The monk Dionysius Exiguus (A.D. 533),
who devised our modern calendar with its reckoning B.C.
and A.D., miscalculated the reign of Octavian-Augustus by
at least four years. Since Herod the Great died just
after an eclipse of the moon which can be placed at 4
B.C. and since he was still alive at Jesus' birth, Jesus
must have been born before this date.
According to Luke and Matthew, Jesus was conceived by
a virgin named Mary while she was legally engaged but not
yet married to Joseph of Nazareth. They were both Jews in
the royal line of King David, from whence the Messiah
prophesied in the Old Testament was to come. When she was
about to have the child, Mary traveled with Joseph about
seventy miles south to their ancestral home of Bethlehem
because the emperor Augustus had ordered an Empire-wide
census (Lk. 2:1). Jesus was thus born in Bethlehem,
fulfilling a prophecy written seven hundred years before
(Mic. 5:2). Joseph and Mary were quite poor, as evidenced
by their offerings in the Temple (Lk. 2:24; cf. Lev.
12:8).
The canonical Gospels record that Mary and Joseph
returned to Nazareth and had other children. These
brothers and sisters were not sympathetic to Jesus'
mission (Mk. 3:31-35; Mt. 13:55-56). Later, however, his
brother James played a leading role in the church. James
and another brother Jude wrote letters which are included
in the New Testament.
The canonical Gospels record only one incident in
Jesus' childhood. When he was twelve he impressed the
rabbis in Jerusalem with his questions and answers (Lk.
2:41-52). In contrast, the apocryphal infancy Gospels
(dating from the second century A.D. on) attribute all
kinds of absurd miracles to the young Jesus, for example,
portraying him making live pigeons out of clay and
petulantly striking some of his playmates dead.(11)
Although marriage was considered a religious duty by
most Jews (the Essenes were the exception), Jesus never
married.
Until his thirtieth year, Jesus
remained in Nazareth, presumably working as a carpenter
(Lk. 3:23). Then he began his ministry by submitting to
the baptism of John the Baptist. Jesus, who had no formal
training as a rabbi, did not speak like the rabbis of his
day; they cited their predecessors as their authorities
while Jesus spoke on his own authority (Mt. 5:27-28,
7:28-29).
Since we know Jesus appeared at three or four Passover
festivals, his public ministry must have lasted three to
three-and-a-half years. During this time he trained a
band of twelve apostles and many other disciples. He went
about teaching, healing the sick and raising the dead
(for example, Jn. 11). Jewish rabbinical sources do not
deny these miracles but rather attribute them to demonic
magic. Speaking of the miracles attributed to Christ in
the canonical Gospels, F.F. Bruce comments: "In
general, they are 'in character' - that is to say, they
are the kind of works that might be expected from such a
Person as the Gospels represent Jesus to be."(14)
Like his forerunner John the Baptist, Jesus preached
that men must repent of their sins (Lk. 13:3-5), that is,
men must acknowledge God's judgment against their
sinfulness and seek his forgiveness and cleansing. He
taught that men should seek the will of God and his
kingdom, rather than any earthly kingdom or temporal goal
(Mt. 6). He insisted that men should love not only their
neighbors but even their enemies (Mt. 5:44).
Above all, Jesus taught that God loves men so much he
had sent his only son, Jesus himself, to become incarnate
as a man (Jn.1:1, 14) in order to die in their place, so
that they might not perish eternally but might receive
eternal life (Jn. 3:16; Mt. 20:28). For a man to receive
eternal life he must be ''born again" (Jn. 3:3) by
committing his life to Jesus (Jn. 1:12; cf. Rev. 3:20).
Jesus' disregard for their minute regulations (for
example, prohibiting healing on the Sabbath) aroused the
opposition of the Pharisees, the most respected religious
leaders among the Jews. Jesus strongly denounced the
hypocrisy of these antagonists. Even at the time of his
greatest popularity Jesus told his disciples that he
would be condemned to death, crucified and resurrected
(Mk. 8:31; 9:31; 10:33-34).
When Jesus was given a tumultuous
welcome into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, the chief priests
and other leaders of the Jews conspired with Judas
Iscariot, one of Jesus' own apostles, to arrest him. He
finally was arrested on Thursday night (early Friday
morning by Jewish reckoning) in a garden where he was
praying with his disciples. After preliminary
examinations during the night by Annas the high priest
emeritus (Jn. 18), by Caiaphas the high priest (Mk. 14;
Mt. 26; and Lk. 22) and by part of the Sanhedrin (the
ruling assembly of the Jews), Jesus was taken early in
the morning to the Roman governor Pontius Pilate and
accused of misleading the Jewish nation, forbidding the
payment of taxes to Rome and claiming to be a king (Lk.
23:2).(15)
Though he judged Jesus to be innocent, Pilate had him
scourged and crucified to placate a mob which had
gathered and been stirred up by the Jewish leaders (Mt.
27:20; Mk. 15:11). Though Jesus suffered humiliation and
excruciating pain on the cross, he asked God to forgive
those who were responsible (Lk. 23:34). That "Good
Friday," as the Sabbath approached, (16) the Roman
soldiers hastened the deaths of the brigands with whom
Jesus was crucified by breaking their legs. They made
certain Jesus was already dead by thrusting a spear in
his side.
The body of Jesus was buried by Joseph of Arimathea in
an unused tomb which was carved into a rock. A large
circular stone was rolled in front of the entrance and
Roman soldiers were posted there (Mt. 27:62-66). When
some women disciples came to the tomb early on Sunday
morning to complete the anointing of Jesus' body,
however, they discovered the soldiers gone, the stone
rolled away and the tomb empty. Upon hearing the report
of this, John and Peter raced to the tomb (Jn. 20) and
discovered all that remained in the tomb was Jesus' grave
clothes, neatly in place (evidence, by the way, which
speaks against a tomb robbery).
The empty tomb alone did not convince the disciples
that Jesus was alive, but Jesus appeared to his disciples
on at least ten occasions after that. All of these
appearances are recorded in the New Testament; we will
mention just four of them.
Jesus first appeared to Mary Magdalene on Sunday
morning near the tomb. The other disciples did not
believe her report (Jn. 20:18; Mk. 16:11). Then that
evening in Jerusalem Jesus suddenly appeared in the midst
of the disciples, who had barricaded themselves behind
locked doors. After allowing the terrified men to touch
him and examine his wounds to pr
