Buy this book on Amazon: A Short History of the World
Jesus was born sometime between 6 BC and 4 BC. Very little is known about the man until he began his ministry some 30 years after his birth. At this time Jesus began spreading a message of love and peace in a period during which Judea was under the domination of a Roman occupying army. He challenged and angered the established Pharisee leaders, who successfully called for the Roman occupiers to crucify him for blasphemy. According to the Bible, he angered them specifically by his claims that he could forgive sins, which they believed only God could do.23
Jesus gained a group of Jewish followers, partly through his teachings but also because many of them believed he was the Messiah – the great leader whose return was foretold in the Torah and who would liberate his people and usher in a time of peace. His crucifixion in circa AD 28-29 was a catastrophe for his devotees. Shortly after his death, however, a large number of them claimed he had risen from the dead and had appeared to them. His resurrection became the basis of Christian belief from then on.
At the time of his crucifixion, Jesus’ followers were nothing more than members of a small Jewish sect, occasionally persecuted by the Romans. By AD 380, Christianity had become the state religion of Rome. Today, Christianity is one of the major world religions and has influenced legal and political systems around the world, as well as our calendar, which is based around the birth of Christ.24