Chapter 2
In This Chapter
● Witnessing the birth of Jesus
● Examining his ties to John the Baptist
● Discovering what he taught and did
● Determining who followed and who opposed him
● Seeing why he was killed
The story of Jesus that’s told today is based on four stories that were told 2,000 years ago. These four stories are the gospels (from the old English word for “good news”). These gospels are like biographies, telling the story of Jesus’s life and death, but they’re also like sermons, preaching who the authors believed Jesus to be. Because the gospel authors — Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John — layered their stories with later beliefs, their biblical biographies of Jesus aren’t exactly like a documentary film of Jesus’s life. In fact, sometimes they don’t even agree with each other! But they do share some basic details.
In this chapter, you discover what those basic details are, from Jesus’s birth and his teachings and miracles to his death and resurrection. This snapshot of the gospels is the starting point for historical Jesus research. The gospels are the best evidence available, but they’re more like paintings than windows into his life.
Born to Be Different: The Birth and Baptism of Jesus
Every story has a beginning, but every storyteller chooses where to begin. In the four biblical stories of Jesus, each author starts at a different place on the timeline. Mark, for example, opens with Jesus’s adult life, and Luke, on the other hand, begins with his birth. Matthew starts with a genealogy tracing Jesus through Jewish history, and John jumps in at the beginning of the world. The themes in their introductions set the stage for the rest of the story that, like the opening, differs a good deal from gospel to gospel.
Away in a manger: The birth story according to Matthew and Luke
Only two of the gospels, the stories of Matthew and Luke, give an account of Jesus’s birth (see Chapter 9 for more on Jesus’s childhood). According to both of these gospels, Jesus was born to Mary and Joseph in a village south of Jerusalem named Bethlehem. Beyond that, they disagree on the precise date (see Chapter 9 for the details). But the authors of Matthew and Luke weren’t as interested in the historical record as they were in establishing who they thought Jesus was — they wanted to show his true identity.
There are more differences in their stories, too. Both Matthew and Luke recount that divine signs accompanied Jesus’s conception and birth, but the signs differ (contrast Matthew’s angelic revelation to Joseph and star in the heavens to Luke’s angelic revelation to Mary and choir of angels). Both of them paint Jesus as the promised messiah or “anointed one,” but while Matthew emphasizes the contrast to King Herod the Great, Luke emphasizes the salvation that this new king will bring (flip to Chapter 7 for more on messiahs). Whereas Matthew ties Jesus to Israel and its leaders of old (like Moses), Luke ties Jesus to all peoples of the world. Luke’s genealogy traces Jesus to Adam, the first human, and sets the occasion for his birth in Roman rather than Jewish history (Luke 3:23-37; 2:1-7).
The baptism of Jesus and beyond
After their prefaces, all four of the gospel authors report that Jesus’s story as an adult begins with his baptism in the Jordan River. There, a wild man by the name of John the Baptist, dressed in camel’s hair and leather, was dipping people in the river water.
Going down to the river: John the Baptist reveals the true Jesus
The gospel authors believe that John was preparing the way for Jesus with his baptisms. So, when Jesus comes to the Jordan River to be baptized, his baptism is presented as more than a symbolic washing of sins. Instead, his baptism becomes the moment when Jesus’s true nature is revealed to the gospel audience: Jesus is the son of God (see Chapter 10 for more on John the Baptist).
Beating Satan in the scorching sands
According to Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus is driven out into the wilderness after his baptism, where he’s tested by Satan for 40 days (this story isn’t in John’s gospel at all). Matthew and Luke augment the story by narrating just what those temptations are (see Chapter 10). This is the only place where Satan appears as a character in the gospels.
In the gospels, Satan is doing just what his name means: A satan in the original Hebrew is the slanderer or plotter who sues you and hauls you into court. Today we might translate it “the adversary.” He’s the one who stands up in front of the judge and accuses you or puts you to the test. By the time the gospels were written, the term had become a proper name for the personification of evil. And in these stories, we see him doing his level best to take Jesus down.
The authors are using these stories to communicate what Jesus’s mission is not about before the mission even starts. Jesus’s early battles against hunger, the lure of earthly power, and the desire for divine vindication demonstrate the things he successfully resisted during his life (according to our authors). They certainly want to make clear that Jesus isn’t in league with the Devil, a charge that’s later leveled against him by his human adversaries (Mark 3:22-27).
