JESUS CHRIST

also called Jesus Of Galilee, or Jesus Of Nazareth born c. 6 BC, , Judaea died AD 30, , Jerusalem founder of Christianity, whose deeds and message are recorded in the New Testament. According to the biblical Gospel accounts, miraculous events surrounded the conception and birth of Jesus. He was legally the son of Joseph, a carpenter of Nazareth, but is believed by his followers to have been miraculously conceived by his mother, Mary. Tradition has it that he was born in Bethlehem. He grew up in Nazareth and as a young man followed his father's trade. Only a few isolated incidents are recorded of the years that intervened before his public ministry. During his lifetime Palestine was experiencing great distress under the rule of three sons of Herod and oppressive Roman procurators. Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist. Wandering through settlements in Galilee and the neighbouring countryside in the company of 12 disciples, Jesus preached a message of religious reform and divine love. He was received with enthusiasm by common people because of his extraordinary healing powers, his effective teaching by parables, and his message of the redeeming love of God for every person. Many miracles were attributed to him. His teaching was strongly opposed by the Pharisees (a Jewish society of scholars and pietists) and the privileged classes because of his attacks on hypocrisy and his interest in the poor. His growing influence alarmed Jewish and Roman authorities alike; regarded by some of his followers as the long-expected Messiah, he was suspected by the Jewish and Roman authorities of having revolutionary aims. After a brief ministry in Galilee, Jesus went with his disciples to Jerusalem to observe Passover. There he taught in the Temple and drove out the money changers, arousing the ire of the priestly class. After the Last Supper with his disciples, he was betrayed by one of them, Judas Iscariot, and was arrested by Roman soldiers. Examined by the high priests and the Sanhedrin (a Jewish council with religious, political, and judicial functions), Jesus was condemned as a blasphemer deserving death. He was brought before Pontius Pilate, the Roman procurator, and then was sent to Herod Antipas, who sent him back to Pilate. Under Roman law he was crucified at Golgotha as a political rebel and was buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. Belief in his Resurrection from the dead became the focus of the religion that developed around his teachings. The term Jesus Christ designates not only a historical person who lived in Palestine during the reigns of the Roman emperors Augustus and Tiberius but also one who has been the object of Christian faith and worship for almost 20 centuries. These two designations may be distinguished, but they cannot be separated, for almost everything known about the historical person comes from the reports of those who were his followers. It is therefore impossible to construct a life of Jesus in the conventional sense of biography. Rather, he can be described chiefly on the basis of the way he was remembered by the believing community that took his name. born c. 6 BC, Judaea died c. AD 30, Jerusalem also called Jesus of Galilee, or Jesus of Nazareth founder of Christianity, which today claims a third of the world's population. His deeds and message are recorded in the New Testament. Because of the theological motifs and presuppositions in the faith of the early church, however, it is difficult to write with certainty an authentic life of Jesus. Additional reading Times and environment Bo Reicke, The New Testament Era (1968, reissued 1978; originally published in German, 1964); Anthony E. Harvey, Jesus and the Constraints of History (1982), a study of the constraints imposed on Jesus by contemporary conditions. The life and ministry of Jesus Valuable surveys of premodern material are provided by Robert M. Grant, The Earliest Lives of Jesus (1961), for the early patristic period; and Harvey K. McArthur, The Quest Through the Centuries (1966), especially for the 14th and 16th centuries. Modern historical study of the Gospels dates from the 18th century and was characterized in the 19th and early 20th centuries by the Life-of-Jesus movement. The literature is authoritatively surveyed in Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus (1910, reissued 1968; originally published in German, 1906); and C.C. McCown, The Search for the Real Jesus (1940). John F. O'Grady, Models of Jesus (1981); and John Ferguson, Jesus in the Tide of Time: A Historical Study (1980), are studies of interpretations of Jesus in different ages and cultures. Maurice Goguel, The Life of Jesus (1933, reissued 1976; originally published in French, 1932), is a biography especially valuable for the inclusion of detailed evidence frequently assumed in subsequent works. Joseph Klausner, Jesus of Nazareth (1925, reissued 1979; originally published in Hebrew, 1922), remains important for its collection of relevant rabbinic materials. Shirley J. Case, Jesus: A New Biography (1927, reprinted 1968), in spite of its title, is a socio-historical treatment of the subject. Other lives include Vincent Taylor, The Life and Ministry of Jesus (1954); Ethelbert Stauffer, Jesus and His Story (1960, originally published in German, 1957); and David Flusser, Jesus (1969; originally published in German, 1968). The first half of the 20th century witnessed a marked decline in the appearance of biographies and studies of the historical Jesus. Several factors contributed to the decline, of which the most important was the rise of form criticism in the first quarter of the century as exemplified in Martin Dibelius, From Tradition to Gospel (1934, reissued 1971; trans. of the rev. 2nd German ed., 1933); and Rudolf Bultmann, The History of the Synoptic Tradition, rev. ed. (1968, reissued 1972; originally published in German, 1921). Bultmann's Jesus and the Word (1934, reissued 1958; originally published in German, 1926) presents a so-called encounter with the message of Jesus but without sharp differentiation of that message from the church's earliest tradition. The period 195070 produced a resurgence of interest in the historical Jesus. Stimulus for the resurgence is often credited to a paper by Ernst Kasemann, The Problem of the Historical Jesus, in W.J. Montague (trans.), Essays on New Testament Themes (1964). The new quest, as it came to be called after James M. Robinson, A New Quest of the Historical Jesus (1959, reissued 1983), arose as a question concerning continuity between Jesus and his message, on the one hand, and the early church's proclamation of Christ, on the other. Some of the alternative positions concerning the possibility of a biography of Jesus may be seen in Carl E. Braaten and Roy A. Harrisville (eds.), The Historical Jesus and the Kerygmatic Christ (1964), a collection of essays by major figures. Distinctive positions are to be found in Ernst Fuchs, Studies of the Historical Jesus (1964; originally published in German, 1964); John Knox, The Church and the Reality of Christ (1962); Hugh Anderson, Jesus and Christian Origins (1964); Leander E. Keck, A Future for the Historical Jesus (1971, reissued 1981); Frederick F. Bruce, Jesus and Christian Origins Outside the New Testament (1974), an annotated list of sources; James P. Mackey, Jesus, the Man and the Myth: A Contemporary Christology (1979); George Vermes, Jesus the Jew: a Historian's Reading of the Gospels (1974), the thesis that Jesus was a Galilean Hasid; and Edward Schillebeeckx, Jesus: An Experiment in Christology (1979; originally published in Dutch, 1975), a review and interpretation of modern scholarship. Accurate popular presentations are in Heinz Zahrnt, The Historical Jesus (1963; originally published in German, 1960); and in the moderately conservative Joachim Jeremias, The Problem of the Historical Jesus (1964, reissued 1972; originally published in German, 1960). The entire trend of Gospel study since the rise of form criticism is challenged by Birger Gerhardsson in Memory and Manuscript (1961), who argues that Jesus himself taught his disciples, in the manner of a Jewish rabbi, to memorize and transmit traditions in a fixed form. J. Arthur Baird, Audience Criticism and the Historical Jesus (1969), explores the use of the computer in literary analysis but is somewhat ambiguous with respect to total historical methodology. A standard study is Gnther Bornkamm, Jesus of Nazareth (1960, reissued 1975; originally published in German, 1956). Roland H. Bainton, Behold the Christ (1974), discusses works of art representative of various interpretations of Christ. The message of Jesus Many of the titles listed in the preceding section include discussions of the teachings of Jesus. Norman Perrin, Rediscovering the Teaching of Jesus (1967, reissued 1976), is an important technical introduction. Thomas W. Manson, The Sayings of Jesus (1949, reissued 1979), is a valuable commentary on the so-called Q material. Since Johannes Weiss, Jesus' Proclamation of the Kingdom of God (1971; originally published in German, 1892), it has been recognized that the eschatological Kingdom of God was the centre of Jesus' message. Whether the message implied a wholly futuristic expectation, a realized eschatology, or a future kingdom with present manifestations is still discussed. Convenient summaries of alternative interpretations are presented in Norman Perrin, The Kingdom of God in the Teaching of Jesus (1963; reissued 1975); and Gsta Lundstrm, The Kingdom of God in the Teaching of Jesus (1963; originally published in Swedish, 1947). Perrin's work also includes a survey of interpretations of the phrase Son of man and other titles related to Jesus' vocation. Representative modern studies include