A GlimpseAccording to Christian belief, just after he was baptized by John the Baptist he began his public teaching; he is generally considered to have been about thirty years old at that time. Jesus used a variety of methods in his teaching, such as paradox, metaphor and parable. His teaching frequently centered on the Kingdom of God, or Kingdom of Heaven. Some of his most famous teachings are in the Sermon on the Mount, which also contains the Beatitudes. His parables (or stories with a deep or metaphorical meaning) include the parable of the Good Samaritan, and the Prodigal Son. Jesus had a number of disciples. His closest followers were twelve apostles. According to the New Testament, Jesus also performed various miracles in the course of his ministry, including healings, exorcisms, and raising Lazarus from the dead.Jesus frequently put himself in opposition to the Jewish religious leaders including the opposing forces of Sadducees and Pharisees. His teaching castigated the Pharisees primarily for their legalism and hypocrisy, although he also had followers among the religious leaders (see Nicodemus). In his role as a social reformer, and with his followers holding the inflammatory view that he was the Jewish Messiah, Jesus threatened the status quo.Jesus' preachings included the forgiveness of sin, life after death, and resurrection of the body. Jesus also preached the imminent end of the current era of history, or even the literal end of the world; in this sense he was an apocalyptic preacher. Some interpretations of the text, particularly amongst Protestants, suggest that Jesus opposed stringent interpretations of Jewish law, supporting the spirit more than the letter.
Other Gospels
Apocryphal texts have also surfaced detailing events in Jesus' life and teachings, chief among them the Gospel of Thomas, a "sayings gospel" or logia consisting primarily of phrases attributed to Jesus. Other New Testament apocrypha, generally considered less important, include the Gospel of the Hebrews, the Gospel of Mary, the Infancy Gospels, the Gospel of Peter, the Unknown Berlin Gospel, the Naassene Fragment, the Secret Gospel of Mark, the Egerton Gospel, the Oxyrhynchus Gospels and the Fayyum Fragment.
Paganism and Christ
On the other side of the coin, some scholars believe that Jesus has little or no historical basis - despite surviving descriptions in secular Roman annals by Tacitus, Suetonius, Livius, and so forth. There are many similarities between stories about Jesus and contemporary myths of Pagan godmen such as Mithras, Apollo, Attis, Horus and Osiris-Dionysus, leading to conjectures that the Pagan myths were adopted by some authors of early accounts of Jesus to form a syncretism with Christianity. Some Christian authors, such as C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien, believed that such myths were created by ancient Pagans with vague and imprecise knowledge of the Gospel. While these connections are disputed by many, it is nevertheless true that many elements of Jesus' story as told in the Gospels have parallels in Pagan mythology, where miracles such as virgin birth and reincarnation were not uncommon.
Portrayal of Jesus
Jesus has been portrayed in countless paintings and sculptures for two thousand years, particularly throughout the Middle Ages. Often he is portrayed as looking like a male from the region of the artist creating the portrait; some African-Americans, for example, portray Jesus as being of African descent. However, the most common depiction of Jesus in the Western world is as a Caucasian due to the predominance of Christianity in Europe, and some portrayals that do not agree with this common conception of him have been sources of controversy. Most of the early artifacts show Jesus as clean shaven. His hair is often long, however, this is probably a result of the mistaken belief that Jesus had taken life-long Nazarite vows, which included not cutting your hair (Samson being the most famous example of life long Nazarite).There are no descriptions of the physical appearance of the earthly Jesus in the Gospels, though a vision of the heavenly body of Jesus is described in the Book of Revelations: "His head and hairs white like wool, as white as snow; and His eyes as a flame of fire; And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace." (1:13-16). Most early theological debate about Jesus's appearance was based on interpreting Messianic prophesies and on the assumption that his physical form arose from a miraculous virgin birth and so was determined by divine fiat rather than biological mechanisms. Following Isaiah 53:2 early theologians such as Justin Martyr insisted that he was physically undistinguished, with "no beauty that we should desire him." The anti-Christian author Celsus states that he was "short and ugly". In contrast, the later Church Fathers Saint Jerome and Saint Augustine of Hippo argued that Jesus must have been ideally beautiful in face and body. The scientific recreation of a man that lives in time and place of Jesus portray a round head, large check and slightly protruding forehead with round big eyes and curly hair. This is based on the dated skulls. The man will have a face similar with present Palistinians rather than what most christian imagine, a face similar to French.
