Jesus Christ is one of the most contentious figures in history and gaining an objective understanding of him will be a crucial stage of the World Peace Adventure. He is the central figure within the religion of Christianity, and also revered within the religion of Islam as the prophet Isa. Christianity holds Jesus to be the Son of God made real on Earth and the ‘Messiah’ (saviour) prophesised within the ancient Jewish religious texts that Christians now call the Old Testament. The word ‘Christ’ is Greek for ‘the anointed one’, a translation of the Hebrew word Messiah. The following is the generally accepted Christian consensus around the life of Jesus:
Jesus was born in the town of Bethlehem in what would be described today as ‘year zero’ – the western dating system places so much significance on Jesus’ birth that it has become the start of what became known as the Common Era. Jesus is believed by Christians to have been directly conceived by God because his mother Mary was a virgin (i.e. she was said to have not yet had sex with her intended husband Joseph). Jesus was born into relative poverty, where legend tells us that three shepherds brought him gifts after an angel appeared to them prophesising the birth of the long-awaited Jewish Messiah.
The historical period of Jesus’ birth was also the period of the Roman Empire, and the region known as Judea in the Middle East was a province of Rome at the time. The Romans at the time were tolerant (to a degree) of many local religions throughout the Empire and allowed Jews to practice their faith relatively freely. Jesus would have grown up in this tradition and was baptised (cleansed of his sins in water) by the preacher John the Baptist, whereupon John recognised Jesus as the son of God and insisted that he, John, should be baptised by Jesus. God is then said to have appeared from the sky (some accounts say directly, others in the form of a dove) and confirmed Jesus to be his son.
John’s disciples then became Jesus’ disciples and formed the beginnings of what would effectively become the Christian Church. Jesus travelled, gathered more disciples, preached morality at the Sermon on the Mount, and performed miracles such as healing the sick, the feeding of the 5,000 and walking on water. Finally, he travelled to the city of Jerusalem where news of his actions had spread. He was welcomed by some Jews as a returning king, but rejected by others as a blasphemous false prophet.
The authorities in Jerusalem considered Jesus dangerous and plotted his death – the week Jesus spent in Jerusalem would be the last of his life. Jesus visited the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem and drove out the money-changers (early bankers trading coins and currency), accusing them of corrupting his father’s house. At the Last Supper with his disciples, Jesus predicted his own death and was betrayed to the Romans by his disciple Judas. Jesus was arrested, tried and crucified (executed by being nailed to a wooden cross) on the orders of the Roman governor Pontius Pilate in approx. 33AD.
Close to death on the cross, Jesus is said to have asked God his father to forgive his executioners. Jesus died on the cross and was buried in a rock tomb, but is said to have risen from the dead two days later before ascending to Heaven, thus confirming his supernatural nature. Some non-Christians speculate that the historical Jesus may perhaps have survived the initial crucifixion and perhaps fled to Palestine and beyond, citing the apparent meeting after his death between Jesus and Paul on the road to Damascus where Jesus converted Paul (a non-believer) to Christianity. Christians, however, hold Jesus’ appearance to Paul after he died to be another supernatural miracle and further proof that Jesus was indeed a divine being.
Everything that followed these events, for example the establishment of Christian churches, extensive theological debate about Jesus’ nature, religious wars, forced conversions and missionary work, ultimately relates to the development of the religion of Christianity as opposed to Jesus Christ himself.
The life and teachings of Jesus Christ were recorded by his followers as the Gospels, which were collected together with other writings to form the ‘New Testament’ of The Bible. Of the other Abrahamic religions, Judaism maintains its belief that Jesus was a false prophet, not the promised Messiah. Islam accepts Jesus as a genuine prophet of God (he is referred to in Islam as Isa) but not that he himself was a divine being. Christians hold firmly that only through belief in Jesus’ death, his resurrection and his divinity can humans be reconciled with God to achieve salvation and the promise of Eternal Life.
So, objectively, did a man called Jesus Christ actually exist? Almost certainly. Whether he was the Messiah, a Jewish preacher, a philosopher, a charismatic healer, an egalitarian social reformer or an apocalyptic cult leader, a man called Jesus certainly appears to have lived at the time attested to in Christian texts. Was he the Son of God? Well, that’s the question of all questions which, more than two thousand years after his death, is impossible to prove one way or the other. Any answer given is simply a matter of faith.
To learn more about the religion of Christianity, jump to Chapter 29: Christianity
To learn more about Eternal Life and the ongoing human quest for it, jump to Chapter 30: Eternal Life
To learn more about the concept of God, turn to Chapter 31: God