Going public: The ministry begins
In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, when Jesus emerges from the wilderness, he returns to his home region of the Galilee in the north, and there he begins his public ministry. (You may find it odd to say “the Galilee,” but believe it or not, that’s the proper name. It’s called this in the New Testament because the word Galilee comes from a Hebrew word for something circular, so it’s like saying “the encircled area” or district.) Following in John the Baptist’s footsteps, he preaches that the “kingdom of God” is at hand and he calls on people to repent. And like the Baptist, he begins gathering followers and teaching them. In John’s gospel, Jesus’s ministry begins in the Galilee right after the baptism with the call of the first followers and the first of seven signs of power.
All the gospel authors are trying to set up Jesus’s ministry. They want everyone to know that his ministry is powered by the Holy Spirit that descended on him in baptism and that its power is enough to defeat Satan himself.
Drafting Disciples: Joining the Jesus Movement
As Jesus began to preach, teach, and heal, he also began to attract a lot of attention. Some of these interested people decided to hang around and become followers and students of Jesus as he traveled from town to town. These people were called disciples. This term means “students” or “followers” (from the Latin word “to learn”; the Greek word in the gospels means the same thing).
Calling people up to active duty
All four of the gospels narrate that Jesus began to summon people to follow him. Imagine it: Jesus, a complete stranger, walks up to a person, tells him to drop everything (work, wife, kids) and follow him, and the guy does! And I do mean “guy,” because only men got these special “calls” (and only a few of them at that). None of the women who followed Jesus got the same kind of clear invitation (though we always have to remember that men wrote these stories).
It’s good to bear in mind the general point that the gospel authors were telling stories here. They were painting the power of Jesus’s call and the radical response of these followers in the starkest terms. Did it really happen this way? And what effect does this telling have on the reader? But remember that however these people came to be Jesus’s followers, it’s clear that they would have to leave their homes, families, and jobs to follow this man named Jesus. Surprising as it may seem, many people did. Chapter 10 describes the most important followers, including “the Twelve” men and women like Mary Magdalene.
Understanding the backgrounds of Jesus's followers
Jesus’s early followers were residents of the region that he came from: the Galilee, which is north of Judea.
● Simon Peter, Andrew, James, and John appear to be from the fishing village of Capernaum; Levi (called Matthew in Matthew’s gospel) collected taxes there as well.
● Mary Magdalene was so called because of the town she was from: Magdala, which was just south of Capernaum along the northwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee.
● Jesus’s mother, brothers, and sisters were from Nazareth, a bit west of the Sea of Galilee.
In short, most of his first followers came from various Jewish villages in the Galilee, where his preaching and healing activity was concentrated.
All the disciples’ names derive from Aramaic except for Philip and Andrew, whose names come from Greek. Simon Peter has the most names: Simon is Aramaic, “Peter” is Greek for “rock,” and he’s also called “Cephas” which is Aramaic for “rock.” Most of the time, he’s just called Peter in the gospels.
In terms of social class, it seems that several of these early followers were part of the vast working class of the region. In other words, they weren’t destitute but they weren’t terribly well-off either. Some of the followers, however, were from families with a few more resources. James and John’s father, for example, hired laborers to help him in his fishing business (Mark 1:20). Mary Magdalene is never mentioned in conjunction with a husband, suggesting that she may have had means of her own. Levi (or Matthew) was a tax collector, and they were famous for lining their pockets with added surcharges. Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward (Luke 8:3), and Joseph of Arimathea provided for Jesus’s burial (Mark 15:42-47), so they too may have been more well-off.
Luke gives the impression that all the women who followed Jesus were fairly wealthy — he says they bankrolled Jesus’s entire mission — but this may have been Luke’s attempt to raise them above suspicion, along with Jesus (Luke 8:1-3; see Chapter 10). After all, some conservative folks may have wondered exactly why women were wandering around the countryside with this guy. These folks already had a pretty low view of the types of people that Jesus hung around with.
It’s difficult to tell historically what class these people came from. Why? Because the gospel authors were so concerned to present Christianity in a certain light that they often made adjustments.
Teacher and Miracle Man: Jesus Spreads the Word
Jesus’s teachings and miracles seem to have been the things that attracted both the casual and serious followers to him. The very fact that many of his male followers were referred to as disciples means that his role was that of a teacher. Others came hoping for cures from illnesses and disabilities.
