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General / Advanced Information
Jesus, or Jeshua ben Joseph, as he was known to his contemporaries, was a Jew who appeared as a prophet, a teacher, and a sage in Palestine about AD 30. His followers believed him to be the Messiah of Israel, the one in whom God had acted definitively for the salvation of his people (hence, the title Christ, a Greek rendition of the Hebrew Meshiah, meaning "anointed one"). This belief took distinctive form when, after the execution of Jesus by the Romans (acting on the recommendation of the Jewish authorities), he reportedly presented himself alive to some of his followers.
The Resurrection of Jesus became a fundamental tenet of the religion that would soon be called Christianity. According to Christian belief, Jesus was God made man (he was called both "Son of God" and "Son of Man" and identified as the second person of the Trinity); his life and his death by crucifixion are understood to have restored the relationship between God and humankind - which had been broken by the latter's sinfulness (Atonement; Original Sin); and his resurrection (the event celebrated by Easter) affirms God's total sovereignty over his creation and offers humankind the hope of Salvation.
These core beliefs about Jesus are summed up in the words of the Nicene Creed: "I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only - begotten Son of God, Begotten of his Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, Very God of very God, Begotten, not made, Being of one substance with the Father, By whom all things were made: Who for us men, and for our salvation came down from heaven, And was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, And was made man, And was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried, And the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures, And Ascended into heaven, And sitteth on the right hand of the Father. And he shall come again with glory to judge both the quick and the dead: Whose kingdom shall have no end."
Another passage in the Antiquities (18.3.3) gives an extended account of Jesus and his career, but some features of it are clearly Christian interpolations. Whether this passage has an authentic nucleus is debated. Thus the Roman sources show a vague awareness that Jesus was a historical figure as well as the object of a cult; the reliable Jewish sources tell us that he was a Jewish teacher who was put to death for sorcery and false prophecy and that he had a brother named James. The Jewish evidence is especially valuable because of the hostility between Jews and Christians at the time: it would have been easy for the Jewish side to question the existence of Jesus, but this they never did.
Some would add two other primary sources, the material peculiar to Matthew and that peculiar to Luke. There is a growing consensus that the fourth Gospel, despite a heavy overlay of Johannine theology in the arrangement of the episodes and in the discourses, also enshrines useful historical information and authentic sayings of Jesus. Form criticism investigates the history of the oral traditions behind the written Gospels and their sources, whereas redaction criticism isolates and studies the theology of the editorial work of the evangelists.
These methods provide criteria to sift through the redaction and tradition and reconstruct the message and the mission of the historical Jesus. The criteria of authenticity are dissimilarity both to contemporary Judaism and to the teachings of the post Easter church; coherence; multiple attestation; and linguistic and environmental factors. The criterion of dissimilarity establishes a primary nucleus of material unique to Jesus. The criterion of coherence adds other materials consistent with this nucleus. Multiple attestation - material attested by more than one primary source or in more than one of the forms of oral tradition established by form criticism - provides evidence for the primitivity of the Jesus tradition. Palestinian cultural background and Aramaic speech forms provide an additional test.
If there are any factual elements in them, these will be found among the items on which Matthew and Luke agree: the names of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus; the dating of Jesus' birth toward the end of the reign of Herod the Great (d. 4 BC); and, less certainly, the Bethlehem location of the birth. Some would add the conception of Jesus between the first and second stages of the marriage rites between Mary and Joseph; Christians interpreted this in terms of a conception through the Holy Spirit.
Following his baptism by John the Baptist, Jesus embarked on a ministry of possibly three years duration, primarily in Galilee (he had grown up in the Galilean town of Nazareth). The Gospels record his choosing of 12 disciples, and he preached both to them and to the population at large, often attracting great crowds (as when he delivered the Sermon on the Mount, Matt. 4:25 - 7:29; cf. Luke 6:17 - 49). He proclaimed the kingdom of God - the inbreaking of God's final saving act through his own word and work (Mark 1:14; Matt. 12:28). He confronted his contemporaries with the challenge of this inbreaking reign of God in his parables of the kingdom (Mark 4). He laid down God's radical demand of obedience (Matt. 5:21 - 48).
In prayer Jesus addressed God uniquely as "Abba" (the intimate address of the child to his earthly father in the family), not "my" or "our" Father as in Judaism, and he invited his disciples in the Lord's Prayer to share the privilege of addressing God thus (Luke 11:2). He ate with the outcasts, such as tax collectors and prostitutes, and interpreted his conduct as the activity of God, seeking and saving the lost (as in the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the prodigal son, Luke 15). He performed exorcisms and healings as signs of the inbreaking of God's final reign, in triumph over the powers of evil (Matt. 11:4 - 6; 12:28).
