Jesus
Jesus (born between 7 and 4 BC in Bethlehem, died in 30, 31, or 33 AD in Jerusalem) was the man whose life and teachings started the Christian religion. He was a Jew and came from a town called Nazareth in Galilee, in the country that is today called Israel.
The name "Jesus" comes from the Aramaic name "Yeshua", from Hebrew "Yehovah-shua", meaning "God saves" which was a popular name of the time. Jesus is often called "Jesus Christ" or "Christ". The word "Christ" comes from the Greek word "christos" and means "the one marked on the head with oil" or "the anointed one". In Jesus' country, anointing was done to show that a person was chosen to be a king or a leader. Jesus is also called "Messiah", which comes from the Hebrew term "Moshiach", and also means "the anointed one."
Stories about the life of Jesus have been recorded by different writers. The best known are four books called the Gospels. They form the New Testament, a part of the Bible. Gospel means "Good News." The "Gospels" were written by people who followed Jesus and believed in him. They tell a little about his birth, and mostly about his adult life: his teachings, ministry and death. There are four "Gospels", called "the Gospel of Mark", "the Gospel of Matthew", "the Gospel of Luke", and "the Gospel of John".
Several Jewish and Roman historians such as Flavius Josephus, Tacitus, Pliny the Younger and Suetonius also mention Jesus in their writings. They usually only mention his execution or problems between the Roman Government and his followers; they do not talk about his life.
Most Christians remember the day that Jesus was born as the holiday of Christmas. Although the Gospels do not say what day Jesus was born, Early Christians living in Rome chose 25th December because there was already a Roman holiday on that day. They also celebrate the time that the Gospels say he died and was raised from the dead as the holiday of Easter.
Jesus in the Bible.
This section is about the birth, ministry and death of Jesus. It is taken from the four books of the Bible, called the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. They were written in the 1st century AD. Nearly all other writing about Jesus is based on these four books.
Jesus' birth.
The Gospels of Matthew and Luke say that before the birth of Jesus, both Mary his mother, and the man that she was promised to, Joseph, knew that Jesus was going to be the "Messiah" or King that had been promised to the Jewish people, in the ancient Jewish books.
Luke's Gospel tells most of the story. At the time that Jesus was born, the Roman Empire ruled most of Europe, England, the Middle East and North Africa. The Government wanted every single family to have their name taken down to be taxed, so everyone had to go back to the place where they came from. Joseph came from the small town of Bethlehem, near Jerusalem, so even though Mary was close to giving birth to her baby, they had to travel, with thousands of other people.
When they got to Bethlehem, every room was full. There was nowhere for them to stay except in a stable, an animal shed. The baby Jesus was born in the stable, was wrapped up, and put to sleep on the straw in the feed bin (the "manger"). Luke tells us that the shepherds who were minding the sheep on the hillside came in to see the baby, and went away singing thanks to God for the newborn king.
In "the Gospel of Matthew" it says that wise men from another country saw a new star in the sky and came to find the young Jesus because they knew that the "Messiah" was going to be born under a star, and that the star was a sign that Jesus was born to be a king.
Jesus' ministry.
The Gospels tell about the ministry of Jesus in this way:-
When Jesus was aged about 30, he traveled around the country, teaching by telling stories. He taught that God alone was the true king, and that people should love God and love each other as the Hebrew Bible told them to do. Jesus performed miracles that were signs of God's power, such as giving hungry people food and wine, healing sick people, and making dead people alive again. He also set people free from evil spirits.
Jesus gathered together twelve men, known as the "Twelve Disciples", whom he chose and trained to spread his message. He had many other disciples, including many women, but because of Jewish customs, the women disciples could not travel to distant places on their own as teachers.
The Bible says Jesus became famous. He went to Jerusalem, where many people were visiting the city for a Holy Day. When they heard that he was coming, they greeted him as if he was a king. They thought perhaps he would free them from the Roman rule, but Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, as a sign that he came in peace.
Jesus did a lot of things that upset the Jewish religious leaders. He often showed disrespect for customs that the Jews had kept for many centuries. For example, Jews did no work at all on the 7th day of the week, the "Sabbath", because it was a holy day, but Jesus often showed disrespect for this custom. In John's Gospel, chapter 5, there is the story of Jesus healing a crippled man. Jesus saw a man lying on a mattress. He healed the man, and told him to pick up the mattress and go home. Carrying the mattress on the Sabbath was against religious custom, so the religious leaders argued with Jesus about it. They then watched everything he did, and remembered all the things that were against the religious customs.
