Post-crucifixion
The Resurrection of Christ from a 16th-century copy of La Passion de Nostre Seigneur
After Jesus' death, his followers said he rose from the dead, although exact details of their experiences are unclear. The earliest written reference to Jesus' resurrection is in 1 Corinthians 15, written in the mid-50s AD. Some of those who claimed to have witnessed Jesus' resurrection later died for their belief. According to E. P. Sanders, the Gospel reports contradict each other, which, according to him, suggests competition among those claiming to have seen him first rather than deliberate fraud. On the other hand, L. Michael White suggests that inconsistencies in the Gospels reflect differences in the agendas of their unknown authors. The followers of Jesus formed a community to wait for his return and the founding of his kingdom.
Portraits of Jesus
Main article: Historical Jesus
Modern research on the historical Jesus has not led to a unified picture of the historical figure, partly because of the variety of academic traditions represented by the scholars. Given the scarcity of historical sources, it is generally difficult for any scholar to construct a portrait of Jesus that can be considered historically valid beyond the basic elements of his life. The portraits of Jesus constructed in these quests often differ from each other, and from the image portrayed in the gospels. Contemporary scholarship, representing the "third quest," places Jesus firmly in the Jewish tradition. Leading scholars in the "third quest" include E. P. Sanders,Geza Vermes, Gerd Theissen, Christoph Burchard, and John Dominic Crossan. Jesus is seen as the founder of, in the words of E. P. Sanders, a '"renewal movement within Judaism." This scholarship suggests a continuity between Jesus' life as a wandering charismatic and the same lifestyle carried forward by followers after his death. The main criterion used to discern historical details in the "third quest" is the criterion of plausibility, relative to Jesus' Jewish context and to his influence on Christianity. The main disagreement in contemporary research is whether Jesus was apocalyptic. Most scholars conclude that he was an apocalyptic preacher, like John the Baptist and the apostle Paul. In contrast, certain prominent North American scholars, such as Burton Mack and John Dominic Crossan, advocate for a non-eschatological Jesus, one who is more of a Cynic sage than an apocalyptic preacher. In addition to portraying Jesus as anapocalyptic prophet, a charismatic healer or a cynic philosopher, some scholars portray him as the true Messiah or an egalitarian prophet of social change. However, the attributes described in the portraits sometimes overlap, and scholars who differ on some attributes sometimes agree on others. Since the 18th century, scholars have occasionally put forth that Jesus was a political national messiah, but the evidence for this portrait is negligible. Likewise, the proposal that Jesus was a Zealot does not fit with the earliest strata of the Synoptic tradition.
Language, ethnicity, and appearance
Further information: Aramaic of Jesus and Race and appearance of Jesus
The representation of the ethnicity of Jesus has been influenced by cultural settings. Jesus grew up in Galilee and much of his ministry took place there.[296] The languages spoken in Galilee and Judea during the first century AD include Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek, with Aramaic being predominant. There is substantial consensus that Jesus gave most of his teachings in Aramaic. Modern scholars agree that Jesus was a Jew of first-century Palestine, Ioudaios in New Testament Greek, a term which in the contemporary context may refer to religion (Second Temple Judaism), ethnicity (of Judea), or both. In a review of the state of modern scholarship, Amy-Jill Levine writes that the entire question of ethnicity is "fraught with difficulty," and that "beyond recognizing that 'Jesus was Jewish', rarely does the scholarship address what being 'Jewish' means". The New Testament gives no description of the physical appearance of Jesus before his death—it is generally indifferent to racial appearances and does not refer to the features of the people it mentions. Jesus probably looked like a typical Jew of his time and according to some scholars was likely to have had a sinewy appearance due to his ascetic and itinerant lifestyle.
Christ myth theory
Main article: Christ myth theory
The Christ myth theory is the hypothesis that Jesus of Nazareth never existed; or if he did, that he had virtually nothing to do with the founding of Christianity and the accounts in the gospels. Bruno Bauer (1809–1882) taught that the first Gospel was a work of literature that produced history rather than described it. According to Albert Kalthoff (1850–1906) a social movement produced Jesus when it encountered Jewish messianic expectations. Arthur Drews (1865–1935) saw Jesus as the concrete form of a myth that predated Christianity. Despite arguments put forward by authors who have questioned the existence of a historical Jesus, there remains a strong consensus in historical-critical biblical scholarship that a historical Jesus did live in that area and in that time period.