Finally, Jesus went up to Jerusalem at the time of the Passover to deliver his challenge of imminent judgment and salvation at the heart and center of his people's life. One of the actions attributed to him there was the expulsion of the money changers from the Temple (Matt. 21:12 - 17; Mark 11:15 - 19; Luke 19:45 - 46). Earlier, Jesus had incurred the hostility of the Pharisees, who attacked him for breaking the Law and whom he denounced for their formalistic precepts and self righteousness (Matt. 23:13 - 36; Luke 18:9 - 14). In Jerusalem his opponents were the other principal Jewish religious party, the Sadducees, who included the priestly authorities of the Temple. Aided by one of the disciples, Judas Iscariot, the authorities arrested Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. He was examined by the Sanhedrin and handed over to the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, who sentenced him to crucifixion.
At a time of considerable political unrest in Palestine and high messianic expectations among certain Jewish groups (for example, the revolutionary Zealots), Jesus and his following undoubtedly appeared to represent some political threat. The passion narratives of the Gospels contain major theological motifs. First Jesus' sufferings and death are presented as the fulfillment of God's will announced in the Old Testament writings. Second, the accounts of the Last Supper, a farewell meal held before Jesus' arrest, proclaim the atoning significance of Jesus' death in the words over the bread and wine. Third, great emphasis is placed on the statement that Jesus died as Messiah or king. Fourth, some of the events described contain theological symbolism, for example, the rending of the Temple veil.
During his earthly life Jesus was addressed as rabbi and was regarded as a prophet. Some of his words, too, place him in the category of sage. A title of respect for a rabbi would be "my Lord." Already before Easter his followers, impressed by his authority, would mean something more than usual when they addressed him as "my Lord." Jesus apparently refused to be called Messiah because of its political associations (Mark 8:27 - 30; Matt. 26:64, correcting Mark 14:62). Yet the inscription on the cross, "The King of the Jews," provides irrefutable evidence that he was crucified as a messianic pretender (Mark 15:26).
Although it is possible that Jesus' family claimed to be of Davidic descent, it is unlikely that the title "Son of David" was ascribed to him or accepted by him during his earthly ministry. "Son of God," in former times a title of the Hebrew kings (Psa. 2:7), was first adopted in the post Easter church as an equivalent of Messiah and had no metaphysical connotations (Rom. 1:4). Jesus was conscious of a unique filial relationship with God, but it is uncertain whether the Father / Son language (Mark 18:32; Matt. 11:25 - 27 par.; John passim) goes back to Jesus himself.
Most problematical of all is the title "Son of Man." This is the only title used repeatedly by Jesus as a self designation, and there is no clear evidence that it was used as a title of majesty by the post Easter church. Hence it is held by many to be authentic, since it passes the criterion of dissimilarity. Those who regard it as unauthentic see in it the post Easter church's identification of Jesus with the "Son of Man" either of Dan. 7:13 or - if the title really existed there before Jesus - in Jewish apocalyptic tradition. One possible view, based on the distinction Jesus makes between himself and the coming "Son of Man" (Luke 12: 8 - 12; Mark 8:38), is that he invoked this figure to underline the finality of his own word and work - this finality would be vindicated by the "Son of Man" at the end.
In that case the post Easter church was able to identify Jesus with that "Son of Man" because the Easter event was the vindication of his word and work. The post Easter church then formed further "Son of Man" sayings, some speaking in highly apocalyptic terms of his return in the Second Coming (for example, Mark 14:62); others expressing the authority exercised during the earthly ministry (for example, Mark 2:10, 28); and still others expressing his impending suffering and certainty of vindication (Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:33).
Soon their experience of the Holy Spirit, whose descent is recorded in Acts 2, led the early Christians to think in terms of a two stage Christology: the first stage was the earthly ministry and the second stage his active ruling in heaven. This two stage Christology, in which Jesus is exalted as Messiah, Lord, and Son of God (Acts 2:36; Rom. 1:4), is often called adoptionist. It is not the Adoptionism of later heresy, however, for it thinks in terms of function rather than being. At his exaltation to heaven Jesus began to function as he had not previously. Another primitive Christological affirmation associates the birth of Jesus with his Davidic descent, thus qualifying him for the messianic office at his exaltation (for example, Rom. 1:3). This introduced the birth of Jesus as a Christologically significant moment.
As Christianity spread to the Greek speaking world between AD 35 and 50, further Christological perspectives were developed. The sending - of - the - Son pattern was one of them. This pattern is threefold: (1) God sent (2) his Son (3) in order to . . . (with a statement of the saving purpose - for example, Galatians 4:4 - 5). The birth narratives of Matthew and Luke combine the Davidic descent with the sending - of - the - Son Christology. Another major development of this period is the identification of Jesus as the incarnation of the heavenly wisdom of Jewish speculation (Prov. 8:22 - 31; Sir. 24:1 - 12; Wisd. 7:24 - 30).
