Itinerant Jewish teacher and wonder-worker
Jesus of Nazareth
ישועYeshua(The book gives the forms Yehoshua or Yeshua)editorial spelling
Life
between 4 BCE and 6 CE to 30 CE
A Galilean Jew executed in Jerusalem under Pontius Pilate. Historically almost inaccessible, known only through later sources; his movement began as one more Jewish current of the first century.
What the sources say
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8 statements
At the root of Christianity stands a Jew who taught and worked wonders from place to place and was executed in Jerusalem while Pontius Pilate was governor. His Hebrew name was probably Yehoshua or Yeshua; he became known by the Greek form, Jesus. 'Christ' is a title, not a name: christos renders the Hebrew for 'anointed' into Greek, and his followers used it to present him as a king of David's line.
The most celebrated Jew of the first century is, for the historian, almost unknown. He wrote nothing, no contemporary mentions him, and the available sources, Paul's letters and the four Gospels, came 30 to 60 years later. Many Christians take them as accurate; modern research is wary, because they are hard to confirm, contradict each other and reflect the beliefs and purposes of their writers.
Some things are relatively secure. The traditional date of 1 CE for his birth is doubtful: he may have been born in any year between 4 BCE and 6 CE, and the Gospels muddle the question. He is said to have come from Bethlehem, David's town, but he was called Jesus of Nazareth, his parents' Galilean town.
Other Gospel characters have proven existence: Herod, Pontius Pilate and even Caiaphas, high priest when Jesus died. That Jesus was crucified scholars do not doubt; it was the cruel punishment that Rome used against bandits and slaves to intimidate anyone who dared challenge the order. But each Gospel tells of the execution in its own way, and they disagree even about its timing. The book's timeline dates the death to 30 CE.
The currents the book describes in chapter 3, Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes, were still active in the first century. The Pharisees seem to have had the most popular influence, but no current was 'the' Judaism. Christianity began as one more of them: founded by a Jew, with Jewish followers. It recalled the Pharisees in being popular, centered on teachers and expecting the resurrection of the dead, and the Essenes in proposing a life apart, devoted to God. On the evidence of the New Testament alone, it would look like just another Jewish sect of the time.
The early Jesus movement saw itself at the same point in history. As with the Teacher of Righteousness, the Gospel portrait of Jesus knows the plan of the last days and reveals it to his disciples, but he goes further: he is the deliverer himself, the messiah. The New Testament blends several Jewish images in him: Davidic king (hence the importance of Bethlehem), Son of Man and priestly messiah, the last in the Letter to the Hebrews. What is original is the idea that he would fulfill his mission in two comings, the second at the end of days; even this has a partial precedent in the two messiahs awaited at the Dead Sea.
Between accepting and confronting Rome there was a middle course: calculated ambiguity. One example may be Jesus's answer about the tax to Rome. A yes would make him look like a collaborator to a people angered by taxation; a no would mean rejecting the empire and inviting repression. He replied: 'Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's'. On the surface it is advice to pay; but if God is the only king, nothing truly belongs to Caesar. A Roman would hear obedience; a Jew hostile to Rome, something subversive. The authors leave aside whether the scene is historical, but judge it plausible, with parallels in rabbinic literature.
Many charismatic leaders of the time ended up dead, but their movements did not always die with them. Jesus's continued not just out of loyalty: his followers read the execution in light of Jewish ideas. Many apocalypses foresaw that the righteous would suffer and die in a tribulation before final salvation, and such death could even hasten it: in the Testament of Moses, a first-century text, the Levite Taxo retreats to a cave ready to die to force God's intervention. The first Christians saw in Jesus's death a sacrifice for others and the start of the final age.