But the rest of the crowd came for the show. Jesus performed cures and exorcised demons, and a lot of people just wanted to see these mysterious acts unfold right before their eyes. Like today’s paparazzi waiting to catch a glimpse of Paris Hilton, plenty of the curious onlookers mingled alongside the few fervent followers.
Teaching with authority
It’s difficult to know whether Jesus had any kind of formal education. Luke is the only one to hint at literacy when he reports that Jesus was able to read the Hebrew scriptures (Luke 4:16-22). But he could speak well. He knew how to turn a phrase and tell a good story.
How Jesus taught
Even though Jesus was probably not well educated, he was clearly a powerful teacher. His success came from his technique: He used common examples drawn from daily life that people could understand. He also used a lot of humor, though his riffs don’t translate very well unless you’re a first-century Aramaic-speaking farmer! He taught with authority, challenging people to change their lives and standing his ground when they resisted.
Creating parables
Jesus’s favorite type of teaching was through stories, particularly parables, which are story-riddles. (I say “favorite” not because I know what Jesus liked, but because these parables are very common in the earliest gospel material; flip to Chapter 11 for more on Jesus’s many parables.) Stories have long been used by teachers to make points or by prophets to highlight someone’s mistake. They’re great teaching tools because sometimes you just can’t put two and two together any other way. A parable starts off like it’s about somebody else, and then it leads you to a conclusion that you would have resisted if the story had been about you.
Using pithy sayings
Jesus liked short sayings that made quick points. For example, when someone asked him whether he paid taxes to the hated Romans with coins showing the emperor as God (blasphemy!), Jesus took the coin and said, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s” (Matthew 22:15-22). This type of line was clever, catchy, and easy to remember. In fact, Jewish teachers often taught like this because these witty sayings were so catchy but also made you stop and think (for instance, in the previous coin example, you might ask yourself, “Okay, but what is Caesar’s and what is God’s?”).
The themes that Jesus taught
It’s quite likely that the gospels only represent some of the many ideas that Jesus taught (see John 21:25, where the author says that the “world couldn’t contain” all the books needed to cover everything that Jesus did). But common to all four gospels are certain teachings that come up over and over again. These themes are discussed in the following sections.
Love of God, neighbor, and enemy
The central idea that Jesus taught paralleled what the Jewish scriptures before him taught, namely to love God with all your heart, soul, and strength (Deuteronomy 6:5) and to love your neighbor as yourself (Leviticus 19:18). When people approached Jesus and asked him what the most important law was out of all 613 commands in the Jewish scriptures, his answer was to love God, neighbor, and enemy (Mark 12:28-34; Matthew 22:34-40; Luke 10:25-37).
Two renowned rabbis — Rabbi Hillel, who lived before Jesus, and Rabbi Akiva, who (like Jesus) was executed by the Romans a century later — had similar feelings to Jesus’s. They said that the entire law was summarized by doing right by your neighbor. To this Jesus added that your neighbor includes your enemy. Many people since then have wished that Jesus hadn’t added that qualifier!
The way of the cross and the promise of the resurrection
Another central teaching of Jesus is that following him may lead to persecution and execution, as it would for him (Mark 13:9-13; 8:31-38). Several gospel authors refer to this as the “way of the cross.”
In the gospel stories, Jesus also teaches that his death wouldn’t be the end of him (Mark 8:31-33). He teaches that he, and they, would be resurrected (John 11:17-27). He says that they were called to be faithful to God and that God too would be faithful to them with his promise of resurrection.
The kingdom of God
Jesus teaches that God has power, and he refers to God’s power as the “kingdom of God” or “kingdom of heaven.” In the gospel portraits, Jesus constantly contrasts the power of God with the power of Rome and other earthly powers. He says that Rome offers one kind of peace but that God offers another. Rome exploits, but God provides. Under Rome, Jesus says, the powerful are in control; under God, the lowly are raised and the powerful are brought low (Luke 1:46-55). Jesus and his disciples are supposed to be unlike the rulers of this world (Matthew 4:8-10; Mark 10:42-44).
A liberal and a conservative
The gospels were keen to present the fact that Jesus’s teachings were about Jewish law. In the gospel stories, Jesus makes clear that mercy to others is more important than rituals in the Temple. This teaching echoes the Jewish prophets. In fact, according to the gospel authors, Jesus quotes the prophets directly in this teaching and then tells his audience to go and learn what the prophet meant (Matthew 9:13; 12:7; Hosea 6:6).
