The death and, as Christians believe, the resurrection of Jesus is the cornerstone of the Christian faith as mentioned in the last post. Resurrection sounds impossible, isn't it? However, we need to look into a more basic question first:
Who is Jesus? Is it possible that Jesus in the Bible has never existed in this world?
We need some basic information about who Jesus is before we can look into the second question in more details.
Jesus was born around 4 BC, which is more than two thousand years ago. He was raised in a place called Galilee in ancient Israel. He was the eldest son of his family. Around the age of thirty, he began to preach to the Israelites that they had to repent for the Kingdom of God is near.
He taught people to serve God from their heart. He said that a man committed adultery with a woman by just looking lustfully to her, and that one has to love his enemies and prayed for those who prosecuted them. When asked what the greatest commandment was, he replied that it was to love God with all one’s heart, soul, and mind, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself. Who is the neighbor? The one who showed mercy to those in need, which essentially means everyone.
Jesus was always followed by a large crowd, and one of the reasons was that he miraculously healed a lot of sick people and even opened the eyes of the blind according to the description in the gospels, which are the first four books in the New Testament that described Jesus’ ministry.
Was Jesus wealthy? Not really. Jesus once told someone who wanted to follow him that “foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head”.
Jesus was welcomed by the poor but not the powerful people. His popularity aroused the jealousy of the religious leaders. His actions, in particular healing during the Sabbath which is the first day of a week, angered the religious leaders as they insisted that no one was allowed to work during Sabbath. Furthermore, Jesus repeatedly claimed that he was divine, and he even forgave sins publicly. The religious leaders considered that as plain blasphemy and was punishable by death.
Hard pressed by the powerful people in Israel, the Roman governor of Israel sentenced Jesus to death on the cross by crucifixion. It was about three years after Jesus started his ministry.
The above is an overview and an exceedingly brief description of the earthly life of Jesus according to the Bible. Christians believe that Jesus is fully God and fully man as mentioned before. We will look into the second question of whether there was really a person named Jesus that matches what the Bible describes in our next post.
