The Historical Jesus

Did a man named Jesus who claimed to be the Son of God really walk the Earth? It has often been said that there is little to no evidence for his existence. However, historical research in recent times has led to a more in-depth understanding of the life of the historical Jesus; not necessarily the dogmatic Jesus, Jesus as a prophet or messiah, but Jesus as a historical figure. Here, we will examine the understanding of Jesus from a historical perspective.

According to Sanders, Moo, Morris, Grant, Meier, and Witherington, Jesus, a Roman-born Jew, was born around 4 BCE, in either Bethlehem or Nazareth. The accounts of the birth of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Matthew are regarded as literary inventions; more, anyway, than so much of the rest of the Gospels are regarded from a scholarly perspective as inventions.

It is quite certain that the historical Jesus spoke Aramaic, as well as, possibly, Greek. At the time, Greek was the common language in Rome, displacing Aramaic in importance. If two people had different native tongues, they probably would have been able to communicate using broken Greek. It is likely that Jesus was able to read; at the time, the regular reading of the Torah was considered an important part of Jewish tradition.

It is often stated that Jesus was a carpenter. There is, in fact, little historical evidence to suggest that he was definitely a carpenter, in the strict sense of the word. In the Gospel of Mark, the Greek word "tekton" is applied to Jesus. The word is related to the English word "technology", and implies only an extent of specialization in what materials Jesus would have worked. The word can apply equally to a wood-worker as it could a metal-worker, or even a stone-worker. Jesus could have been any kind of artisan.

Joseph was probably the name of Jesus's father (or the Jewish equivalent). His mother's name was definitely Mary (or the Jewish equivalent). There is no reliable information about her life. The writer, Celsus, claimed that Jesus was Mary's illegitimate son by Tiberius Iulius Abdes Pantera, a Roman archer, though there is no substantiation for this.

As in Mark 6:3 and Matthew 13:55-56, Jesus is known to have had at least one sibling, James. James is referred to in the writings of Josephus, and is referred to in Galatians 1:19. With the doctrine of the perpetual virginity of Mary, it is widely regarded that James was the child of Joseph by a previous marriage. Saint Jerome went as far as to argue that the references to the siblings of Jesus more likely referred to cousins. There is no basis for this, except to preserve doctrine.

Jesus appears to have thought that the end of the world would come about shortly. (Mark 8:38-9:1, Luke 21:35-36, Mark 13:24-27,30, 1 Corinthians 7:26,29,31)

There are some scholars who refute, alltogether, the existence of any historical Jesus, though their methodology is widely regarded as dubious. Hopefully, this article has shed some light on the question of the nature of the historical Jesus.