BackgrounderThe world in which Jesus would have lived was volatile, marked by many cultural and political conflicts and tensions. Culturally, Jews had to grapple with the values and philosophy of Hellenism and the imperialism of Rome, together with the paradox that their Torah applied only to them, but revealed universal truths. This situation led to new interpretations of the Torah, influenced by Hellenic thought and in response to Gentile interest in Judaism.All of the land of Israel was a protectorate of the Roman Empire at the time of Jesus' birth. The town claimed as Jesus' childhood home, Nazareth, was probably a tiny hamlet of a few hundred inhabitants, according to archaeological findings in the area. It had no synagogue, nor any public buildings. No gold, silver or imported goods have been found in it by excavation.According to Josephus, 1st-century Judaism consisted of several sects, the largest being the Sadducees, who were closely connected with the priesthood and the Temple, and the Pharisees, who were teachers and leaders of the synagogues. They resented Roman occupation, but, according to historian Shaye Cohen (1988), were in Jesus' time relatively apolitical. In addition, isolated in small communities from these main groups, by choice, sometimes even taking to remote desert caves in anticipation of the end times, lived the Essenes, whose theology and philosophy are believed by some scholars to have influenced Jesus and/or John the Baptist.
Many Jews hoped that the Romans would be replaced by a Jewish king (or Messiah) of the line of King David-in their view, the last legitimate Jewish regime. Most people at that time believed that their history was governed by God, meaning that even the conquest of Judea by the Romans was a divine act that would ultimately serve God's purposes. Therefore, the Romans would be replaced by a Jewish king only through divine intervention. Some, like John the Baptist in the first half of the century, and Yehoshua ben Ananias in the second half, claimed that a messianic age was at hand.Josephus' Jewish Antiquities book 18 states there was a "fourth sect", in addition to Sadducees, Pharisees and Essenes, which scholars associate with those he called Zealots. They were founded by Judas of Galilee and Zadok the Pharisee in the year 6 against Quirinius' tax reform and "agree in all other things with the Pharisaic notions; but they have an inviolable attachment to liberty, and say that God is to be their only Ruler and Lord." (18.1.6) They believed that the kingdom should be restored immediately, even through violent human action, and advocated direct action against the Romans. Roman reaction against the Zealots eventually led to the destruction of Herod's Temple by Vespasian in August of 70, and the subsequent decline of the Zealots, Sadducees and Essenes.
Some scholars have asserted that, despite the depictions of him as antagonistic towards the Pharisees, Jesus was a member of that group. Jesus' native language was most likely Aramaic; see Aramaic of Jesus. He may also have spoken other languages of the time, such as Hebrew, the Jewish liturgical language, and Greek, the administrative language.
Others on JesusThe Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam believes that Jesus survived the crucifixion and later travelled to India, where he lived as a prophet (and died) under the name of Yuz Asaf.Judaism rejects both the Christian belief that Jesus was the Messiah and the Muslim belief that he was a prophet; Judaism states that no new prophets were created after the destruction of the First Temple, and still awaits the coming of the Messiah. Jewish belief is not completely incompatible with some of the historical teachings attested to Jesus in the Gospels, but cannot be reconciled with the confessions by early Christian adherents, especially Paul.Hindu beliefs in Jesus vary from those who consider him to have been just a normal man, or even purely a fable, to those who believe that he was an avatar of god. A large number of Hindus consider Jesus to have been a wise guru or yogi, some even suggesting that he spent his "lost years" learning various Hindu beliefs in India. The Hindutva historian P.N. Oak has even claimed that Jesus was in fact Krishna, and that Christianity originated as a form of his worship. Mahatma Gandhi considered Jesus his teacher and inspiration for Nonviolent Resistance. Many in the Surat Shabd Yoga tradition regard Jesus as a Satguru.Although Buddhism in general attributes no spiritual significance to Jesus, some Buddhists believe that Jesus may have been a Bodhisattva, one who has dedicated his or her future to the happiness of all beings. Some Buddhists also interpret Jesus through Zen Buddhism, sometimes basing their perspective on the Gospel of Thomas. Additionally, there are many Buddhists who are also members of other religions, such as Christianity, and thus may combine Christian doctrines with Buddhist philosophies.The Baha'i Faith considers Jesus to be one of many "Manifestations" (or prophets) of God, with both human and divine stations.
