| Name | Jesus of Nazareth |
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| Alt | Half-length portrait of younger man with shoulder-length hair and beard, with right hand raised over what appears to be a red flame. The upper background is gold. Around his head is a golden halo containing an equal-armed cross with three arms visible; the arms are decorated with ovals and squares. |
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| Caption | 20th-century stained glass work of Jesus at St. John the Baptist's Church in Ashfield, Australia. |
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| Language | Aramaic (perhaps some Hebrew, Koine Greek) |
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| Birth date | c. 5 BC/BCE |
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| Birth place | Bethlehem, Judea, Roman Empire (traditional); Nazareth, Galilee (modern critical scholarship) |
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| Death place | Calvary, Judea, Roman Empire (according to the New Testament, he rose on the third day after his death.) |
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| Death date | c. 30 AD/CE (aged 33-35) |
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| Death cause | Crucifixion |
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| Resting place | Traditionally and temporarily, a garden tomb in Jerusalem |
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| Ethnicity | Jewish |
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| Nationality | Israelite |
|---|
| Home town | Nazareth, Galilee, Roman Empire |
|---|
| Parents | Father: (Christian view) God through virginal conception;(Islamic view) virginal conception; |
|---|
Jesus of Nazareth (c. 5 BC/BCE – c. 30 AD/CE), also referred to as Jesus Christ or simply Jesus, is the central figure of Christianity. Most Christian denominations
venerate him as God the Son incarnated and believe that he rose from the dead after being crucified.
The principal sources of information regarding Jesus' life and teachings are the four canonical gospels. Most critical scholars believe that other parts of the New Testament are also useful for reconstructing Jesus' life; some scholars believe apocryphal texts such as the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel according to the Hebrews are also relevant.
Most critical historians agree that Jesus was a Jew who was regarded as a teacher and healer, that he was baptized by John the Baptist, and was crucified in Jerusalem on the orders of the Roman Prefect of Judaea, Pontius Pilate, on the charge of sedition against the Roman Empire. Critical Biblical scholars and historians have offered competing descriptions of Jesus as a self-described Messiah, as the leader of an apocalyptic movement, as an itinerant sage, as a charismatic healer, and as the founder of an independent religious movement. Most contemporary scholars of the Historical Jesus consider him to have been an independent, charismatic founder of a Jewish restoration movement, anticipating an imminent apocalypse.
Christians traditionally believe that Jesus was born of a virgin, arguing that he fulfilled many Messianic prophecies of the Old Testament. The majority of Christians worship Jesus as the incarnation of God the Son, one of three divine persons of a Trinity. A few Christian groups, however, reject Trinitarianism, wholly or partly, believing it to be non-scriptural.
Judaism rejects assertions that Jesus was the awaited Messiah, arguing that he did not fulfill the Messianic prophecies in the Tanakh. In Islam, Jesus (, commonly transliterated as ) is considered one of God's important prophets, a bringer of scripture, and the product of a virgin birth; but did not experience a crucifixion. Islam and the Baha'i Faith use the title "Messiah" for Jesus, but do not teach that he was God incarnate.
Etymology
"Jesus" () is a
transliteration, occurring in a number of languages and based on the Latin
Iesus, of the Greek (
), itself a
Hellenisation of the
Hebrew (
Yĕhōšuă‘,
Joshua) or Hebrew-
Aramaic (
Yēšûă‘), meaning "
Yahweh delivers (or rescues)".
"
Christ" () is a title derived from the Greek (
), meaning the "Anointed One", a translation of the Hebrew מָשִׁיחַ (
Messiah).
A "Messiah," in this context, is a king anointed at God's direction or with God's approval, and Christians identify Jesus as the one foretold by Hebrew prophets.
Chronology
, 1640]]
Possible year of birth
There is no contemporary historical evidence demonstrating the date of
Jesus' birth. The common
Gregorian calendar method for numbering years, in which the current year is , is based on an
early medieval attempt to count the years from a point of reference — namely, Jesus' birth — which
Dionysius Exiguus placed, either mistakenly or intentionally, sometime between 2 BC/BCE and 1 AD/CE. The
Gospel of Matthew states Jesus' birth occurred during the reign of
Herod the Great, who died in 4 BC/BCE, but also with the intimation that Jesus may have been as much as two years old when Herod ordered the
Massacre of the Innocents, and therefore that he may have been even older at the time of Herod's death. The
Gospel of Luke similarly points to Jesus' birth as having occurred during the reign of Herod the Great (
i.e., sometime between 37 and 4 BC/BCE), but the author of Luke also describes the birth as taking place during the
first census of the Roman provinces of
Syria and
Iudaea, which is generally believed to have occurred in 6 AD/CE. Most scholars generally assume a date of birth between 6 and 4 BC/BCE. Other scholars assume that Jesus was born sometime between 7—2
BC/
BCE and died sometime between 26—36
AD/
CE. Additional evidence uncovered in 1923 by archeologists digging in the ruins of a Roman Temple near Ankara, Turkey points to 8 BC based on descriptions of three empire-wide censuses, one of which occurred in 8 BC.