Perspectives
Main article: Religious perspectives on Jesus
Apart from his own disciples and followers, the Jews of Jesus' day generally rejected him as the Messiah, as do the great majority of Jews today. Christian theologians, ecumenical councils, reformers and others have written extensively about Jesus over the centuries. Christian sects and schisms have often been defined or characterized by their descriptions of Jesus. Meanwhile, Manichaeans, Gnostics, Muslims, Baha'is, and others have found prominent places for Jesus in their religions.[319][320][321] Jesus has also had detractors, both past and present.
Christian views
Main articles: Jesus in Christianity, Christ and Christology
The Trinity is the belief in Christianity that God is one God in three persons: God the Father, God the Son (Jesus), and God the Holy Spirit
Jesus is depicted with the Alpha and Omega letters in the catacombs of Rome from the 4th century
Jesus is the central figure of Christianity. Although Christian views of Jesus vary, it is possible to summarize the key beliefs shared among major denominations, as stated in their catechetical or confessional texts. Christian views of Jesus are derived from various sources, including the canonical gospels and New Testament letters such as the Pauline epistles and the Johannine writings. These documents outline the key beliefs held by Christians about Jesus, including his divinity, humanity, and earthly life, and that he is the Christ and the Son of God. Despite their many shared beliefs, not all Christian denominations agree on all doctrines, and both major and minor differences on teachings and beliefs have persisted throughout Christianity for centuries.The New Testament states that the resurrection of Jesus is the foundation of the Christian faith (1 Corinthians 15:12–20). Christians believe that through his sacrificial death and resurrection, humans can be reconciled with God and are thereby offered salvation and the promise of eternal life. Recalling the words of John the Baptist on the day after Jesus' baptism, these doctrines sometimes refer to Jesus as the Lamb of God, who was crucified to fulfill his role as the servant of God. Jesus is thus seen as the new and last Adam, whose obedience contrasts with Adam's disobedience. Christians view Jesus as a role model, whose God-focused life believers are encouraged to imitate. Most Christians believe that Jesus was both human and the Son of God. While there has been theological debate over his nature, Some early Christians viewed Jesus as subordinate to the Father, and others considered him an aspect of the Father rather than a separate person. The Church resolved the issues in ancient councils, which established the Holy Trinity, with Jesus both fully human and fully God. Trinitarian Christians generally believe that Jesus is the Logos, God's incarnation and God the Son, both fully divine and fully human. However, the doctrine of the Trinity is not universally accepted among Christians. With the Reformation, Christians such as Michael Servetus and the Socinians started questioning the ancient creeds that had established Jesus' two natures. Nontrinitarian Christian groups include The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Unitarians and Jehovah's Witnesses. Christians revere not only Jesus himself, but also his name. Devotions to the Holy Name of Jesus go back to the earliest days of Christianity. These devotions and feasts exist in both Eastern and Western Christianity. In the 20th century, Christian groups became sharply divided in terms of how much they support historical and critical inquiry into the person of Jesus. Protestant denominations allow some such investigation but differ in how far the investigation may go. The Roman Catholic Church drew definite limits, but Catholic scholars have engaged in considerable critical study within those limits.
Jewish views
Main article: Judaism's view of Jesus
See also: Jesus in the Talmud
Mainstream Judaism rejects the idea of Jesus being God, or a mediator to God, or part of a Trinity. It holds that Jesus is not the Messiah, arguing that he neither fulfilled the Messianic prophecies in the Tanakh nor embodied the personal qualifications of the Messiah. According to Jewish tradition, there were no prophets after Malachi, who delivered his prophesies in the fifth century BC. Judaic criticism of Jesus is long-standing. The Talmud, written and compiled from the third to the fifth century AD, includes stories that since medieval times have been considered to be defamatory accounts of Jesus. In one such story, Yeshu ha-nozri ("Jesus the Christian"), a lewd apostate, is executed by the Jewish high court for spreading idolatry and practicing magic. The majority of contemporary historians consider that this material provides no information on the historical Jesus. The Mishneh Torah, a late 12th-century work of Jewish law written by Moses Maimonides, states that Jesus is a "stumbling block" who makes "the majority of the world to err and serve a god other than the Lord".
Islamic views
Main article: Jesus in Islam
Muhammad leads Jesus, Abraham,Moses and others in prayer. Medieval Persian miniature.
