jesus had a twin (believed at birth to be the "Christ") who tries to institutionalize Jesus' ministry.
It is not some profound work, which is part of its charm. It is a fairly simple, straightforward telling -- many short chapters providing summaries of key events -- where even the high priest doesn't come off as totally a bad guy (he suggests exile for Jesus; no succor for Pilate, though). Jesus is in effect totally human here, though he believes himself a messenger (like John the Baptist) of a forthcoming Kingdom of God. He is impetuous, thinking the forthcoming kingdom so warrants (signs of this are in the actual gospels). He abhors the idea of some "church," allusions to corruption of the current one and wars fought in its name put in his mouth at one point. He in fact is quite distraught before being arrested, his love for humanity making his doubt of the presence and goodness of God that much more hurtful.
"Christ" in effect is a flawed man, the more human of the two in a sense, whose heart is basically in the right place. He is the campaign manager, who likes the message of the candidate, but isn't quite sure the people will accept it without some massaging, some "compromising." He also realizes the candidate is a bit reckless. He isn't wrong about this, nor is he unaware of the dangers of the compromising. But, the end result will be great ... he just knows it! The idea of a "twin," symbolically or actually has some history. See, e.g., here.
The author's true enemy is the church, the organized powers that be that will abuse its power. He uses a mysterious "stranger" to egg Christ on, to tell him that some higher "truth" is the important thing, even if the facts don't totally apply. I'm inclined to think the stranger is in effect a symbolic device for a force within Christ's mind. But, the good of the Church is not just a big lie. The difference here is the idea that there was an active fraud taking place, not that believers wanted to believe and was faithfully deluded. The story here is that they were helped, given something to believe in:
"Think of a sick man wracked with pain and fear. Think of a dying woman terrified by the coming darkness. there will be hands reaching out to comfort them and feed them and warm them."
I'm inclined to think things don't quite work that way though some very well might have went along with something like that in mind. Some of our Founding Fathers were not great believers, but did think religion was needed for a moral society. Again, this is not some novel idea. There are shades of Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor here. Also, the famous wager. In effect, the bet kept in place now is made into a type of parable itself, what was not so intentional shown to be more of a sort of somewhat benign (we never learn the true identity of the "stranger") conspiracy.*
The charm is that we are given a straightforward summary of the events of Jesus' life (if people are lead to re-examine the originals, including parables like this, all the better) plus the tortured Christ character, providing food for thought in a quick reading package.
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* The basic idea that the Church is a sort of image of the ideal kingdom, a still pretty good preparation of what we will experience only once we die was basically rejected by Jesus as "scented Greek rubbish." Like Thomas Paine, he loved and held remarkable what we have now, and feared the power of a Church controlled by elites. So, he would not go along with deluding the people, even for the higher good.
I find it dangerous as well. Once you go that route, the stopping point is unclear, and the deluded populace very well not only be deluded for good ends. Will the people not do good without such illusions? Seems possible, since so many have, including many who in some sense practice Christianity, but do not really believe much of what it tells us to believe.
And, some aspects of the story don't make much sense anyways, so very well might not be best even on that level.