Christmas or Christmas Day is a holiday observed mostly on December 25 to commemorate the birth of Jesus. The earliest evidence of celebration of Jesus' birth comes from Clement of Alexandria, who describes Egyptian Christians as celebrating it on May 20, although other early sources have Christians celebrating the event in March, April, or January. According to Epiphaneus, Christians in the East had largely settled on January 6 by the 4th century. The wide-spread affiliation of Christmas with the Roman festival of Sol Invictus is disputable: there is no evidence that the feast of Sol Invictus was affixed by Aurelian to December 25. The celebration of Sol Invictus feast on December 25 is not mentioned until the calendar of 354 and, subsequently, in 362 by Julian the Apostate in his Oration to King Helios. However, there is no month of the year to which respectable authorities have not assigned Jesus' birth.
Ministry
Jesus' ministry, which according to the Gospel of Luke began when Jesus was "about 30 years of age", followed that of
John the Baptist, whose ministry is said to have begun "in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar", which would be about 28 or 29 AD/CE. According to the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus' ministry lasted approximately one year, whereas the
Gospel of John implies that his ministry may have lasted approximately three years. Thus, the earliest generally accepted date for the crucifixion is 29 AD/CE (
i.e., the 15th year of Tiberius' reign plus one year for Jesus' ministry), and the latest is 36 AD/CE (
i.e., the final year of Pontius Pilate's prefecture).
Possible year of death
All four canonical Gospels report that Jesus was crucified during the prefecture of Pontius Pilate, the Roman prefect who governed Judaea from 26 to 36 AD/CE. The late 1st century Jewish historian
Josephus, writing in
The Antiquities of the Jews (
c. 93 AD/CE), and the early 2nd century Roman historian
Tacitus, writing in
The Annals (
c. 116 AD/CE), also state that Pilate ordered the execution of Jesus, though each writer incorrectly gives him the title of "procurator" instead of prefect.
Most Christians commemorate the crucifixion on Good Friday and celebrate the resurrection on Easter Sunday.
Life and teachings as told in the Gospels
The four
canonical gospels,
Matthew,
Mark,
Luke, and
John, are the main sources for the biography of Jesus' life; nevertheless, these Gospels were written with the intention of glorifying Jesus and are not strictly biographical in nature. For example, the Gospels primarily characterize Jesus as the Messiah: he performs miracles and is often described as having a very close relationship to the Jewish God — the phrase "Son of God" is attributed to Jesus at least once in each Gospel. The Gospels (especially Matthew) present Jesus' birth, life, death and resurrection as fulfillment of
prophecies found in the Hebrew Bible (e.g., the
virgin birth, the
flight into Egypt, Immanuel from , and the
suffering servant). However, critical scholars find historical information about Jesus' life and ministry in the
synoptic gospels, while interpreting the miraculous and theological content in light of what is known of Jewish beliefs at the time.
Similarities and differences among the Gospels
Three of the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, are known as the synoptic Gospels because they display a high degree of similarity in content, narrative arrangement, language, and sentence and paragraph structures. These Gospels are also considered to share the same point of view. The fourth canonical Gospel, John, differs greatly from these three, as do the
Apocryphal gospels.
According to the two-source hypothesis, Mark was a source for Matthew and Luke, both of whom also independently used a now lost sayings source called the Q Gospel. Mark defined the sequence of events from Jesus' baptism to the empty tomb and included parables of the Kingdom of God.
Character of Jesus
Each gospel portrays Jesus' life and its meaning with different emphasis. The gospel of John is not a biography of Jesus but a theological presentation of him as the divine Logos. One modern scholar writes that to combine these four stories into one story is tantamount to creating a fifth story, one different from each original. The author describes the Logos in relation to God and the created order, declares that he "became flesh", and identifies him as Jesus Christ. According to the Fourth Gospel, Jesus Christ is God active in creation, in revelation (Light), and in redemption (Life). Jesus' earthly life was the Logos incarnate. The accounts in the two gospels are substantially different. Several explanations have been suggested (see
Genealogy of Jesus). The earliest recorded explanation is in the 3rd century by
Africanus, who argued that the discrepancy arose from a
levirate marriage in Jesus' ancentry. Such a marriage could have resulted in one ancestor having two "fathers", one legal and the other physical, and so making two branches in the genealogy. However, it has been traditional to assume that Luke's genealogy traces through Mary and Matthew's through Joseph since at least 1490.
Some contemporary scholars generally view the genealogies as theological constructs. More specifically, some have suggested that the author of Matthew wants to underscore the birth of a Messianic child of royal lineage. (Solomon is included in the list); whereas, in this interpretation, Luke's genealogy is priestly (e.g., it mentions Levi). Mary is mentioned in passing in the genealogy given by Matthew, but not in Luke's, while Matthew gives Jacob as Joseph's father and Luke says Joseph was the son of Heli. Both accounts, when read at face value, trace Jesus' line though his human father Joseph back to King David and from there to Abraham. These lists are identical between Abraham and David (except for one), but they differ almost completely between David and Joseph (having only Zerubbabel and Shealtiel in common).
Joseph, husband of Mary, appears in descriptions of Jesus' childhood. No mention, however, is made of Joseph during the ministry of Jesus. The New Testament books of Matthew, Mark, and Galatians tell of Jesus' relatives, including words sometimes translated as "brothers" and "sisters". Luke also mentions that Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist, was a "cousin" or "relative" of Mary, which would make John a distant cousin of Jesus.
Nativity and early life
, 17th century]]
While there are documents outside of the New Testament which are more or less contemporary with the
Historical Jesus, many shed no light on the more biographical aspects of his life. The main sources of Jesus himself that are available to modern scholars are the gospels.