Werner G. Kmmel, Promise and Fulfillment (1957; originally published in German, 1945); Rudolf Schnackenburg, God's Rule and Kingdom (1963; originally published in German, 1959); George Eldon Ladd, Jesus and the Kingdom (1964), written from a conservative perspective; and H.E. Tdt, The Son of Man in the Synoptic Tradition (1965; originally published in German, 1959). Modern investigation of the parables derives from C.H. Dodd, The Parables of the Kingdom, rev. ed. (1961). A definitive work is Joachim Jeremias, The Parables of Jesus, 3rd rev. ed. (1972; originally published in German, 1947). Dan O. Via, The Parables (1967, reissued 1977), is one of several books in which literary critical insights are employed to advance interpretation beyond strictly historical critical study. Eta Linnemann, Jesus of the Parables (1967; originally published in German, 1961), advances views along the lines proposed by Ernst Fuchs. Martin Dibelius, The Sermon on the Mount (1940); Hans Windisch, The Meaning of the Sermon on the Mount (1951; originally published in German, 1929); and William D. Davies, The Setting of the Sermon on the Mount (1964, reissued 1976), offer varying interpretations of the most familiar body of Jesus' teaching. See also Milan Machovec, A Marxist Looks at Jesus (1976; originally published in German, 1972), a sympathetic study; Jon Sobrino, Christology at the Crossroads: A Latin American Approach (1978; originally published in Spanish, 1976), representative of liberation theology; Rosemary R. Ruether, To Change the World: Christology and Cultural Criticism (1981), a feminist Christology; Charles B. Ketcham, A Theology of Encounter: The Ontological Ground for a New Christology (1978), an existentialist's Christology; and Russel Pregeant, Christology Beyond Dogma (1978), a hermeneutical study of Matthew. The sufferings and death of Jesus Eduard Lohse, History of the Suffering and Death of Jesus Christ (1967; originally published in German, 1964), provides a convenient overview of the problems. Of the massive literature on the trial and Crucifixion, Joseph Blinzler, The Trial of Jesus (1959; trans. from 2nd rev. German ed., 1955); and Paul Winter, On the Trial of Jesus, 2nd ed. (1974), have been very influential. The range of scholarly opinion about the trial is well represented by eight responsible essays in Judaism, 20:674 (1971). The story of Jesus and faith in Jesus Reginald H. Fuller, The Mission and Achievement of Jesus (1954, reissued 1967), and The Foundations of New Testament Christology (1965), partly because of the author's shift in viewpoint, exhibit a range of opinion on the relation of Jesus' sense of vocation to the church's Christology. A more difficult study is that of Ferdinand Hahn, The Titles of Jesus in Christology (1969; originally published in German, 1963). The gospel tradition The life and ministry of Jesus The birth and family The birth of Jesus The course of Jesus' life and the geographic setting of his ministry can only be given in rough outline. The details are surrounded by many uncertainties. The period within which his ministry and death occurred may, however, be narrowed down with considerable accuracy on the basis of a synchronistic dating of the appearance of John the Baptist in the 15th year of Tiberius (Luke 3:1)i.e., AD 28/29which is confirmed by nonbiblical sources. But the year and place of Jesus' birth are uncertain. Mark and John say nothing about them. The only sources for them are the widely divergent birth and childhood legends in Matthew 1 and 2, where Jesus' birth and early lot are set in the time of Herod I and the change of regime (4 BC), and the narrative of Luke 2, which links Jesus' birth with the first registration in Judaea under the emperor Augustus (AD 6). There is also historical evidence of a census carried out about 8 BC. With all of this in mind, many sources estimate the year of birth as 76 BC. (The use of BC [before Christ] and AD [Anno Domini, or in the year of the Lord] was not common until the Middle Ages.) The tradition of Bethlehem as the place of Jesus' birth has its source in all probability in the Old Testament conception of the Messiah as a descendant of David. Early Christianity took this view from the beginning. Son of David is found in many texts (e.g., Mark 10:48) alongside other titles of Jesus. Its original political and national sense was abandoned, even though it is still recognizable in the acclamation of the people (Mark 11:10). The theological motif of Jesus' Davidic descent, however, did not necessarily involve the idea that he was born in Bethlehem, David's hometown. That is the case only in Matthew 2 and Luke 2. The accounts differ in that, in Matthew, Bethlehem is thought of as the parents' original place of residence, which they soon change to Nazareth because of the dangers threatening their child (e.g., the flight to Egypt), whereas in the Lucan story