Jesus took a pretty liberal position on some laws — so much so that righteous fellows complained about him hanging out with the wrong crowd. For example, the liberal Jesus let his disciples work on the Sabbath (no one was supposed to work on the Sabbath according to the Ten Commandments [Exodus 20:8-11]), and he himself healed people on that day (Mark 2:23-28; 3:1-6; healing wasn’t necessarily a violation of the Sabbath, as you discover in Chapter 12).
At the same time, however, Jesus could be much more conservative than other Jewish teachers. For example, Mark notes that Jesus absolutely prohibits divorce — no exceptions (Mark 10:1-12; exceptions were added by later authors as in Matthew 5:31-32). This belief was even more stringent than earlier biblical revelation (Deuteronomy 24:1-4). The same was true for murder and adultery. In fact, Jesus taught that anger was just as bad as murder, and that a lustful look was the same as committing adultery (Matthew 5:21-30). Talk about some tough rules — if you take them literally!
Acting with power
The gospel authors pepper their stories with manifestations of Jesus’s power. Whether Jesus was controlling nature or healing human disability, the gospel stories make it clear that Jesus’s power comes from and manifests God, as I explain in the following sections.
You might come to the story of Jesus’s miracles with the impression that Jesus is God, so these miraculous powers aren’t coming from God, but from his own nature as God. The teaching that Jesus is divine has roots in the gospels and has been developing for 2,000 years (flip to Chapter 15 for the earliest debates). But historical Jesus scholars have questioned whether anyone would have believed this during Jesus’s life (before the resurrection). In fact, the gospels report that few characters in the story seem to share the gospel authors’ point of view about Jesus even with the miracles. Some of them even wonder if his miraculous powers come from a demonic source. All of this raises the possibility that things looked different to the historical Jesus’s audience than they do to people today.
Examining Jesus's power over nature and heating
Early on, Jesus had a reputation for his power over nature and for his ability to heal people. Most of the nature miracles, like calming a storm or walking on water (Mark 4:35-41; 6:47-52), were seen only by his followers, with the important exception of the multiplication of a few bread loaves to feed thousands (Mark 6:32-44; 8:1-9; John 6:1-13). In contrast, many other people saw him heal the paralyzed, the blind, lepers, and the “demon-possessed.” As a result, crowds besieged Jesus wherever he went.
The ultimate nature and healing miracle — the one that transformed frightened followers to public preachers — was his own resurrection (see Chapter 15). This miracle is never presented as something Jesus accomplishes himself, however. Instead, this miracle is seen as God’s vindication of Jesus.
Understanding what folks thought about Jesus's miracles
The fact that Jesus performed miracles drew crowds and skeptics (and it still does today). After all, in a world that believed in demons, it wasn’t always clear what powers were behind acts like these. People were genuinely uncertain, even terrified, of the power that could heal the blind and raise the dead. Diseases, genetic defects, deformities, and death weren’t understood biologically as they are today. They were often seen as manifestations of evil, and sometimes the victims or their parents were thought to be responsible for the misfortunes.
So, given all the hype, people obviously had questions. For instance, people wondered where Jesus’s power was coming from. If someone like Jesus could control these evil manifestations, was he in league with the Devil? Or perhaps was he master of evil and thus aligned with God (Mark 3:20-30)? The gospel authors definitely didn’t want anyone to think that Satan was working through Jesus! That led them to make it clear that Jesus was able to perform these great feats because God was working through him.
Jesus’s miracles were enough to convince many of his contemporaries that the messianic age had dawned — the restoration of health, wholeness, and justice that had long been hoped for by several Jewish groups. But other people weren’t convinced. After all, many expected that all the blind would see, all the lame would walk, all the captives would be freed, and the forces of evil would be decisively destroyed. Jesus’s miracles, however, healed only a few blind men and a few paralyzed people, and freed absolutely no slaves. For those who believed Jesus was the messiah, it was enough that he had inaugurated the age; they could wait for the job to be finished. But for many others, the messianic age hadn’t begun yet, so Jesus couldn’t be its messiah.
Meeting resistance wherever he went
Jesus preached to the Jews in the Galilee and later traveled to Jerusalem, continuing to preach and heal along the way. As he made his way, he drew many Jewish followers. According to the gospels, however, he was dogged along the way by others who didn’t buy in to his beliefs and teachings.