Of the four Gospels, the Nativity (birth) is mentioned only in the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke. According to these accounts, Jesus was born to Joseph and Mary, his betrothed, in Bethlehem. Both support the doctrine of the Virgin Birth in which Jesus was miraculously conceived in his mother's womb by the Holy Spirit, when his mother was still a virgin.
In Luke, the angel Gabriel visits Mary to tell her that she was chosen to bear the Son of God. An order of Caesar Augustus had forced Mary and Joseph to leave their homes in Nazareth and travel to Bethlehem, the home of Joseph's ancestors, the house of David, for the Census of Quirinius. After Jesus' birth, the couple was forced to use a manger in place of a crib because of a shortage of accommodation. An angel announced Jesus' birth to shepherds who left their flocks to see the newborn child and who subsequently publicized what they had witnessed throughout the area (see The First Noël).
In Matthew, the "Wise Men" or "Magi" bring gifts to the young Jesus after following a star which they believe was a sign that the King of the Jews had been born. King Herod hears of Jesus' birth from the Wise Men and tries to kill him by massacring all the male children in Bethlehem under the age of two (the "massacre of the innocents"). The family flees to Egypt and remains there until Herod's death, whereupon they settle in Nazareth to avoid living under the authority of Herod's son and successor Archelaus.
Jesus' childhood home is identified as the town of Nazareth in Galilee. Except for Matthew's "flight into Egypt", and a short trip to Tyre and Sidon (in what is now Lebanon), the Gospels place all other events in Jesus' life in ancient Israel. However, infancy gospels began to appear around the beginning of the 2nd century.
In Mark, Jesus is called a tekton, usually understood to mean carpenter. Matthew says he was the son of a tekton.
Baptism and temptation
by
Francesco Trevisani]]
, 1854]]
All the gospels report that he had become known as a religious teacher by the time he had reached his 30's. Luke says Jesus was "about thirty years of age" when he was baptized. All three
synoptic Gospels describe the Baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist, an event which Biblical scholars describe as the beginning of Jesus' public ministry. According to these accounts, Jesus came to the
Jordan River where John the Baptist had been preaching and baptizing people in the crowd. After Jesus was baptized and rose from the water, Mark states Jesus "saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, 'You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.'"
Mark starts his narration with Jesus' baptism, specifying that it is a token of repentance and for forgiveness of sins. Matthew describes John as initially hesitant to comply with Jesus' request for John to baptize him, stating that it was Jesus who should baptize him. Jesus persisted, "It is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness". In Matthew, God's public dedication informs the reader that Jesus has become God's anointed ("Christ").
The Gospel of John does not describe Jesus' baptism, or the subsequent Temptation, but it does attest that Jesus is the very one about whom John the Baptist had been preaching—the Son of God. The Baptist twice declares Jesus to be the "Lamb of God", a term found nowhere else in the Gospels. John also emphasizes Jesus' superiority over John the Baptist. In the synoptics, Jesus speaks in parables and aphorisms, exorcises demons, champions the poor and oppressed, and teaches mainly about the Kingdom of God. In John, Jesus speaks in long discourses, with himself as the theme of his teaching. The Synoptic Gospels suggest a span of only one year. In the synoptics, Jesus' ministry takes place mainly in Galilee, until he travels to Jerusalem, where he cleanses the Temple and is executed. In John, his ministry in and around Jerusalem is more prominently described, cleansing the temple at his ministry's beginning.
In Mark, the disciples are strangely obtuse, failing to understand Jesus' deeds and parables. In Matthew, Jesus directs the apostles' mission only to those of the house of Israel, Luke places a special emphasis on the women who followed Jesus, such as Mary Magdalene.
Teachings and preachings
,illustration by
Carl Heinrich Bloch, 19th c.]]
In the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus speaks primarily about the Kingdom of God.
Some of Jesus' most famous teachings come from the Sermon on the Mount, which contains the Beatitudes and the Lord's Prayer. It is one of five collections of teachings in Matthew. During his sermons, he preached about service and humility, the forgiveness of sin, faith, turning the other cheek, love for one's enemies as well as friends, and the need to follow the spirit of the law in addition to the letter.
In the Synoptics, Jesus relays an apocalyptic vision of the end of days. He preaches that the end of the current world will come unexpectedly, and that he will return to judge the world, especially according to how they treated the vulnerable. He calls on his followers to be ever alert and faithful. In Mark, the Kingdom of God is a divine government that will appear by force within the lifetimes of his followers. The Transfiguration is a turning point in Jesus ministry.
In Mark, Jesus' identity as the Messiah is obscured (see Messianic secret). Mark states that "this generation" will be given no sign, while Matthew and Luke say they will be given no sign but the sign of Jonah. In John, and not in the synoptics, Jesus is outspoken about his divine identity and mission. Here Jesus uses the phrase "I am" in talking of himself in ways that designate God in the Hebrew Bible, a statement taken by some writers as claiming identity with God.
Arrest, trial, and death
, 1626.]]