Jesus' parents really live in Nazareth but stay in Bethlehem temporarily because they are obliged to register at the Davidic family's place of origin. Both traditions are to be judged as legendary variations of the theological theme of Jesus' messiahship, even though each in its own way assigns to his birth a place in history. The extent to which these texts are marked by theological motifs, above all by the thought that Jesus as Messiah fulfills the promises of the Old Testament and the hope of Israel and the world, is shown by the numerous quotations woven into the stories. The widely differing genealogies in Matthew 1 and Luke 3 also belong in the context of the doctrine of the Davidic descent of the Messiah (Christ). They are the only New Testament evidences for genealogical reflection about Jesus' messiahship. The two texts, however, cannot be harmonized. They show that originally a unified tradition about Jesus' ancestors did not exist and that attempts to portray his messiahship genealogically were first undertaken in Jewish Christian circles with use of the Septuagint (Greek translation) text of the Old Testament. Both texts have to be eliminated as historical sources. They are nevertheless important for the development of Christology (doctrines on the nature of Christ), because they reveal the difficulty of reconciling the genealogical proof of Jesus' Davidic descent with the relatively late idea of his virgin birth. This last tradition, too, is recorded in only two storiesin Luke 1 and Matthew 1and was originally quite unconnected with the frequently found motif of Jesus' divine Sonship. Paul, John, and the rest of the New Testament writers are not acquainted with the idea. Also, it has left no traces in the rest of the Synoptic tradition, not even in the story of Jesus' birth (Luke 2:110), where Joseph and Mary appear as his natural parents. In Matthew 1 Jesus' miraculous birth is presupposed, and in Luke 1 it is explained more closely. This tradition is not to be traced back directly to the idea, widely held in classical antiquity, of heroes and great men who derived from the union of a deity with a human woman. In other words, Jesus is not characterized as a demigod here. What underlies this tradition is, rather, the concept of the creative power of God and his Spirit, which is known from Hellenistic Judaism. This theological, not biological, motif has been applied to Jesus and, with the greatest probability, only secondarily combined with the Greek version of the messianic promise of Isa. 7:14 (in the Septuagint the Hebrew word 'alma-i.e., young womanis translated as virgin), and in this way the Christian story came about. According to a very old, reliable tradition, the village of Nazarethwhich lay in the Galilean hill country, had a Jewish population, and was untouched by the influence of the Hellenistic citieswas the hometown, and then certainly also the birthplace, of the Nazarene (Mark 1:24; 10:47; 14:67; 16:6). The family of Jesus Four of Jesus' brothers and several sisters are mentioned in Mark 6 (though their identification as full-blooded siblings, half brothers and half sisters, or cousins has been long debated). All his relatives' names testify to the purely Jewish character of the family: his mother's name was Mary (Miriam), his father's Joseph, and his brothers' James (Jacob), Joseph, Judas, and Simon (names of Old Testament patriarchs). The same is true of the name Jesus. In the Septuagint it is the customary Greek form for the common Hebrew name Joshuai.e., Yahweh helps. It is also mentioned in Mark 6 that Jesus or his father (there are variant textual versions) was a carpenter. There are several not unimportant pieces of information preserved about the later history of the family. Of his father, who probably died early, little is mentioned. His mother, brothers, and sisters did not join his movement at first but, rather, disapproved of his behaviour (Mark 3:3135). Mary is, however, mentioned as a member of the Christian Church after his death (Acts 1:14). The same is true of his brother James, whom Paul names among the witnesses of the Resurrection (I Cor. 15:7) and who was the leader of the Jerusalem Church after Peter (Galatians, Acts). The author of the Letter of James has taken a brother's name for himself, as did the author of the Letter of Jude in respect to another brother. According to a later nonbiblical account (in the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius, a 4th-century historian of the church), grandchildren of Jude (who otherwise remains unknown), who were living in Galilee, were summoned by the emperor Domitian as descendants of David, but then released as representing no political danger. Jesus most likely grew up in the piety that was cultivated in the home and in the synagogue (including Bible study, obedience to the Law, prayer, and expectation of the final coming of