In Mark's Gospel, chapter 11, it says that when Jesus arrived in Jerusalem, he went to the Jewish Temple. He became angry at what he saw. There were people selling things there, and money lenders who were cheating poor people. Jesus chased away all the people who were selling things. He said the chief priests and scribes had turned the temple into a den of thieves because they were making money from the poor and taking away homes from poor women who had no other way to pay for the temple worship.
Jesus' death.
The Gospels tell about the death of Jesus in this way:-
The temple leaders were angry and wanted to kill him. They told the Roman Government that Jesus wanted to become the king of the country and take it over. The Roman Governor thought that Jesus should be set free. The Jewish leaders said, "If you do that, then you are not the friend of Caesar!" (Caesar was the Roman ruler.)
So the Governor sentenced him to death. The Roman soldiers killed Jesus by crucifixion; they nailed him to a cross by his arms. This was a common way for the Romans to kill rebels and criminals.
Jesus' body was buried in a tomb which belonged to one of his followers. He was buried in a hurry, because the Sabbath day, when no one could work, started when the sun went down. On the day after the Sabbath, early in the morning, women came to wash the body and treat it with spice and perfumed oil. But the Gospels say that the body of Jesus was gone, and an angel sat by the tomb and said "He is risen from the dead!" (This is called the Resurrection.)
Some people, like the disciple Thomas, said "I'm not going to believe this, until I have seen it with my own eyes!" But the Bible says that more than 500 people, including Thomas, saw Jesus alive again. There are many stories in "the Gospels" about what Jesus did once he was "resurrected". Finally, "Luke's Gospel" says that Jesus took his disciples to a hill, where he blessed them and told them to spread his teaching through all the world, and that then clouds came down, and he was lifted up to Heaven.
Christian beliefs about Jesus and his teaching.
The Christian Church is founded on Jesus. The things that Christians believe about Jesus are based on the four Gospels of the Bible, and on letters or "Epistles" that were written in the 1st century, explaining Jesus' teachings to his followers.
Jesus did not write these letters. They were mainly written by a Jewish man called Paul, who worked for the Roman government. At first he tried to stop Christianity from spreading. Then he became a Christian himself and was an important leader. As Christian churches started in different towns and countries, Paul wrote letters to them. A lot of the ideas that Christians believe are written in Paul's letters. There is also lots of advice for running churches and families. There are many Christians who believe what Paul taught about Jesus but who do not agree with some of Paul's advice.
There are other letters in the New Testament by other writers including Peter, James, and John. These letters all help to build the beliefs that modern Christians have. People of other faiths do not use the letters, and do not agree with the Christian teachings.
See section: Other views about Jesus
Jesus as God.
Whether or not Jesus is God has been argued about for a long time. All Christians, including Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant Christians, believe Jesus was both God and man. Jesus is described in different parts of the New Testament as being "the Word of God", "the Son of God", "the Son of Man", and even God himself.
These teachings, which are believed by most Christians, are not believed by many other people. The Islamic teaching is that Jesus was a prophet, but he was not part of God or the "Son of God". In Jesus' own time, many Jews became very angry at Jesus for saying that he was the "Son of God" and also because his followers said he was the "Messiah". Most Jews do not believe this.
Jesus is also referred to as "the Son of God".
Most Christians believe that these verses say Jesus is God. Most Christians believe that Jesus' death on the cross allows all people to be forgiven by God for their sins (bad things they have done). Most Christians believe that if a person asks God to forgive them He will do so, and they will get to live forever with him in Heaven.
God in human form.
Christians believe that, by the teaching of the Bible, Jesus was not only truly God but also truly human and that this was part of God's plan to bring humans closer to understanding him.
People who do not have Christian beliefs, believe that Jesus was an ordinary person, and not God made human.
In "Matthew's Gospel", Jesus is often called "the Son of Man". Matthew has borrowed these words from the Old Testament where they are often used to show that humankind is very far from God. In the Bible, God is often praised and thanked for helping ordinary humans, who are called "the sons of man". In Psalm 8, the writer, King David, asks God "What is man and the son of man, that you should care so much and give him such wonderful power over the Earth and all its creatures?"
In Matthew's Gospel, 24:30 Jesus says "..They shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of Heaven with power and great glory." Like King David, in Psalm 8, Jesus is making a difference between his ordinary human life and his great power as the "Son of God".