In Jerusalem
According to the Synoptics, Jesus came with his followers to Jerusalem during the Passover festival where a large crowd came to meet him, shouting, "
Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the King of Israel!" Following his
triumphal entry, Jesus created a disturbance at
Herod's Temple by
overturning the tables of the moneychangers who set up shop there, and claiming that they had made the Temple a "den of robbers". Later that week, Jesus celebrated the
Passover meal with his disciples — an event subsequently known as the
Last Supper — in which he prophesied that he would be betrayed by one of his disciples, and would then be executed. In this ritual he took bread and wine in hand, saying: "this is my body which is given for you" and "this cup which is poured out for you is the New Covenant in my blood", and instructed them to "do this in
remembrance of me." Following the supper, Jesus and his disciples went to pray in the
Garden of Gethsemane.
In Mark and Matthew, Jesus is anguished in the face of his fate. He prays and accepts God's will, but his chosen disciples repeatedly fall asleep on the watch.
In John, Jesus has already cleansed the temple a few years before and has been preaching in Jerusalem. He raises Lazarus on the Sabbath, the act that finally gets Jewish leaders to plan his death.
(Behold the Man!) Pontius Pilate presents a scourged Jesus of Nazareth to onlookers. Illustration by Antonio Ciseri, 19th c.]]
Betrayal and arrest
While in the Garden, Jesus is
arrested by temple guards on the orders of the
Sanhedrin and the high priest,
Caiaphas. The arrest takes place clandestinely at night to avoid a riot, as Jesus is popular with the people at large.
Judas Iscariot, one of his apostles, betrays Jesus by identifying him to the guards with
a kiss. Simon Peter, another one of Jesus' apostles, uses a sword to attack one of Jesus' captors, cutting off his ear, which, according to Luke, Jesus immediately heals miraculously. Jesus rebukes the apostle, stating "all they that take the sword shall perish by the sword". After his arrest, Jesus' apostles go into hiding; Judas, distraught by his betrayal of Jesus, commits
suicide shortly after.
Trials before the Sanhedrin and Pilate
, painting by
D. Velázquez, 17th c.]]
Jesus affirms that he is the Messiah before the Sanhedrin,. The Jewish leaders turn him over to Pilate for execution, but Pilate is reluctant to execute Jesus. He asks God to forgive those who are crucifying him, possibly the Romans and possibly the Jews.
Resurrection and ascension
, illustration by
Matthias Grünewald, 16th c.]]
The Gospels state that Jesus
rose from the dead on Sunday. All the Gospels portray Jesus' empty tomb. In Matthew, an angel appears near the tomb of Jesus and announces his resurrection to
Mary Magdalene and "another Mary" who had arrived to
anoint the body. Jewish elders bribe the soldiers who had guarded the tomb to spread the rumor that Jesus' disciples took his body. In Luke, there are two angels and in Mark the angel appears as a youth dressed in white. The "
longer ending" to Mark, which is known as the
Markan Appendix and which did not form part of the original manuscripts, states that on the morning of his resurrection, Jesus first appeared to Mary Magdalene. John states that when Mary looked into the tomb, two angels asked her why she was crying; and as she turned round she initially failed to recognize Jesus until he spoke her name.
The Gospels all record appearances by Jesus, including an appearance to the eleven apostles. In Mark, Jesus appears to Mary Magdalene, to two disciples in the country, and to the eleven, at which point Jesus commissions them to announce the gospel, baptize, and work miracles.
In Mark and Luke, Jesus ascends to the heavens; after these appearances. In Luke, Jesus ascends on Easter Sunday evening when he is with his disciples. The name "Jesus" comes from an alternate spelling of the Latin (Iēsus) which in turn comes from the Greek name Iesous (). In the Septuagint, is used as the Greek version of the Hebrew name Yehoshua (, "God delivers" from Yeho — Yahweh [is] shua` — deliverance/rescue) in the Biblical book of the same name, usually Romanized as Joshua. Some scholars believe that one of these was likely the name that Jesus was known by during his lifetime by his peers. Thus, the name has been translated into English as "Joshua".
Christ (which started as a title, and has often been used as a name for Jesus) is an Anglicization of the Greek term χριστός, christos. In the Septuagint, this term is used as the translation of the , "Anointed One" in reference to priests, and kings and King Cyrus. In Isaiah and Jeremiah the word began to be applied to a future ideal king. The New Testament has some 500 uses of the word χριστός applied to Jesus, used either generically or in an absolute sense, namely as the Anointed One (the Messiah, the Christ). The Gospel of Mark has as its central point of its narrative Peter's confession of Jesus as the Messiah.
indicates that the strong belief that Jesus was the Messiah predates the letters of Paul the Apostle. These letters also show that the Messiah title was already beginning to be used as a name.
Some have suggested that other titles applied to Jesus in the New Testament had meanings in the 1st century quite different from those meanings ascribed today. Géza Vermes has argued that "Son of man" was not a title but rather the polite way in which people referred to themselves, i.e. a pronominal phrase. However, a number of New Testament scholars argue that Jesus himself made no claims to being God. Most Christians identified Jesus as divine from a very early period, although holding a variety of views as to what exactly this implied.
Other names and titles
"Son of David" is found elsewhere in Jewish tradition to refer to the heir to the throne.
Over the past two hundred years, these scholars have constructed a Jesus different in ways from the image found in the gospels.
Scholars of the "historical Jesus" distinguish their concept from the "Jesus Christ" of Christianity. Other scholars, however, hold that the figure presented in the gospels is the real Jesus and that his life and influence only make sense if the gospel stories are accurate.