A major figure in Islam, Jesus (commonly transliterated as ʾĪsā) is considered to be a messenger of God (Allah) and the Messiah (al-Masih) who was sent to guide the Children of Israel (Bani Isra'il) with a new scripture, the Gospel (referred to in Islam as Injil). Muslims regard the gospels of the New Testament as inauthentic, and believe that Jesus' original message was lost or altered and that Muhammad came later to restore it. Belief in Jesus (and all other messengers of God) is a requirement for being a Muslim. The Quran mentions Jesus by name 25 times—more often than Muhammad and emphasizes that Jesus was a mortal human who, like all other prophets, had been divinely chosen to spread God's message. While the Qur'an acknowledges the Virgin birth of Jesus, He is considered to be neither the incarnation nor the son of God. Islamic texts emphasize a strict notion of monotheism (tawhid) and forbid the association of partners with God, which would be idolatry. The Quran says that Jesus himself never claimed divinity, and predicts that at the Last Judgment, Jesus will deny having ever made such a claim (Quran 5:116). Like all prophets in Islam, Jesus is considered a Muslim. The Quran describes the annunciation to Mary (Maryam) by an angel that she is to give birth to Jesus while remaining a virgin. It calls the virgin birth a miracle that occurred by the will of God. The Quran (21:91 and 66:12) states that God breathed his spirit into Mary while she was chaste. Jesus is called the "Spirit of God" because he was born through the action of the Spirit, but that belief does not imply his pre-existence. To aid in his ministry to the Jewish people, Jesus was given the ability to perform miracles, by permission of God rather than by his own power. Through his ministry, Jesus is seen as a precursor to Muhammad. According to the Quran, Jesus was not crucified but was merely made to appear that way to unbelievers by Allah, who physically raised Jesus into the heavens. To Muslims, it is the ascension rather than the crucifixion that constitutes a major event in the life of Jesus. Most Muslims believe that Jesus will return to earth at the end of time and defeat the Antichrist (ad-Dajjal) by killing him in Lud. The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community has several distinct teachings about Jesus. Ahmadis believe that he was a mortal man who survived his crucifixion and died a natural death at the age of 120 in Kashmir, India.
Bahá'í views
Bahá'í teachings consider Jesus to be a manifestation of God, a Bahá'í concept for prophets ntermediaries between God and humanity, serving as messengers and reflecting God's qualities and attributes. The Bahá'í concept emphasizes the simultaneous qualities of humanity and divinity; thus, it is similar to the Christian concept of incarnation. Bahá'í thought accepts Jesus as the Son of God. In Bahá'í thought, Jesus was a perfect incarnation of God's attributes, but Bahá'í teachings reject the idea that divinity was contained with a single human body, stating that, on the contrary, God transcends physical reality. Bahá'u'lláh, the founder of the Bahá'í Faith, wrote that since each manifestation of God has the same divine attributes, they can be seen as the spiritual "return" of all previous manifestations of God, and the appearance of each new manifestation of God inaugurates a religion that supersedes the former ones, a concept known as progressive revelation. Bahá'ís believe that God's plan unfolds gradually through this process as mankind matures, and that some of the manifestations arrive in specific fulfillment of the missions of previous ones. Thus, Bahá'ís believe that Bahá'u'lláh is the promised return of Christ. Bahá'í teachings confirm many, but not all, aspects of Jesus as portrayed in the gospels. Bahá'ís believe in the virgin birth and in the Crucifixion, but see the Resurrection and the miracles of Jesus as symbolic.
Other views
See also: Criticism of Jesus
In Christian Gnosticism (now a largely extinct religious movement), Jesus was sent from the divine realm and provided the secret knowledge (gnosis) necessary for salvation. Most Gnostics believed that Jesus was a human who became possessed by the spirit of "the Christ" at his baptism. This spirit left Jesus' body during the crucifixion, but was rejoined to him when he was raised from the dead. Some Gnostics, however, were docetics, believed that Jesus did not have a physical body, but only appeared to possess one. Manichaeism, a Gnostic sect, accepted Jesus as a prophet, in addition to revering Gautama Buddha andZoroaster. Some Hindus consider Jesus to be an avatar or a sadhu and point out similarities between Krishna and Jesus' teachings. Paramahansa Yogananda, an Indian guru, taught that Jesus was the reincarnation of Elisha and a student of John the Baptist, the reincarnation of Elijah. Some Buddhists, including Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, regard Jesus as a bodhisattva who dedicated his life to the welfare of people. Disciples of the Cao Đài religion worship Jesus Christ as a major religious teacher. He is revealed during communication with Divine Beings as the spirit of their Supreme Being (God the Father) together with other major religious teachers and founders like the Gautama Buddha, Laozi, and Confucius. The New Age movement entertains a wide variety of views on Jesus. Theosophists, from whom many New Age teachings originated, refer to Jesus as the Master Jesus and believe that Christ, after various incarnations, occupied the body of Jesus. Scientologists recognize Jesus (along with other religious figures such as Zoroaster, Muhammad, and Buddha) as part of their "religious heritage". Atheists reject Jesus' divinity, but not all hold a negative estimation of him; Richard Dawkins, for instance, refers to Jesus as "a great moral teacher", while stating in his book The God Delusion that Jesus is praiseworthy because he did not derive his ethics from biblical scripture. Jesus had detractors, both past and present, as well. Early critics of Jesus and Christianity included Celsus in the second century and Porphyry in the third. In the 19th century, Nietzsche was highly critical of Jesus, whose teachings he considered to be "anti-nature" in their treatment of topics such as sexuality. More contemporary notable critics of Jesus include Sita Ram Goel, Christopher Hitchens, Bertrand Russell, and Dayananda Saraswati. In the 20th century, Russell wrote in Why I Am Not a Christian that Jesus was "not so wise as some other people have been, and He was certainly not superlatively wise". Russell called Jesus’ vindictive nature a defect in his moral character in that Jesus in the Gospels believed in the everlasting punishment of hell, which Russell felt that no one who is "really profoundly humane can believe in". Russell also notes a repeated "vindictive fury against those people who would not listen to His preaching" which he felt "detract[s] from superlative excellence".
