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43–4</ref> The historical outlook on Jesus relies on critical analysis of the Bible, especially the gospels. Many scholars have sought to reconstruct Jesus' life in terms of contemporaneous political, cultural, and religious currents in Israel, including differences between Galilee and Judea, and between different sects such the Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes and Zealots,[1][2] and in terms of conflicts among Jews in the context of Roman occupation.
Peter Kirby's Historical Jesus Theories gives an overview of the conflicting answers that recent writers have given to these questions. The variety and contradictory character of these answers indicate that what follows here is not to be taken as representing a consensus among scholars.
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[edit] Descriptions of historical Jesus
Historians generally describe Jesus as an healer who preached the restoration of God's kingdom.[3] Most historians agree he was baptized by John the Baptist, and was crucified by the Romans.
[edit] Baptism
John the Baptist led a large apocalyptic movement. He demanded repentance and baptism. Jesus was baptized and later began his ministry. After John was executed, some of his followers apparently took Jesus as their new leader.[4]
Historians are nearly unanimous in accepting Jesus' baptism as a historical event.[5]
[edit] Teaching
According to Robert Funk, Jesus taught in pithy parables and with striking images.[6] He likened the Kingdom of Heaven to small and lowly things, such as yeast or a mustard seed,[6] that have great effects. Historians often see Jesus' theological pronouncements in the gospels as coming from the Christian tradition but not from Jesus' himself.
Jesus placed a special emphasis on God as one's heavenly father.[6]
[edit] Names and titles
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Jesus Christ and Christianity |
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Cultural and historical background |
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Perspectives on Jesus |
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Jesus in culture |
The name Jesus is an anglicization of the Hebrew name that would have more closely been pronounced as spelled Yeshua.[citation needed]
Jesus probably lived in Galilee for most of his life and he probably spoke Aramaic and Hebrew.[7] The name "Jesus" is an English transliteration of the Latin (Iēsus) which in turn comes from the Greek name Iesous (Ιησους). The name has also been translated into English as "Joshua".[8] Further examination of the Septuagint finds that the Greek, in turn, is a transliteration of the Hebrew/Aramaic Yeshua (ישוע) (Yeshua — he will save) a contraction of Hebrew name Yehoshua (יהושוע Yeho — Yahweh [is] shua` — deliverance/rescue, usually Romanized as Joshua). Scholars believe that one of these was likely the name that Jesus was known by during his lifetime by his peers.[9]
Christ (which is a title and not a part of his name) is an Anglicization of the Greek term for Messiah (χριστός, from the verb χρίω "to anoint"), and literally means "anointed one." Historians have debated what this title might have meant at the time Jesus lived; some historians have suggested that other titles applied to Jesus in the New Testament had meanings in the first century quite different from those meanings ascribed today.[10]
The titles "Divine", "Son of God", "God", "God from God", "Lord", "Redeemer", "Liberator", and "Saviour of the World" were each applied to the Roman emperors. John Dominic Crossan considers that the application of them to Jesus by the early Christians would have been regarded as denying them to the emperor(s). "They were taking the identity of the Roman emperor and giving it to a Jewish peasant. Either that was a peculiar joke and a very low lampoon, or it was what the Romans called majestas and we call high treason."[11]
The title Son of God has often been taken as a claim to divinity. Likewise, Jesus claimed the title "I AM" in John 8:58 which designates God in the Hebrew Bible, especially in Exodus 3:14.[12] Some New Testament scholars, however, argue that Jesus himself made no claims to being God.[13][14][15][16][17][18][19] Most Christians identified Jesus as divine from a very early period, although holding a variety of views as to what exactly this implied.[20]
[edit] Religious groups
Scholars refer to the religious background of the early 1st-century to better reconstruct Jesus' life. Some scholars identify him with one or another group.
[edit] Pharisees
Pharisees were a powerful force in 1st-century Judaism. After the fall of the Temple, the Pharisee outlook was established in Rabbinic Judaism.
Some scholars speculate that Jesus was himself a Pharisee.[21] In Jesus' day, the two main schools of thought among the Pharisees were the House of Hillel, which had been founded by the eminent Tanna, Hillel the Elder, and the House of Shammai. Jesus' assertion of hypocrisy may have been directed against the stricter members of the House of Shammai, although he also agreed with their teachings on divorce (Mark 10:1–12).[22] Jesus also commented on the House of Hillel's teachings (Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 31a) concerning the greatest commandment (Mark 12:28–34) and the Golden Rule (Matthew 7:12).