The principal sources of information regarding Jesus' life and teachings are the four gospels. Scholars conclude the authors of the gospels wrote a few decades after Jesus' crucifixion (between 60-100AD), in some cases using sources (the author of Luke-Acts references this explicitly). A great majority of biblical scholars accept the historical existence of Jesus.
The English title of Albert Schweitzer's 1906 book, The Quest of the Historical Jesus, is a label for the post-Enlightenment effort to describe Jesus using critical historical methods. Since the end of the 18th century, scholars have examined the gospels and tried to formulate historical biographies of Jesus. The historical outlook on Jesus relies on critical analysis of the Bible, especially the gospels. Many Biblical scholars have sought to reconstruct Jesus' life in terms of the political, cultural, and religious crises and movements in late 2nd Temple Judaism and in Roman-occupied Palestine, including differences between Galilee and Judea, and between different sects such as the Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes and Zealots, and in terms of conflicts among Jews in the context of Roman occupation.
Descriptions
Historians of Christianity generally describe Jesus as a healer who preached the restoration of God's kingdom and agree he was baptized by John the Baptist and crucified by the Romans.
Baptism by John the Baptist
John the Baptist led a large apocalyptic movement. He demanded repentance and baptism. Jesus was baptized and later began his ministry. After John was executed, some of his followers apparently took Jesus as their new leader. Historians are nearly unanimous in accepting Jesus' baptism as a historical event.
Arrival of the Kingdom – Jesus taught about the Kingdom of God. He said that the age of the Kingdom had in some sense arrived, starting with the activity of John the Baptist. Scholars commonly surmise that Jesus' eschatology was apocalyptic, like John's.
Parables – Jesus taught in pithy parables and with striking images. His teaching was marked by hyperbole and unusual twists of phrase. that have great effects. Significantly, he never described the Kingdom in military terms. Associated with this main theme, Jesus taught that one should rely on prayer and expect prayer to be effective.
The Gospels report that Jesus foretold his own Passion, but the actions of the disciples suggest that it came as a surprise to them.
Jewish religious movements in Jesus' day
Scholars refer to the religious background of the early 1st century to better reconstruct Jesus' life. Some scholars identify him with one or another group.
Pharisees were a powerful force in 1st-century Judea. Early Christians shared several beliefs of the Pharisees, such as resurrection, retribution in the next world, angels, human freedom, and Divine Providence. After the fall of the Temple, the Pharisee outlook was established in Rabbinic Judaism. Some scholars speculate that Jesus was himself a Pharisee. In Jesus' day, the two main schools of thought among the Pharisees were the House of Hillel, which had been founded by the eminent Tanna, Hillel the Elder, and the House of Shammai. Jesus' assertion of hypocrisy may have been directed against the stricter members of the House of Shammai, although he also agreed with their teachings on divorce. Jesus also commented on the House of Hillel's teachings (Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 31a) concerning the greatest commandment and the Golden Rule. Historians do not know whether there were Pharisees in Galilee during Jesus' life, or what they would have been like.
Essenes were apocalyptic ascetics, one of the three (or four) major Jewish schools of the time, though they were not mentioned in the New Testament. Some scholars theorize that Jesus was an Essene, or close to them. Among these scholars is Pope Benedict XVI, who supposes in his book on Jesus that "it appears that not only John the Baptist, but possibly Jesus and his family as well, were close to the Qumran community."
Zealots were a revolutionary party opposed to Roman rule, one of those parties that, according to Josephus inspired the fanatical stand in Jerusalem that led to its destruction in the year 70 AD/CE. Luke identifies Simon, a disciple, as a "zealot", which might mean a member of the Zealot party (which would therefore have been already in existence in the lifetime of Jesus) or a zealous person.
Higher criticism and Christian scripture
Contemporary historians of Christianity use the historical-critical method (or higher criticism) to examine scripture for clues about the historical Jesus. They sort out sayings and events that are more likely to be genuine and use those to construct their portraits of Jesus. They use standard historical methods to discern who wrote each book, where and when they were written, what sources the authors used, what the authors' agendas were.
Biblical scholars hold that the works describing Jesus were initially communicated by oral tradition, and were not committed to writing until several decades after Jesus' crucifixion. After the original oral stories were written down in Greek, they were transcribed, and later translated into other languages. The books of the New Testament had mostly been written by 100 AD/CE, making them, at least the synoptic gospels, historically relevant. The Gospel tradition certainly preserves several fragments of Jesus' teaching. The Gospel of Mark is believed to have been written c. 70 AD/CE. Matthew is placed at being sometime after this date and Luke is thought to have been written between 70 and 100 AD/CE. According to the majority viewpoint, the gospels were written not by the evangelists identified by tradition but by non-eyewitnesses who worked with second-hand sources and who modified their accounts to suit their religious agendas. Sayings attributed to Jesus are deemed more likely to reflect his character when they are distinctive, vivid, paradoxical, surprising, and contrary to social and religious expectations, such as "Blessed are the poor". Short, memorable parables and aphorisms capable of being transmitted orally are also thought more likely to be authentic.
