Jesus of Nazareth is one of the most famous men in human history. People have followed him, died for him, prayed to him, and even wondered what kind of car he would drive. But for all the faith that he’s inspired, people still have a lot of questions about who he really was.
Those questions began during Jesus’s own life. Heck, even Jesus wondered, “Who do people say that I am?” (Mark 8:27). Four gospels and two millennia later, people definitely have different views of what Jesus was like; what he thought, did, and taught; and why he died. You start to wonder whether it’s possible to sort through all the competing beliefs and all the perspectives of modern faith and past eras to recover the Jewish man who lived a short 30-plus years in a poor provincial backwater of the Roman Empire.
I’ve had the opportunity to study the history, travel to Jesus’s homeland, learn the ancient languages, and even read some of the newly discovered scrolls that shed light on Judaism in Jesus’s time. All these experiences have helped me shape a better picture of Jesus’s life in my mind. I’ve written this book so that you can have all this scholarship in your hands in plain English. You may not have the time (or the will!) to master ancient Greek, read a Dead Sea Scroll in Hebrew, or take a trip to Jerusalem. But my hope is that after you have read this book you’ll feel like you have.
About This Book
People are interested in Jesus for a lot of different reasons, and you’re no different. You may be reading this book because you’re a firm Christian believer looking to find out what biblical historians are saying. You may have picked it up because you’re a history buff and want to know more about the state of the evidence. Maybe you’ve seen a movie or read a book that has sparked your curiosity about Jesus and Mary Magdalene. Or maybe you’ve just stood one too many times in the religion aisle at the bookstore, feeling amazed by the number of books and wondering where in the world to begin.
Whatever your reasons for wanting to know more about Jesus, The Historical Jesus For Dummies was written for you. It’s designed for people who have never read a book about Jesus in their life, but it should also be interesting for those who have.
Here’s what you can expect from this book:
● Quick overviews of the biblical story of Jesus, current beliefs about him, and depictions of him in art and film
● Clear explanations of the rules that biblical historians use to reconstruct Jesus’s life
● Readable summaries of the three quests for the historical Jesus
● Maps, charts, and photos to help you track the action
● Insights into the history, society, economics, politics, and religious beliefs in Jesus’s time
● Explorations of Jesus’s life, teachings, deeds, and crucifixion
One of the best things about this book is that you decide where to start and what to read. It’s a reference you can jump into and out of at will. Just head to the table of contents or the index to find the information you want.
Conventions Used in This Book
The following conventions are used throughout the text to make things consistent and easy to understand:
● All Web addresses appear in monofont.
● New terms appear in italic and are closely followed by an easy-to-understand definition.
● Bold is used to highlight key words in bulleted lists and the action parts of numbered steps.
When mentioning dates, I use the designations BCE (before the common era) and CE (common era). This may surprise you in a book about Jesus, because the old designations BC (before Christ) and AD (from the Latin anno Domini, or “year of our Lord”) are literally named after Jesus! I use this designation for a couple of reasons. First of all, Jesus was most likely born somewhere between 6 and 4 BC, which would be 6 to 4 years “before Christ.” Talk about confusing! But more importantly, not everyone who uses the Western calendar is Christian, and it’s more gracious to use terminology that everyone can agree on.
You may also notice that I avoid referring to God as a male, so I don’t use male pronouns like He and Him and His. I’m following the Bible’s lead on this issue. After all, if God made humans in the divine image, male and female (Genesis 1:27), God obviously can’t be one or the other. Jesus often calls God his Father, or Abba (Mark 14:36; Romans 8:15), but he also speaks of God’s Wisdom (Luke 7:35), which is gendered feminine in Greek and Hebrew.
As you may know, the Bible is composed of many books written by different authors at different times. So when I cite the Bible, I follow the usual convention of referring first to the name of the book and then to the chapter and verse on either side of a colon. For example, that banner that reads “John 3:16” and shows up at every football game refers to the gospel of John, chapter 3, verse 16. If I have to refer to several verses, I separate them with a dash (John 20:30-31). Also, if I have to refer to several chapters within the same book, I separate those with a semicolon (John 9:34; 14:23).
There are a lot of passages in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke that are almost identical to each other, so sometimes I use a symbol of parallel lines (II) to indicate that these are parallel passages (for example, Mark 12:28-34 II Matthew 22:34-40 II Luke 10:25-28). When the parallels are found only in Matthew and Luke, I list just those two (for example, Matthew 8:18-22 II Luke 9:57-62) or call them “Q 9:57-62” (following Luke’s chapter and verse) because scholars think that these passages rely on a shared source called Q (you can read all about Q in Chapters 3 and 5).