Hence a three stage Christology emerges: the preexistent wisdom or Logos (Word), who was the agent of creation and of general revela - tion and also of the special revelation of Israel, becomes incarnate in the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth, and then in the resurrection and exaltation returns to heaven (Php. 2:6 - 11; Col. 1:15 - 20; Heb. 1:1 - 3; John 1:1 - 14). With this three stage Christology there is a shift from purely functional interpretation to the question of the being or person of Jesus. Thus the later phases of the New Testament lay the ground for the Christological controversies of the Patristic Age.
In the 3d and 4th centuries there were some who continued to question the full humanity of Jesus and others who questioned his full deity. When Arius denied that the preexistent Son, or Word, was fully God, the Council of Nicea (325) formulated a creed (the Nicene Creed) containing the phrases "of one substance with the Father" and "was made man." Next, Apollinarius, anxious to assert the Son's deity, taught that the Logos replaced the human spirit in the earthly Jesus (Apollinarianism). This teaching was condemned at the Council of Constantinople (381). Next, the theologians of the school of Antioch were so anxious to maintain the reality of Jesus' humanity that they seemed to compromise his deity. Thus Theodore of Mopsuestia and his pupil Nestorius (Nestorianism) separated the deity from the humanity almost to the point of denying the unity of his person.
To preserve this unity the Council of Ephesus (431) affirmed that Mary was the "God - bearer" (Theotokos, later popularly rendered as "Mother of God"). Eutyches from the Alexandrian school then claimed that the two natures of Christ were, at the incarnation, fused into one. This view was ruled out at the Council of Chalcedon (451), which insisted that Christ was one person in two natures (divine and human) "without confusion, without change, without division and without separation."
Modern Christologies generally start "from below" rather than "from above," finding Jesus first to be truly human, and then discovering his divinity in and through his humanity: "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself" (2 Cor. 5:19).
Reginald H Fuller
Bibliography
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the Gospel Tradition (1967); G Bornkamm, Jesus of Nazareth (1960);
R Bultmann, Jesus and the Word (1954); and Jesus Christ and
Mythology (1958); Congar, Yves, Jesus Christ (1966); C M Connick,
Jesus: The Man, the Mission, and the Message (1974); H Conzelmann,
Jesus (1973); P Fredericksen, From Jesus to Christ (1988); R H
Fuller, The Foundations of New Testament Christology (1965); E J
Goodspeed, A Life of Jesus (1950); M Grant, Jesus: An Historian's
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Jesus is the proper, as Christ is the official, name of our Lord. To distinguish him from others so called, he is spoken of as "Jesus of Nazareth" (John 18:7), and "Jesus the son of Joseph" (John 6:42). This is the Greek form of the Hebrew name Joshua, which was originally Hoshea (Num. 13:8, 16), but changed by Moses into Jehoshua (Num. 13:16; 1 Chr. 7:27), or Joshua. After the Exile it assumed the form Jeshua, whence the Greek form Jesus. It was given to our Lord to denote the object of his mission, to save (Matt. 1:21).
The life of Jesus on earth may be divided into two great periods, (1) that of his private life, till he was about thirty years of age; and (2) that of his public life, which lasted about three years.
In the "fulness of time" he was born at Bethlehem, in the reign of the emperor Augustus, of Mary, who was betrothed to Joseph, a carpenter (Matt. 1:1; Luke 3:23; comp. John 7:42). His birth was announced to the shepherds (Luke 2:8-20). Wise men from the east came to Bethlehem to see him who was born "King of the Jews," bringing gifts with them (Matt. 2:1-12). Herod's cruel jealousy led to Joseph's flight into Egypt with Mary and the infant Jesus, where they tarried till the death of this king (Matt. 2:13-23), when they returned and settled in Nazareth, in Lower Galilee (2:23; comp. Luke 4:16; John 1:46, etc.). At the age of twelve years he went up to Jerusalem to the Passover with his parents. There, in the temple, "in the midst of the doctors," all that heard him were "astonished at his understanding and answers" (Luke 2:41, etc.). Eighteen years pass, of which we have no record beyond this, that he returned to Nazareth and "increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man" (Luke 2:52).
He entered on his public ministry when he was about thirty years of age. It is generally reckoned to have extended to about three years.
Each of these years had peculiar features of its own.
(from Stalker's Life of Jesus Christ, p. 45).
The only reliable sources of information regarding the life of Christ on earth are the Gospels, which present in historical detail the words and the work of Christ in so many different aspects. (See our presentation on Christ.)
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