A minority of prominent scholars, such as J. A. T. Robinson, have maintained that the writers of the gospels of Matthew, Mark and John were either apostles and eyewitness to Jesus' ministry and death, or were close to those who had been. a few scholars have questioned the existence of Jesus as an actual historical figure. Among the proponents of non-historicity was Bruno Bauer in the 19th century. Non-historicity was somewhat influential in biblical studies during the early 20th century. The views of scholars who entirely rejected Jesus' historicity then were based on a suggested lack of eyewitnesses, a lack of direct archaeological evidence, the failure of certain ancient works to mention Jesus, and similarities early Christianity shared with then-contemporary religion and mythology.
More recently, arguments for non-historicity have been discussed by authors such as George Albert Wells and Robert M. Price, Earl Doherty, Timothy Freke, and Peter Gandy.
Classicist Michael Grant stated that standard historical criteria prevent one from rejecting the existence of a historical Jesus. Professor of Divinity James Dunn describes the mythical Jesus theory as a 'thoroughly dead thesis'.
Religious perspectives
By and large, the Jews of Jesus' day rejected his claim to be the Messiah, as do Jews today. For their part, Christian Church Fathers, Ecumenical Councils, Reformers, and others have written extensively about Jesus over the centuries. Christian sects and schisms have often been defined or characterized by competing descriptions of Jesus. Meanwhile, Gnostics, Mandaeans, Manichaeans, Muslims, Baha'is, and others have found prominent places for Jesus in their own religious accounts.
Christian views
Though
Christian views of Jesus vary, it is possible to describe a general majority Christian view by examining the similarities between specific Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and many Protestant doctrines found in their
catechetical or
confessional texts. Almost all Christian groups regard Jesus as the "Savior and
Redeemer", as the Messiah (Greek:
Christos; English: Christ) prophesied in the
Old Testament, who, through his life, death, and resurrection, restored humanity's communion with God in the blood of the
New Covenant. His death on a cross is understood as the redemptive sacrifice: the source of humanity's salvation and the atonement for
sin, which had
entered human history through the
sin of Adam. Christians profess that Jesus suffered death by
crucifixion, and rose bodily from the dead in the definitive miracle that foreshadows the
resurrection of humanity at the end of time, when Christ will come again to
judge the living and the dead, resulting in either entrance into heaven or damnation.
Christians profess Jesus to be the only Son of God, the Lord, and the eternal Word (which is a translation of the Greek Logos), who became man in the incarnation, so that those who believe in him might have eternal life. They further hold that he was born of the Virgin Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit in an event described as the miraculous virgin birth or incarnation.
A nearly universal belief within Christianity is that the Godhead is triune ("Trinity"). As the ancient Athanasian Creed is worded, the Trinity is "one God" and "three persons... and yet they are not three Gods, but one God." The doctrine of the Trinity has been rejected by many non-Christians throughout its history. They teach that Jesus is a separate and distinct being from God the Father and the Holy Spirit, and that Biblical references to the Father and the Son being one do not indicate a unity of being. While most of these groups refer to themselves as Christian, they are not generally accepted by Mainline Protestants and more conservative denominations because of the extra-biblical and unorthodox teachings of these groups. Some religious groups that do not accept the doctrine of the Trinity include The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), Unitarianism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Oneness Pentecostals, Sabbatarian Churches of God and the Christadelphians. (See also Nontrinitarianism)
Benedict XVI, in his book, Jesus of Nazareth, readily and gratefully acknowledges that, thanks to historical-critical scholarship, we know much more, today, about the different literary genres of the Bible; about the ways in which a Gospel writer's intent affected his portrait of Jesus; about the theological struggles within early Christianity that shaped a particular Christian community's memory of its Lord. The difficulty, according to Benedict XVI, is that, "amidst all the knowledge gained in the biblical dissecting room, the Jesus of the Gospels has tended to disappear, to be replaced by a given scholar's reconstruction from the bits and pieces left on the dissecting room floor." And that makes what Benedict calls "intimate friendship with Jesus" much more difficult, not just for scholars, but for everyone.
Jewish views
Judaism, including Orthodox Judaism, Hareidi Judaism, Reform Judaism, and Conservative Judaism, holds the view Jesus is not the Messiah, arguing that he had not fulfilled the Messianic prophecies in the Tanakh nor embodied the personal qualifications of the Messiah. According to Jewish tradition, there were no more prophets after Malachi, who lived centuries before Jesus and delivered his prophesies about 420 BC/BCE. Judaism states that Jesus did not fulfill the requirements set by the Torah to prove that he was a prophet. Even if Jesus had produced such a sign that Judaism recognized, Judaism states that no prophet or dreamer can contradict the laws already stated in the Torah, which Jesus did.
The Babylonian Talmud and Toledot Yeshu include stories of Yeshu . This name is etymologically unconnected to the Hebrew or Aramaic words for Joshua, and many religious Jews read it as the acronym for Yimakh sh'mo u'shem zikhro (meaning "be his name and memory erased"), an expression used to describe deceased enemies. Historians agree that these narratives do not refer to a historical Jesus. Historians disagree as to whether these stories represent a Jewish comment on and reaction against the Christian Jesus, or refer to someone unconnected to Jesus.
The Mishneh Torah (an authoritative work of Jewish law) states in Hilkhot Melakhim 11:10–12 that Jesus is a "stumbling block" who makes "the majority of the world err to serve a divinity besides God".
