Jesus

• 1. Historical Existence And Sources

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  Virtually all modern scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed historically. This consensus stands firm despite the challenge posed by the Gospels, which are not biographies in the modern sense. The authors explain Jesus's theological significance and recount his public ministry while omitting many details of his life. James Dunn has argued that the accounts of his teachings and life were initially conserved by oral transmission, which was the source of the written Gospels. The reports of supernatural events associated with Jesus's death and resurrection make the challenge even more difficult for historians. Scholars regard the Gospels as compromised sources because the writers were trying to glorify Jesus. Ed Sanders argues that surviving textual sources provide more reliable details for Jesus's thoughts than they do for the thoughts of Alexander the Great. Biographies written about Alexander the Great during his own lifetime have all been lost, but are known of through references in biographies written by later authors. Although the texts about Jesus contain ideas from both Jesus and his later followers, it is possible to distinguish which parts originate from Jesus's own view. Early non-Christian sources that attest to the historical existence of Jesus include the works of the historians Josephus and Tacitus. Josephus scholar Louis Feldman has stated that few have doubted the genuineness of Josephus's reference to Jesus in book 20 of the Antiquities of the Jews. Tacitus referred to Christ and his execution by Pilate in book 15 of his work Annals. Scholars generally consider Tacitus's reference to the execution of Jesus to be both authentic and of historical value as an independent Roman source.

• 2. Genealogy And Nativity Narratives

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  In Matthew 1, Joseph traces Jesus's ancestry to Abraham through David, while Luke traces Jesus's ancestry through Adam to God. The lists are identical between Abraham and David but differ markedly from that point onward. Matthew has 27 generations from David to Joseph, whereas Luke has 42, with almost no overlap between the names on the two lists. In Matthew 1:19, 20, Joseph is troubled because Mary, his betrothed, is pregnant. An angel appears to him in a dream and assures him not to be afraid to take Mary as his wife because her child was conceived by the Holy Spirit. In Luke 1:31, 38, Mary learns from the angel Gabriel that she will conceive and bear a child called Jesus through the action of the Holy Spirit. When Mary is due to give birth, she and Joseph travel from Nazareth to Joseph's ancestral home in Bethlehem to register in the census ordered by Caesar Augustus. While there, Mary gives birth to Jesus, and they find no room in the inn. She places the newborn in a manger. An angel announces the birth to a group of shepherds, who go to Bethlehem to see Jesus and subsequently spread the news abroad. In Matthew 2:1, 12, wise men or Magi from the East bring gifts to the young Jesus as the King of the Jews. They find him in a house in Bethlehem. Herod the Great hears of Jesus's birth and orders the killings of male infants in Bethlehem and its surroundings. An angel warns Joseph in his second dream, and the family flees to Egypt before returning and settling in Nazareth.

• 3. Public Ministry And Teachings

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  In Galilee, north of Judea, Jesus conducts a largely successful ministry where he preaches throughout the region. In Matthew 4:18, 20, his first disciples encounter him and begin to follow him after leaving their nets and boats. This period includes the Sermon on the Mount, one of Jesus's major discourses, as well as the calming of the storm and the feeding of the 5,000. Approximately 30 parables constitute about one-third of Jesus's recorded teachings. The parables appear both within longer sermons and at various other places in the narrative. When asked what the greatest commandment is, Jesus replies: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. He also says that a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. In the Synoptics, Jesus teaches extensively, often in parables, about the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom is portrayed as both imminent and already present in Jesus's ministry. He promises inclusion in the Kingdom for those who accept his message. In John 7:16, Jesus says, My teaching is not mine but his who sent me. He reiterates this in John 14:10: Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works.

• 4. Passion Week And Crucifixion

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  In the Synoptic Gospels, the final week in Jerusalem concludes the journey through Perea and Judea that Jesus began in Galilee. Jesus enters Jerusalem riding a young donkey, evoking the motif of the Messiah's donkey from the Book of Zechariah. As he proceeds, people spread cloaks and small branches of trees on the road before him and chant lines from Psalm 118:25, 26. Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve apostles, secretly strikes a bargain with the Jewish elders, agreeing to betray Jesus to them for 30 silver coins. In Bethany, a village near Jerusalem, Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead. This potent sign increases the tension with authorities, who conspire to kill him. During the Last Supper, Jesus takes bread, breaks it, and gives it to the disciples, saying, This is my body, which is given for you. He then has them all drink from a cup, saying, This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood. In Luke 22:34, Jesus predicts that Peter will deny knowledge of him three times before the cock crows the next morning. In John 18:1, 11, Roman soldiers and Temple guards arrest Jesus. They do not pray to be spared his crucifixion as the gospel portrays him as scarcely touched by such human weakness. The people who arrest him are Roman soldiers and Temple guards. Instead of being betrayed by a kiss, Jesus proclaims his identity, and when he does, the soldiers and officers fall to the ground.

• 5. Resurrection And Early Church Formation

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  In the four Gospels, Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb on Sunday morning, alone or with one or several other women. The tomb is empty, with the stone rolled away, and there are one or two angels, depending on the accounts. In Mark 16:9 and John 20:14, 17, Jesus first reveals himself to Mary Magdalene along with the other Mary in Matthew 28:9. In Luke 24:36, 43, he eats and shows them his tangible wounds to prove that he is not a spirit. He also shows them to Thomas to end his doubts, in John 20:24, 29. In the Acts of the Apostles, forty days after the Resurrection, as the disciples look on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. After Jesus's life, his followers were all Jews either by birth or conversion. The early Gospel message was spread orally, probably in Aramaic, but almost immediately also in Greek. The New Testament's Acts of the Apostles and Epistle to the Galatians record that the first Christian community was centred in Jerusalem and its leaders included Peter, James, the brother of Jesus, and John the Apostle. Paul the Apostle spread the teachings of Jesus to various non-Jewish communities throughout the eastern Mediterranean region. By the end of the 1st century, Christianity began to be recognized internally and externally as a separate religion from Judaism.

• 6. Scholarly Quests For The Historical Figure

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  Since the Enlightenment, scholars have emerged who question the reliability of the Gospels and draw a distinction between the Jesus described in the Gospels and the Jesus of history. Since the 18th century, three separate scholarly quests for the historical Jesus have taken place, each with distinct characteristics and based on different research criteria. While there is widespread scholarly agreement on the existence of Jesus, and a basic consensus on the general outline of his life, the portraits of Jesus constructed by various scholars often differ from each other. Approaches to the historical reconstruction of the life of Jesus have varied from the maximalist approaches of the 19th century, in which the gospel accounts were accepted as reliable evidence wherever it is possible, to the minimalist approaches of the early 20th century, where hardly anything about Jesus was accepted as historical. In the 1950s, as the second quest for the historical Jesus gathered pace, the minimalist approaches faded away, and in the 21st century, minimalists are a small minority. Although a belief in the inerrancy of the Gospels cannot be supported historically, many scholars since the 1980s have held that beyond the few facts considered to be historically certain, certain other elements of Jesus's life are historically probable. Modern scholarly research on the historical Jesus thus focuses on identifying the most probable elements.