[edit] Sadducees
The Sadducee sect was particularly powerful in Jerusalem. They accepted the written Law only, rejecting the traditional interpretations accepted by the Pharisees, such as belief in retribution in an afterlife, resurrection of the body, angels, and spirits. They appear to have opposed Jesus' ministry, perhaps because they feared trouble from the Roman power, and in any case because they opposed his doctrines. After the fall of Jerusalem, they disappeared from history.[23]
[edit] Essenes
Essenes were apocalyptic ascetics, one of the three (or four) major Jewish schools of the time, though they were not mentioned in the New Testament.[24]
Some scholars theorize that Jesus was an Essene, or close to them. Among these scholars is Pope Benedict XVI, who supposes in his book on Jesus that "it appears that not only John the Baptist, but possibly Jesus and his family as well, were close to the Qumran community."[25]
[edit] Apocalyptic movements
Still other scholars hypothesize that Jesus led a new apocalyptic sect, possibly related to John the Baptist,[26] who became early Christian after the Great Commission spread his teachings to the Gentiles.[27] This is distinct from an earlier commission Jesus gave to the twelve Apostles, limited to "the lost sheep of the house of Israel" and specifically excluding the Gentiles or Samaritans (Matthew 10).
[edit] Nazarenes
The Gospels record that Jesus was a Nazarene, a term commonly taken to refer to his place of birth, but sometimes as a religious affiliation.[2]
[edit] Zealots
The Zealots were a revolutionary party opposed to Roman rule, one of those parties that, according to Josephus inspired the fanatical stand in Jerusalem that led to its destruction in the year 70.[28] Luke identifies Simon, a disciple, as a "zealot," which might mean a member of the Zealot party (which would therefore have been already in existence in the lifetime of Jesus) or a zealous person.[28] The notion that Jesus himself was a Zealot does not do justice to the earliest Synoptic material describing him.[29]
[edit] Gospels as historical texts
The New Testament, especially the synoptic gospels, were written soon after Jesus' life, making them relevant to historical analysis.[30] Modern scholars use various methods for sorting out the historical Jesus who inspired the gospels from the Jesus of faith that the gospel authors wrote about.
After the original oral stories were written down in Greek, they were transcribed, and later translated into other languages. This is not unique to the Bible — other documents of antiquity have been scrutinized for gaps between the date of an event and the date it was written. Having been written, the New Testament sources encountered insignificant changes, according to scholars such as the late Sir Frederic Kenyon (1863 - 1952).[31]
Contemporary textual critic Bart D. Ehrman cites numerous places where the gospels, and other New Testament books, were apparently altered by Christian scribes.[32] The scribes, largely amateurs, worked to make the gospels more similar and to remove verses that could be taken to support unorthodox beliefs common in early Christianity.[32] For example, Luke portrays Jesus as implacable in the face of his crucifixion, contrary to Mark, which portrays him in agony. Ehrman considers that verses in Luke in which Jesus sweats blood to be a later interpolation, made to include agony in Luke's account.[32] The views of intellectuals who entirely reject Jesus' historicity are summarized in the chapter on Jesus in Will Durant's Caesar and Christ. It is based on a scarcity of eyewitness accounts, a lack of direct archaeological evidence, the failure of specific ancient works to mention Jesus, and similarities between early Christianity and contemporary mythology.[33]
One method used to estimate the factual accuracy of stories in the gospels is known as the "criterion of embarrassment," which holds that stories about events with embarrassing aspects (such as the denial of Jesus by Peter, or the fleeing of Jesus' followers after his arrest) would likely not have been included if those accounts were fictional.[34] Biblical scholars hold that the works describing Jesus were initially communicated by oral tradition, and were not committed to writing until several decades after Jesus' crucifixion. The earliest extant texts which refer to Jesus are Paul's letters, which are usually dated from the mid-1st century. Paul wrote that he only saw Jesus in visions, but that they were divine revelations and hence authoritative (Galatians 1:11–12). The earliest extant texts describing Jesus in any detail were the four Gospels.