Because, is there a greater stumbling-block than this one? So that all of the prophets spoke that the Messiah redeems Israel, and saves them, and gathers their banished ones, and strengthens their commandments. And this one caused (nations) to destroy Israel by sword, and to scatter their remnant, and to humiliate them, and to exchange the Torah, and to make the majority of the world err to serve a divinity besides God. However, the thoughts of the Creator of the world — there is no force in a human to attain them because our ways are not God's ways, and our thoughts not God's thoughts. And all these things of Jesus the Nazarene, and of (Muhammad) the Ishmaelite who stood after him — there is no (purpose) but to straighten out the way for the King Messiah, and to restore all the world to serve God together. So that it is said, "Because then I will turn toward the nations (giving them) a clear lip, to call all of them in the name of God and to serve God (shoulder to shoulder as) one shoulder." Look how all the world already becomes full of the things of the Messiah, and the things of the Torah, and the things of the commandments! And these things spread among the far islands and among the many nations uncircumcised of heart.}}
According to Conservative Judaism, Jews who believe Jesus is the Messiah have "crossed the line out of the Jewish community". Reform Judaism, the modern progressive movement, states "For us in the Jewish community anyone who claims that Jesus is their savior is no longer a Jew and is an apostate".
According to Geza Vermes, the historical Jesus was a Jew in good standing. Modern Jews, he says, would find the historical Jesus an appealing figure, one quite different from the Christ of the Gospels.
Islamic views
Mainstream Islam considers Jesus an ordinary man who, like other prophets, had been divinely chosen to spread God's message. Jesus is seen in Islam as a precursor to Muhammad, and is believed by Muslims to have foretold the latter's coming. According to the Qur'an, believed by Muslims to be God's final revelation, Jesus was born to Mary (Arabic: Maryam) as the result of virginal conception, and was given the ability to perform miracles. However, Islam rejects historians assertions that Jesus was crucified by the Romans, instead claiming that he had been raised alive up to heaven. Islamic traditions narrate that he will return to earth near the day of judgement to restore justice and defeat al-Masīḥ ad-Dajjāl (lit. "the false Messiah", also known as the Antichrist) and the enemies of Islam. As a just ruler, Jesus will then die.
Ahmadiyya views
The
Ahmadiyya Movement considers Jesus a mortal man who died a natural death. According to the early 20th century writings of
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (the founder of the Ahmadiyya movement) , Jesus survived his ordeal on the cross, and after his apparent death and resurrection, he fled Palestine and migrated eastwards to further teach the gospels. Jesus eventually died a natural death of old age in India –
Kashmir - and is believed to be buried at
Roza Bal.
Although the view of Jesus having migrated to India has also been researched in the publications of independent historians with no affiliation to the movement, the Ahmadiyya Movement are the only religious organization to adopt these views as a characteristic of their faith. The general notion of Jesus in India is older than the foundation of the movement, and is discussed at length by Grönbold and Klatt.
The movement also interprets the second coming of Christ prophesied in various religious texts would be that of a person "similar to Jesus" (mathīl-i ʿIsā). Thus, Ahmadi's consider that the founder of the movement and his prophetical character and teachings were representative of Jesus and subsequently a fulfillment of this prophecy.
Bahá'í views
The
Bahá'í Faith, founded in 19th-century
Persia, considers Jesus, along with
Muhammad, the
Buddha,
Krishna, and
Zoroaster, and other messengers of the great religions of the world to be
Manifestations of God (or
prophets), with both human and divine stations.
God is one and has manifested himself to humanity through several historic Messengers. Bahá'ís refer to this concept as Progressive Revelation, which means that God's will is revealed to mankind progressively as mankind matures and is better able to comprehend the purpose of God in creating humanity. In this view, God's word is revealed through a series of messengers: Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, Bahá'u'lláh (the founder of the Bahá'í Faith) among them. In the Book of Certitude, Bahá'u'lláh claims that these messengers have a two natures: divine and human. Examining their divine nature, they are more or less the same being. However, when examining their human nature, they are individual, with distinct personality. For example, when Jesus says "I and my Father are one", Bahá'ís take this quite literally, but specifically with respect to his nature as a Manifestation. When Jesus conversely stated "...And the Father himself, which hath sent me, hath borne witness of me", Bahá'ís see this as a simple reference to the individuality of Jesus. This divine nature, according to Bahá'u'lláh, means that any Manifestation of God can be said to be the return of a previous Manifestation, though Bahá'ís also believe that some Manifestations with specific missions return with a "new name". and a different, or expanded purpose. Bahá'ís believe that Bahá'u'lláh is, in both respects, the return of Jesus.
Buddhist views
Buddhists' views of Jesus differ. Some
Buddhists, including
Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama regard Jesus as a
bodhisattva who dedicated his life to the welfare of human beings. The 14th century Zen master
Gasan Jōseki indicated that the sayings of Jesus in the Gospels were written by an enlightened man.
Other views
Mandaeanism, a very small Mideastern, Gnostic sect that reveres
John the Baptist as God's greatest prophet, regards Jesus as a false prophet of the false Jewish god of the Old Testament,
Adonai, and likewise rejects
Abraham,
Moses, and
Muhammad.
Manichaeism accepted Jesus as a prophet, along with Gautama Buddha and Zoroaster.
The New Age movement entertains a wide variety of views on Jesus. The creators of A Course In Miracles claim to trance-channel his spirit. However, the New Age movement generally teaches that Christhood is something that all may attain. Theosophists, from whom many New Age teachings originated (a Theosophist named Alice A. Bailey invented the term New Age), refer to Jesus of Nazareth as the Master Jesus and believe he had previous incarnations.
