Didymus

Oh, yes you do. The very bedrock of Christianity is the notion that God became manifest on earth as a human being in the person of Jesus Christ. If Jesus didn't live, he certainly couldn't have suffered and died on the cross, could he? Without belief in a human Jesus, Christianity would be another religion entirely. Call it "Wordianity" or something, but wouldn't be Christianity.

Didymus

Gregg

Actually, this only became true when the Platonic notion of levels of heaven that become increasingly more "earth-like" the closer you got to the ground began fading from human consciousness. Ancient peoples were well able to conceive of gods and goddesses who were quite humanlike and could feel pain and even die. I was just reading the account of Inanna who went to attend the burial of a relative in the underworld. She puts on clothing, jewelry, makeup, but is forced to surrender these as she passes through the gates of the underworld. There she is killed, in a scene remarkably reminiscent of the passion of Jesus, and hung on a hook (then she is resurrected).

Christians could believe in a spiritual Jesus who underwent crucifixion in the firmament rather than on Earth, but this requires adopting a first-century cosmology.