"The Good Shepherd".
In the Gospels, Jesus often spoke about himself as being like a shepherd, caring for sheep. He called himself the "Good Shepherd" who would even give his own life, to protect his sheep. He told the Jewish people, referring to non-Jewish or "Gentile" believers, that he had "other sheep" that do not belong to this flock. (John, 21:16). In one of his last conversations with his disciple Peter, he told him, "Feed my sheep!", in other words "Take care of my people.".
"The Holy Saviour".
In Jewish religion, from ancient times, there was a belief that humankind was "sinful" (did things that were bad) and that that people needed to be forgiven by God. They believed that there were two ways to get God's forgiveness, by prayer and by sacrifice. Prayer could be done anywhere, but sacrifices were done at the temple. A person would bring an animal, often a lamb, or if they were poor, a dove. They would put their hands on the animal to lay their sins on it. Then the animal would be killed, as a punishment for the sin. This type of sacrifice continued until the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in 71 AD. Paying money to the temple was also a sort of sacrifice. When Jesus drove the traders out of the temple, they were the people who sold lambs and doves, and the people who exchanged Roman money into special temple money.
Part of Christian belief is that Jesus Christ did not just come as a human person so that he could teach a better way of life. Christians also believe that Jesus was the "ultimate" sacrifice for the sin of humankind, that Jesus is the "Saviour": the one who is here to save. Christians believe that, unlike ordinary people, Jesus was completely pure and free from sin, but that when he died on the cross, he took on himself all the sins of every person in the whole world, like the lamb sacrificed in the temple.
Based on John's Gospel, Christian teaching is that the death and resurrection of Jesus are the sign of his power to forgive the sins of any person who turns to him and truly asks for forgiveness. The Bible says that sinners who are forgiven should try to live a "new life" and not go back to their sinful behaviour. Christians believe that knowing about God's love helps people to live a new and better life.
These are three verses from the Bible that are important in this Christian belief:-
"God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that, whoever believes might not die but have eternal life."' John's Gospel, 3:16.
Jesus said: "I am the way, the truth and the life. If anyone comes to the Father, they must come by me!" John's Gospel, 14:6.
"If we say we have no sins, we are fooling ourselves and not telling the truth. But if we tell our sins humbly to God, then He has promised to listen and to forgive our sins and make us clean from all our badness." from the First Letter of John.
Jesus as a teacher.
Some people who are not Christians believe that Jesus lived at the time that the Gospels say, but do not believe that Jesus was the "Son of God" or "Saviour". They believe that Jesus was an ordinary, but very good person, a teacher and perhaps a prophet.
Some people accept Jesus as a moral example without any connection to a God. Mohandas Gandhi said, "I am a Muslim, and a Hindu, and a Christian, and a Jew," even though he was born a Jain. Gandhi worked hard in his life to make the followers of all these religions respect each other. This is how many people see Jesus, too - a teacher who said that all people were neighbours and that Jews, Romans, Greeks, Samaritans and other people should all live in peace with each other.
Muslim beliefs about Jesus.
Some people believe Jesus was a Prophet of God. Among these people are Muslims who follow the teaching of a book called the Qur'an. Muslims consider Jesus (under the name Isa) to be the second-to-last Prophet (messenger of God), and Muhammad to have been the very last Prophet. They believe that Jesus and Muhammad were both ordinary men.
Muslims do not believe that Jesus was God or "the Son of God". They believe that Jesus cannot be part of God, because there is only one God. Muhammad taught that Jesus did not die on the cross, but that he went up to Heaven without dying. (The death of Jesus is essential to Christian belief about salvation.) Muslims always say "peace be upon him" after saying Jesus' name as a sign of respect.
Jewish beliefs about Jesus.
Even though Jesus was a Jew and his teaching came out of the Jewish religion, most Jewish people do not believe that Jesus was the "Messiah" that is promised in the Jewish Scriptures.
In the Gospels, it tells that Jesus made the Jewish teachers very angry with his teachings. It says that part of their anger was because he told them they were "hypocrites" which means that they were pretending to live good lives but were really using the laws of their own religion to cheat people.