the Messiah) and also took part in pilgrimages to Jerusalem. From these scattered reports it is possible to gain some information about Jesus' background and theological education. The latter also comes to light in his teaching and in the frequently attested honorific form of address rabbi (teacher), which, in the language of the time, was not yet confined to members of the trained and ordained profession of the scribes. Nothing is precisely known, however, about Jesus' youth and inner development. What is known is contained in the sole narrative in Luke 2:4052 (the boy Jesus in the Temple) and the legendary apocryphal gospels, which, after the manner of legend, sought to illumine the obscurity of Jesus' childhood. The picture of Christ in the early church: The Apostles' Creed Even before the Gospels were written, Christians were reflecting upon the meaning of what Jesus had been and what he had said and done. It is a mistake, therefore, to suppose that such reflection is a later accretion upon the simple message of the Gospels. On the contrary, the early Christian communities were engaged in witness and worship from the very beginning. The forms of that witness and worship were also the forms of the narratives in the Gospel accounts. From this fact it follows that to understand the Gospel accounts regarding Jesus we must consider the faith of the early church regarding Christ. In this sense it is valid to maintain that there is no distinction between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith, and that the only way to get at the former is by the latter. Christology, the doctrine about Christ, is then as old as Christianity itself. To comprehend the faith of the early church regarding Christ, we must turn to the writings of the New Testament, where that faith found embodiment. It was also embodied in brief confessions or creeds, but these have not been preserved for us complete in their original form. What we have are fragments of those confessions or creeds in various books of the New Testament, snatches from them in other early Christian documents, and later forms of them in Christian theology and liturgy. The so-called Apostles' Creed is one such later form. It did not achieve its present form until quite late; just how late is a matter of controversy. But in its earliest ancestry it is very early indeed, perhaps dating back to the 1st century. And its confession regarding Christ is probably the earliest core, around which later elaborations of it were composed. Allowing for such later elaboration, we may say that in the Apostles' Creed we have a convenient summary of what the early church believed about Christ amid all the variety of its expression and formulation. The creeds were a way for Christians to explain what they meant by their acts of worship. When they put I believe or We believe at the head of what they confessed about God and Christ, they meant that their declarations rested upon faith, not merely upon observation. Preexistence The statement I believe also indicated that Christ was deserving of worship and faith, and that he was therefore on a level with God. At an early date, possibly as early as the words of Paul in Phil. 2:611, Christian theology began to distinguish three stages in the career of Jesus Christ: his preexistence with the Father before all things; his Incarnation and humiliation in the days of His flesh (Heb. 5:7), and his glorification, beginning with the Resurrection and continuing forever. Probably the most celebrated statement of the preexistence of Christ is the opening verses of the Gospel of St. John. Here Christ is identified as the incarnation of the Word (Logos) through which God made all things in the beginning, a Word existing in relation to God before the creation. The sources of this doctrine have been sought in Greek philosophy, both early and late, as well as in the Jewish thought of Philo and of the Palestinian rabbis. Whatever its source, the doctrine of the Logos in John is distinctive by virtue of the fact that it identifies the Logos with a specific historical person. Other writings of the New Testament also illustrate the faith of the early Christians regarding the preexistence of Christ. The opening chapters of both Colossians and Hebrews speak of Christ as the preexistent one through whom all things were created, therefore as distinct from the created order of things in both time and preeminence; the preposition before in Col. 1:17 apparently refers both to his temporal priority and to his superior dignity. Yet before any theological reflection about the nature of this preexistence had been able to find terms and concepts, the early Christians were worshipping Christ as divine. Phil. 2:611 may be a quotation from a hymn used in such worship. Theological reflection told them that if this worship was legitimate, he must have existed with the Father before all ages.