The gospel authors name a few groups that had it in for Jesus, including the scribes, the Pharisees, and the leaders of Jerusalem. It’s just as true that the gospel authors had it out for these groups. To understand the animosity, you first need the following background information on these groups:
● The scribes and Pharisees: These two groups were Jesus’s most common opponents in the gospel accounts of Jesus’s ministry, especially while he was in the Galilee. The Pharisees weren’t religious ministers; they were simply lay people who dedicated themselves to a more rigorous observance of Jewish law (see Chapter 7 for more on Jewish law and society). They seemed to care about the same things that Jesus cared about, namely how to make Jewish law relevant to daily life (for example, what to do on the Sabbath, how to prepare for meals, and who people should hang out with). The scribes you meet in the gospels are among the small minority of literate folks. They could read and copy manuscripts of religious texts and were regarded as authorities on the Jewish law. According to the gospels, both the scribes and the Pharisees start testing and trapping Jesus early in his public work.
● The leaders in Jerusalem: Because the central religious shrine, the Temple, was in Jerusalem, many leaders — priests, the high priest, and the court of the elite priests and aristocracy — all lived near the city. On occasion, the Roman prefect also would visit from Caesarea Maritima to maintain the peace and administer Roman justice (see Chapters 8 and 13).
According to the gospels, the issues that the scribes, Pharisees, and eventually the Jewish high priest had with Jesus were about the authority that Jesus presumed over the law and the linked issue of Jesus’s true identity (see Chapter 13 for more on these debates). The gospels present these as hot topics from practically the first day of Jesus’s ministry (Mark 3:6), and the heat just keeps firing up from there until the scene of Jesus’s formal trial during his final trip to Jerusalem. But it seems more likely that these debates were not so heated during Jesus’s life as they became after, and that the real opposition to Jesus was tied more clearly to his execution as “King of the Jews.”
Journeying to Jerusalem: The Crucifixion and Resurrection
According to the gospels, Jesus makes his infamous final trip to Jerusalem because that’s where he wants to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Passover. (To find out why Jews celebrated this holiday, see the nearby sidebar, “Celebrating the Exodus with the Passover festival.”) In John’s gospel, this trip represents Jesus’s third trip to Jerusalem for Passover. In the other three gospels, Jesus only makes one trip to Jerusalem as an adult.
The gospels offer another reason that Jesus decides to go to Jerusalem: He knows he must go because the Jewish capital is where many of the great prophets of the past challenged the Jewish kings. According to the gospel authors, Jesus believes that Jerusalem was the place where God’s messengers were killed (Matthew 23:37-39). And because he predicts that his fate will be the same, Jesus too knows he must go.
The gospels note that Jesus predicts that the opponents who will kill him are the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes (Mark 8:31). This isn’t so difficult to imagine because Jesus stirs up opposition almost as soon as he starts preaching. The following sections chronicle Jesus’s Passover trip, crucifixion, and resurrection according to the gospels.
The Last Supper
Because his days were numbered and Passover was at hand, Jesus had one final meal with his disciples. In the gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke, that meal is on the first night of the weeklong Passover feast.
At the meal, Jesus blesses the unleavened bread in an unusual way, calling it his body and breaking it for his disciples to share. He blesses the cup of wine in an equally unsettling way; he calls it his blood — the blood of a new covenant that would be shed for many people. He then asks his disciples to remember him by sharing the meal (Luke 22:14-23). Finally, he predicts that one of them will soon betray him (Mark 14:18-21; Matthew 26:21-25).
In John’s gospel, Jesus has a final meal with his disciples, but it isn’t the Passover meal (Passover was set to begin the next day). In John’s gospel, the central symbol isn’t the food and drink at the meal but Jesus’s act of washing his disciples’ feet (John 13:2-17). This gesture is Jesus’s last teaching; he humbly served his students, so they should therefore humbly serve others.
Celebrating the Exodus with the Passover festival
In Jesus's time, the Passover festival was an annual holiday to celebrate the Hebrew exodus (escape) from Egypt. As the story goes in the book of Exodus, the Hebrew people had originally been free in Egypt, but a new Pharaoh came along and enslaved them. This new Pharaoh even tried to kill all the male children when the population grew too big (Exodus 1).