In the Gospels, the other reason that they became angry was that Jesus acted as if he was the "Messiah", and said he was the "Son of God". This meant that he was either a terrible liar, that he was mad and just imagined it, or that it was true. But Jesus did not seem to be mad. So that left only two choices. If Jesus was lying, then he was doing something badly against the Jewish religion. It was because of the claims that Jesus was the "Son of God" that some of the Jewish leaders wanted him killed and they handed him to the Roman rulers. The Romans didn't care if Jesus said something that was against the Jewish beliefs. But they knew that people had also said that Jesus was "King of the Jews". This was against the government.
Although, today and through history, most Jews do not believe what Christians say about Jesus, there are some Jews who do believe that Jesus was the "Messiah" promised in the Jewish Scriptures. Jews who believe this are called "Messianic Jews".
Jesus as part of a false story.
Some writers have said that perhaps Jesus never existed. Ideas have been put forward that the whole of the Gospel writing about Jesus is just a good story or myth and that Jesus perhaps never existed.
Others have claimed that Jesus was really married to his follower, Mary Magdalene and that the Early Church leaders deliberately hid this information because it did not fit with the way that they wanted Jesus to be remembered. When a group of people deliberately hide information it is called a "conspiracy". One reason for this "conspiracy theory" is that there are a number of Early Christian writings which are different from the four Gospels of the New Testament. These include a "Gospel of Thomas", a "Gospel of Philip" and stories about Jesus as a child. These writings are all later than the four Biblical Gospels. The Gospel of Philip, which is a book of teachings from the 3rd century, talks about Mary Magdalene in a way that has sometimes been thought to mean that she was his wife. Most modern scholars of the Bible do not support this theory. They say that these early writings never say clearly that Jesus was married. Scholars say that although it was usual for men to be married (as it is today), many religious leaders and teachers ("Rabbi") were not married (like Catholic priests of today).
One author, Dan Brown, has written a famous story, "The da Vinci Code" based on the idea that Jesus was really married to his female disciple, Mary Magdalene, and that the church has been hiding this information. Many people believe what Dan Brown wrote, even though his book is fiction.
Some archaeologists have found a tomb in Jerusalem where there are graves with the names of a family called Joseph, Mary, Jesus, Jacob and Mary. They say that it must be the grave of Jesus' family, even though the Bible mentions 8 different Josephs, 5 Marys, 3 Joshua/Jesus and 4 Jacobs.
Jesus as part of an old tradition.
Other writers have shown that parts of the story of Jesus are similar to other religions such as the stories of Gilgamesh and Mithras. They also show that Christianity holds its main Holy Days at a time when there was already a Roman or Jewish festival such as Easter at the time of the Passover.
How the Gospels were written.
In the later part of the 20th century and in the 21st century nearly all scholars, both Christian and non-Christian agree that Jesus was a real historic person. Both Christian and non-Christian scholars base their studies of him on the Gospels. They are believed to have been written between 60-90 AD.
One of the main reasons that most scholars believe in the real existence of Jesus is that "someone" in the 1st century AD must have lived and taught the things which Jesus taught. Some real person must have started the Christian Church. Whether or not that person was called Jesus, their ideas were so powerful that they changed the world.
By tradition, "the Gospels" were written by four men, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John who gave their names to these books.
This is the order in which they are arranged in the New Testament of the Bible, but scholars think that it is not the order in which they were written. "The Gospel of Mark" was probably written before "the Gospel of Matthew". The four Gospels all tell the story of the Life of Jesus, but they do it from four different points of view, because they were written by different people and each writer had reasons to tell it in a different way.
Other scholars have said that leaders in the Early Christian Church made changes to the Gospel writings. These changes are said to have happened at different times, in different ways and for different reasons. For example, one story was left out of many old versions of the Gospels. It is about Jesus rescuing a woman who had committed adultery (had sex outside marriage) and was about to be killed. St. Augustine of Hippo, (354-430 AD) wrote that this was probably was left out because some church leaders thought the story might cause people to act in a sinful way. This story is in all modern Bibles and is thought to contain very important teaching for Christians. Other differences that can be found in versions of the Gospels are mostly small and do not make a difference to what is known about the life of Jesus and his teaching.
About Mark.
Mark's Gospel, which is thought by biblical scholars to be the earliest, has the name of a young disciple of the apostle Paul who is mentioned several times in the "Acts of the Apostles" and Paul's Letters.The Gospel was probably written in Rome and is thought by scholars to be from the memories of Jesus' follower or "disciple", Peter. It doesn't tell about Jesus' birth; it starts when he was 30 year old, at the time when the disciples got to know him. It shows Jesus as a man of action: going around the country, teaching and healing people.
