Jesus was a man whom his followers believe(d) to be the “Messiah,” the promised savior of humanity from God’s judgment. He was Jewish, said to have been born to a virgin as the Son of God.
The prophetic books of the Tanakh, which is known as the Old Testament to Christians, make multiple references to a coming savior that would restore Israel to God’s covenant.
“A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord—and he will delight in the fear of the Lord. He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears; but with righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice! He will give decisions for the poor of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked. Righteousness will be his belt and faithfulness the sash around his waist. The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and little child will lead them.”—Isaiah 11:1-6, The Hebrew-Greek Key Word Study Bible (1996).
This concept of a “righteous Branch” appears repeatedly in the prophetic books of the Tanakh, such as in Jeremiah 33:15. Jesus’ followers believed he was the incarnation of the fulfillment of these prophecies. Traditional Jews did not accept this idea. They saw Jesus as a false prophet, which according to Jewish law made him guilty of blasphemy. They quickly labeled him a heretic and convinced Pontius Pilate, a Roman official, to condone his execution without solid evidence of any crime against Rome.
The culture and time that Jesus entered was in transition. The Second Temple of Jerusalem was very much alive during Jesus’ lifetime. The content of the Old Testament, also known as the Tanakh ended with the building of this second temple. The temple’s dedication occurred in 515 b.c.e. The last books of the Hebrew scriptures were completed in 200 b.c.e. The Second Temple was destroyed in 70 c.e. The Hebrew scriptures were canonized in 90 c.e.
The earliest estimated date of the completion of any part of the New Testament is 50 c.e. According to this timeline comparison, Christianity and Judaism overlap. Jesus died at age 33. He predicted the falling of the temple.
Jesus was executed, and claimed to have been “resurrected,” meaning that his physical body disappeared after death, and Christians claim this as evidence that Jesus was the incarnation of God.
Jesus as a human resembles, to me at least, an important and possibly divine figure. Personally I see him as an equivalent to other revolutionary spiritualists, such as Buddha, the Dalai Lama, Ghandi, and Martin Luther King Jr.
As far as Jesus’ actual personality and behavior as described by the New Testament is concerned, he is very passive and at the same time very incendiary. He speaks in parables meant to confuse, advocates and exemplifies non-violence, at the same time as prophesying God’s unrelenting judgment against hypocrites. Jesus vocally opposed the Jewish loyalists who revered law and outward acts of apparent righteousness in favor of the poor, humble lower class who were open to his teachings of universal love, were willing to repent, and therefore be born again pure!
While It is hard for me to imagine why Jesus was so threatening in his own time, I am forced to acknowledge that in my own age, other teachers of peace, who I equally revere, have also been assassinated. These heroes of mine include Ghandi, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and John Lennon. If I had been granted privilege to peer into the hearts of Abraham Lincoln and John Kennedy, I might have included them on this list.
I don't know the significance of this in terms of the history of our planet, but I do know that I for one am compelled to push for a world culture that is capable of accepting different points of view.
What is most remarkable is that more than any other figure in all of human history, Jesus has made himself known in all corners of the earth. Christianity has been a dominating force in the human experience for the last 2000 years. Regardless of the question of Jesus’ "Godhood," his life changed the planet.
