Jesus is certainly far, far more influential than 2000 years ago. Christianity was an obscure religion and probably nobody had heard of Jesus outside the immediate region.
Parable of the sower comes to mind: hear the word, but did not follow it.
Except the popularity in that era was due to all the powerful people saying it proved their right to absolute power and sometimes made other religions (including denominations of Christianity) illegal, and popularity waned rapidly as it stopped being required.
Actually reading the bible is a big part of why I switched from Catholic to Wicca as a teen before deciding it was probably all ahistorical anyway.
As I understand it: Humans are complicated, as Jesus depicted them. They are both terminally weak and flawed, and there is also good and justice and mercy in them - the many angels of our natures. Jesus ministered to the weak and flawed, not the good and just, certainly not to the perfect. It's a message of love to people who sin, which is pretty much everyone; Jesus didn't expect differently. His message was to love the sinners and for the sinners to accept his love.
All human institutions are flawed and to a degree corrupt; they are run by sinners. I'm not defending the Catholic Church or any church or religion, my point is that if we throw out the good when there are flaws, major flaws, we are left with nothing. Not even ourselves.
You might want to reread the upthread context: I was discussing the role of humility “in concrete terms of actual people in terms of attracting a contemporary following” and distinguishing that form backward-looking regard (since we are comparing to how Trump is currently viewed, where we can see only the contemporary regard and not what future generations will think of him in retrospect.)
What has happened after the time of Jesus ministry with respect to the impact of works written about him is irrelevant.