About Matthew.
Matthew's Gospel was written next. Matthew was one of Jesus' disciples. He was a Jewish man that was hated by other Jews because he worked for the Roman rulers as a tax collector. Matthew tells that one day Jesus saw him sitting at his desk in the market place and said "Follow me!".
Most Biblical scholars believe that Matthew had read Mark's Gospel and decided to fill in some things that Mark left out, because, while Mark wrote his Gospel for the Church of Rome, Matthew wanted to write for Jewish Christians all over the Roman Empire. Matthew was a well-educated Jew, so he knew the Jewish Scriptures, (which Christians also use and call the Old Testament of the Bible). Matthew knew the scripture teachings that the Messiah, or God's anointed one would come. In his Gospel, he often mentions these teachings. He also starts off by giving a list of Jesus' ancestors because this was important to Jewish readers.
About Luke.
The apostle Luke was Greek and a friend of the apostle Paul. He was a doctor and often writes about medical things. Luke came to know about Jesus from the "disciples". Luke writes about the birth and the childhood of Jesus and he says "Mary kept all these things in her heart and thought about them."
Luke was not a Jew and he writes in a way that is easy for other people who are not Jews to understand. He explains Jewish customs and laws. He wrote a second book called "the Acts of the Apostles" which tells what the disciples did after Jesus had left them.
About John.
It is believed by scholars of the Bible that John was a "disciple" of Jesus and was probably the youngest of the twelve men who were Jesus' main followers. He lived to be an old man and, because of his teaching about Jesus, he was sent to a small island, Patmos. In his old age he wrote two important books, of which one is "John's Gospel".
John writes with one particular idea in mind. He wants to prove to the reader that Jesus is God's way of saving humans from the terrible problem of sin or "evil". John starts by telling the reader that Jesus was (and is) God. John says that Jesus is God's "Living Communication" (or "Living Word"). Every part of "John's Gospel" is written to show that Jesus came from God, taught the "Message of God" and is the way for people to understand "God's Love".
Jesus' teachings and stories.
The Gospels tell many of the stories that Jesus told when he was teaching people about the way that God loved them and the way they should live. Two of the most famous stories are the story of "the Prodigal Son" and the story of "the Good Samaritan". In the first story it is shown how much God loves his people and in the second story is shown how people should love each other.
The Prodigal Son.
In this story from Luke's Gospel, Jesus tells how a rich man had two sons. They would both get a share of his money, when he died. The younger son said, "Father, give me my money now, so I can go and enjoy myself, while I'm young." He took the money to the city, and spent it all on parties with his friends. Soon he had none left to feed himself. He was ashamed. He got a job caring for pigs, but he was almost starving. He said to himself, "I'll go home to my father and I will say 'Father, I have sinned! Please let me be a servant in your house!'"
As he went home, he did not know that his father looked out for him, every day. When his father saw him coming, he ran along the road to put his arms around his son. The son said "Father, I have sinned! Please let me be a servant in your house!"
The father said "Bring the finest clothes! Kill the fattest calf to make a feast!"
When the elder brother heard all this, he was angry and said "I'm a good son to you, but you never even gave me one little goat to have a party with my friends!"
The father said "You have always been with me. I love you greatly, and and all I have is yours, but my son who was lost is now found! My son who seemed to be dead is alive! Be happy with me!" Jesus said that this is the way God loves and forgives his people, when they ask for forgiveness.
The Good Samaritan.
In this story from Luke's Gospel, Jesus shows what it means to be a good neighbour. Near the Jews lived the Samaritans. They followed the Hebrew Scriptures, but they worshiped differently to the Jews, so the Jews were prejudiced against them. One day, a Jewish man was on a journey when a band of robbers beat him up, robbed him and left him naked and almost dead, by the road. A Jewish priest came along and saw him. He thought, "If I touch that naked bleeding man, I will be unclean and I won't be able to go to the Temple!" So he pretended that he hadn't seen him. Another Jew, a Holy Man, came along and acted in the same way. At last a Samaritan came along with a donkey. When he saw the wounded man he stopped. He washed his wounds with wine and olive oil. Then he put him on his donkey and took him to the nearest inn. He paid the innkeeper and said "Keep him until he is well, and whatever is owing, I will pay when I come back this way."
Jesus said to the people who were listening "Which one of these people acted like a good neighbour?" They said "He that stopped and helped." Jesus said "You go and act the same way."
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