I should also mention that we really don’t know who the authors of the gospels are; the names Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are traditionally attached, but none of the authors signed their work and none of the earliest manuscripts has an author’s name. Therefore, I usually refer to “the author of Mark,” but sometimes I write “Mark says” just for ease of reference.
Because this book is about historical evidence, I often have to cite authors and books that you’ve probably never heard of. To help make this type of info as clear as possible, I always give you the author’s name, the title of his work, and the book, chapter, and paragraph information. This way you can track it down if you’re feeling adventurous. For example, “Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 18.3.3” refers to Josephus’s Jewish Antiquities, and you can find the info I’m referring to in book 18, chapter 3, paragraph 3.
Finally, the translations from the ancient authors and from the Bible are my own, straight out of the original Hebrew and Greek. They’ll no doubt sound a little different from your Bible. I recommend having your own copy of the Bible nearby so that you can check the evidence directly yourself. Why? Because even though modern Bibles aren’t the original text, translation differences can sometimes signal ancient textual problems, modern denominational differences, and all kinds of other interesting issues.
What You're Not to Read
The point of this book is to help you understand whatever it is that you’re trying to find out. In other words, you probably won’t read it cover to cover. If you’re in a hurry, you can also always skip the following nonessential stuff:
● Text in sidebars: The sidebars are the shaded boxes that appear here and there throughout the chapters. They offer interesting or informative bits of trivia, but they aren’t necessary for your understanding of the historical Jesus.
● Anything with a Technical Stuff icon attached to it: This information is interesting and provides technical jargon that’s important in historical Jesus research, but you can easily understand the topic without it.
Foolish Assumptions
I don’t know you, but I did try to imagine who you might be before I wrote this book. Here’s what I assume about you, the reader:
● You want to find out about Jesus, and you may (or may not) be Christian.
● You may have some background in historical or biblical studies, but maybe not both. Perhaps you’re taking a religious studies course on the life of Jesus.
● You want a book that explains the issues in simple terms but with adequate detail.
● You’re looking for a book that lets you judge the evidence but doesn’t shy away from taking positions.
● You’re open to new discoveries and different worldviews.
How This Book Is Organized
This book is divided into six parts that each deal with a different aspect of the historical Jesus. Here’s what you find in each part.
Part I: Piecing Together the Jesus Story
Part I provides a quick overview of the gospel story of Jesus. It explores the idea that the gospels don’t provide history, and it gives you some tools that you can use to sift history from the texts that have survived. This part is where you find all the major evidence for Jesus in literary and archaeological sources.
Part II: Reconstructing the World of Jesus
Part II explores the Jewish and Greco-Roman worlds into which Jesus was born. You watch Rome secure its hold on Palestine, you explore local political systems, Jewish religious beliefs, social networks, and cultural values, and you see how Romans and Jews clashed and worked together. This background info goes a long way toward explaining Jesus’s message, his popularity, and his death.
Part III: Exploring the Life of Jesus the Jew
Part III takes a close look at the gospels and the external evidence that helps you to begin reconstructing the life of Jesus. You examine his birth and childhood, you see what can be said about the movement that grew around him, and you study his teachings and deeds to determine what most likely happened during his life.
Part IV: Witnessing Jesus's Execution and Resurrection
This part examines who opposed Jesus and why he was killed. It focuses on the fact that Rome executed Jesus as a king and explores how and why some leading Jews would have collaborated with the Roman prefect. It also explores traditions of Jesus’s resurrection and how Jesus came to be known as the Messiah and son of God.
Part V: Experiencing Christ in Culture
Part V surveys Jesus from antiquity to our own modern day. It looks at the major developments in how Jesus has been viewed in prayer, piety, and politics, and then it revisits these trends by tracing them in art. The final chapter in this part surveys some of the most important films about Jesus in the past 100 years.
Part VI: The Part of Tens
The final part is a special feature of all For Dummies books. Here, you find fun lists that are quick and to the point (but chock-full of info!). I include the top ten controversies about Jesus over the years and the top ten pilgrimage sites associated with his life.
Where to Go from Here
This book is organized so that you can go wherever you want to find whatever it is that you’re looking for. You don’t need to read one chapter before another. For instance, want to jump right in and see why Jesus was crucified? Head straight to Chapter 14. Maybe you want to start on a lighter note, in which case Part V is your best bet. Use the table of contents to find broad categories of information or the index to look up more specific things.
If you aren’t sure where you want to go, you may want to start with Part I. It sets up the gospel stories and gets you oriented for your own quest into the life of the historical Jesus.
One last tip: The New Testament, which is the primary source on the historical Jesus, makes loads of references to the Jewish scriptures (called the Old Testament by Christians and Tanakh by Jews). If you aren’t familiar with the Bible, you may find The Bible For Dummies by Jeffrey Geoghegan, PhD, and Michael Homan, PhD, (Wiley) to be a helpful backup for this book.