Depictions
Main article: Depiction of Jesus
Jesus healing a paralytic in one of the first known images of Jesus from Dura Europos in the 2nd century
Some of the earliest depictions of Jesus at the Dura-Europos church are firmly dated to before 256. Thereafter, despite the lack of biblical references or historical records, a wide range of depictions of Jesus appeared during the last two millennia, often influenced by cultural settings, political circumstances and theological contexts. As in other Early Christian art, the earliest depictions date to the late second or early third century, and surviving images are found especially in the Catacombs of Rome. The depiction of Christ in pictorial form was highly controversial in the early church. From the 5th century onward, flat painted icons became popular in the Eastern Church. The Byzantine Iconoclasm acted as a barrier to developments in the East, but by the ninth century, art was permitted again. The Transfiguration was a major theme in Eastern Christian art, and everyEastern Orthodox monk who had trained in icon painting had to prove his craft by painting an icon depicting it. Icons receive the external marks of veneration, such as kisses and prostration, and they are thought to be powerful channels of divine grace. Before the Reformation, the crucifix was common in Western Christianity. It is a model of the cross with Jesus crucified on it. The crucifix became the central ornament of the altar in the 13th century, a use that has been nearly universal in Roman Catholic churches until recent times. Jesus appears as an infant in a manger (feed trough) in Christmas creches, which depict the Nativity scene. He is typically joined by Mary, Joseph, animals, shepherds, angels, and the Magi. Francis of Assisi (1181/82–1226) is credited with popularizing the creche, although he probably did not initiate it. The creche reached its height of popularity in the 17th and 18th centuries in southern Europe.The Renaissance brought forth a number of artists who focused on depictions of Jesus; Fra Angelico and others followed Giotto in the systematic development of uncluttered images. The Protestant Reformation brought renewed resistance to imagery, but total prohibition was atypical, and Protestant objections to images have tended to reduce since the 16th century. Although large images are generally avoided, few Protestants now object to book illustrations depicting Jesus. The use of depictions of Jesus is advocated by the leaders of denominations such as Anglicans and Catholics and is a key element of the Eastern Orthodox tradition.
Associated relics
Main article: Relics associated with Jesus
The total destruction that ensued with the siege of Jerusalem by the Romans in AD 70 made the survival of items from first century Judea very rare and almost no direct records survive about the history of Judaism from the last part of the first century through the second century. Margaret M. Mitchell writes that although Eusebius reports (Ecclesiastical History III 5.3) that the early Christians left Jerusalem for Pella just before Jerusalem was subjected to the final lock down, we must accept that no first hand Christian items from the early Jerusalem Church have reached us. However, throughout the history of Christianity a number ofrelics attributed to Jesus have been claimed, although doubt has been cast on them. The 16th-century Catholic theologian Erasmus wrote sarcastically about the proliferation of relics and the number of buildings that could have been constructed from the wood claimed to be from the cross used in the Crucifixion. Similarly, while experts debate whether Jesus was crucified with three nails or with four, at least thirty holy nails continue to be venerated as relics across Europe. Some relics, such as purported remnants of the Crown of Thorns, receive only a modest number of pilgrims, while the Shroud of Turin (which is associated with an approved Catholic devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus), have received millions, including popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI. There is no scholarly consensus in favor for the authenticity of any relic attributed to Jesus.