Many writers emphasize Jesus' moral teachings. Garry Wills argues that Jesus' ethics are distinct from those usually taught by Christianity. The Jesus Seminar portrays Jesus as an itinerant preacher who taught peace and love, rights for women and respect for children, and who spoke out against the hypocrisy of religious leaders and the rich. Thomas Jefferson, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States and a deist, created the Jefferson Bible entitled "The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth" that included only Jesus' ethical teachings because he did not believe in Jesus' divinity or any of the other supernatural aspects of the Bible.
See also
New Testament Jesus
* Biblical Jesus
* Christian views about women
* Christian views of Jesus
* Crucifixion of Jesus and Resurrection of Jesus
* Miracles of Jesus
* Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament
* King of kings
* Race of Jesus
* Sermon on the Mount
Jesus and history
* Apostolic Succession of Jesus
* Christian apologetics
* Genealogy of Jesus
* Gospel Harmony
* Historicity of Jesus
* Historicity of the Gospels
* Jesus and comparative mythology
* New Testament view on Jesus' life
General topics
* Christian mythology
* INRI (stands for "Jesus the Nazarene, the King of the Jews")
* Nazarene
Views on Jesus
* Apocrypha
* Christology
* Pauline Christianity
* Religious perspectives on Jesus
* Sexuality of Jesus
Related lists
* List of books about Jesus
* List of founders of major religions
* List of Messiah claimants
* List of people who have been considered deities
* List of people who have claimed to be Jesus
Notes
References
The Bible
Allison, Dale. Jesus of Nazareth: Millenarian Prophet. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1999. ISBN 0-8006-3144-7
Brown, Raymond E. An Introduction to the New Testament. New York: Doubleday, 1997. ISBN 0-385-24767-2
Cohen, Shaye J.D.. From the Maccabees to the Mishnah. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1987. ISBN 978-0-664-21911-6
Cohen, Shaye J.D. The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001. ISBN 0-520-22693-3
Crossan, John Dominic.
* The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant. New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1993. ISBN 0-06-061629-6
* Who Killed Jesus?: exposing the roots of anti-semitism in the Gospel story of the death of Jesus. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1995. ISBN 978-0-06-061671-7
Davenport, Guy; and Urrutia, Benjamin (trans.) The Logia of Yeshua: The sayings of Jesus. Washington, DC: Counterpoint, 1996. ISBN 978-1-887178-70-9
De La Potterie, Ignace. The hour of Jesus: The passion and the resurrection of Jesus according to John. New York: Alba House, 1989. ISBN 978-0-8189-0575-9
Durant, Will. Caesar and Christ. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1944. ISBN 0-671-11500-6
Ehrman, Bart. The Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. ISBN 0-19-514183-0
Ehrman, Bart. The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. ISBN 0-19-515462-2
Fredriksen, Paula. Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews: A Jewish Life and the Emergence of Christianity. New York: Vintage, 2000. ISBN 0-679-76746-0
Fredriksen, Paula. From Jesus to Christ: The origins of the New Testament images of Christ. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000. ISBN 978-0-300-08457-3
Finegan, Jack. Handbook of Biblical Chronology, revised ed. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1998. ISBN 1-56563-143-9
Fuller, Reginald H., The Foundations of New Testament Christology. New York: Scribners, 1965. ISBN 0-227-17075-X
Meier, John P., , New York: Anchor Doubleday,
: V. 1,
The Roots of the Problem and the Person, 1991. ISBN 0-385-26425-9
: V. 2,
Mentor, Message, and Miracles, 1994. ISBN 0-385-46992-6
: V. 3,
Companions and Competitors, 2001. ISBN 0-385-46993-4
O'Collins, Gerald. Interpreting Jesus. "Introducing Catholic theology". London: G. Chapman; Ramsey, NJ: Paulist Press, 1983. ISBN 978-0-8091-2572-2
Pelikan, Jaroslav. Jesus Through the Centuries: His Place in the History of Culture. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-300-07987-7
Robinson, John A. T. Redating the New Testament. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2001 (original 1977). ISBN 1-57910-527-0.
Sanders, E.P. The Historical Figure of Jesus. London: Allen Lane Penguin Press, 1993. ISBN 978-0-7139-9059-1
Sanders, E.P. Jesus and Judaism. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1987. ISBN 0-8006-2061-5
Vermes, Géza. Jesus in his Jewish Context. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2003. ISBN 0-8006-3623-6
Vermes, Géza. Jesus the Jew: A Historian's Reading of the Gospels. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1981. ISBN 0-8006-1443-7
Vermes, Géza. The Religion of Jesus the Jew. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1993. ISBN 0-8006-2797-0
Wilson, A.N. Jesus. London: Pimlico, 2003. ISBN 0-7126-0697-1
Wright, N.T. Jesus and the Victory of God. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1997. ISBN 0-8006-2682-6
Wright, N.T. The Resurrection of the Son of God: Christian Origins and the Question of God. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2003. ISBN 0-8006-2679-6
External links
Complete Sayings of Jesus Christ In Parallel Latin & English
"Jesus Christ." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2009. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 12 Nov. 2009
From Jesus to Christ: The First Christians — Frontline documentary about Jesus' life and the early Church.
The Jewish Roman World of Jesus
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