One male child named Moses survived, and when he became an adult, God called to him from a burning bush. God told Moses to lead the Hebrews out of Egypt (Exodus 2-4). Moses warned the Pharaoh to let him take the people away. He used nine plagues (bloody river water, swarms of frogs, clouds of gnats and flies, livestock illnesses, boils, hail, locusts, and darkness) to try and persuade the Pharaoh (Exodus 5-10). But when the Pharaoh didn't budge, the final plague struck: God slaughtered the firstborn sons of the Egyptians. God passed over (hence the name of the holiday) the Hebrew homes that had been marked ahead of time with the blood of a lamb. With the Egyptian homes in chaos, the Hebrews ate a hurried meal of unleavened bread (they didn't have time to wait for it to rise!) and raced out of the country (Exodus 11-15).
Jews marked this event by an annual, weeklong festival. On the first night, they roasted a lamb that had been slaughtered in the Temple and ate certain foods like unleavened bread and bitter herbs meant to recall that hurried last supper in Egypt (Exodus 12). They blessed and drank several cups of wine and recalled the story of Passover and their gratitude for God's act. The remaining days were considered work holidays, and they avoided leavened bread.
When there was actually a Temple in Jerusalem, as there was in the time of Jesus, Jews traveled there for the holiday so that they could slaughter a lamb properly in the Temple.
The agony and arrest in the garden
After the Last Supper, Jesus goes out to a garden called Gethsemane, which was east of the city and overlooking the Temple. All but one of his disciples accompany him to the garden, where they promptly fall asleep (perhaps they had too much wine at the Last Supper?). Jesus, alone in prayer, asks to avoid the fate that awaits him, but in the end he resigns himself to what he believes is God’s will. (John’s gospel, which emphasizes Jesus’s foreknowledge and control over these arresting events, doesn’t show Jesus praying to avoid his fate; see John 18:1-4). He returns twice to the disciples, and both times he finds them asleep (Mark 14:32-42). And then a crowd, which is sent by the Jewish leaders and led by Jesus’s own disciple, Judas, comes to arrest Jesus as if he were a bandit or rebel leader. Jesus’s disciples barely mount a defense; instead, they scatter quickly and abandon him (Mark 14:43-52).
Jesus on trial
After being arrested, Jesus is put on trial. The gospels narrate a series of trials, though the order and number of precise scenes varies. For now, I’ll just explain the basic story.
First Jesus is taken before the Sanhedrin, which is the council of chief priests, elders, and scribes. (The Sanhedrin was led by the high priest.) False witnesses are brought in, and, in the end, Jesus is accused of blaspheming God’s name by claiming to be the “Son of Man, seated at the right hand of power” (a quote from Daniel 7:13; see Mark 14:62). In the gospel authors’ view, Jesus is that prophesied judge. The council then condemns Jesus to death, but because it lacks the power to execute, it sends him off to the Roman prefect, Pontius Pilate, who’s in town for the Passover festival.
At this point, Pilate is uncertain as to what he should do. According to the gospels, Pilate believes that Jesus is innocent, and that the Jewish leaders are just jealous of his popularity (Matthew 27:18). But he has an angry Jewish crowd on his hands, and with so many people in town for the festival, Pilate doesn’t want to provoke them into a revolt. So, he questions Jesus, and then offers to release either Jesus or the imprisoned rebel Barabbas, assuming that the crowd will choose Jesus. In Luke’s gospel, Pilate even sends Jesus to Herod Antipas (who’s also in town for the festivities), hoping that he, the Galilean ruler, will take care of this Galilean problem (Luke 23:6-12). No such luck.
So Pilate has Jesus flogged, thinking that will satisfy the crowd. But when he presents the flogged Jesus to the people, they cry out, “Crucify him!” Pilate, who has become fearful of the crowd, finally agrees to crucify Jesus. Pilate then washes his own hands to demonstrate his innocence in the matter (Matthew 27:22-25). He wants no part in this execution because he views Jesus as innocent. This is one way that the gospels lay the blame for Jesus’s death on the Jewish leaders. According to the biblical storyline, the leaders wanted Jesus dead because of who he said he was (Mark 14:61-64; Matthew 26: 63-66, Luke 22:67-71; John 19:7).
Jesus's execution and burial
After Pilate decides that Jesus is to be crucified, Jesus is taken outside of the city walls to the place of execution. The executions in those days took place at one of the main roads into the city.
Crucifixion was a painful and prolonged form of state-sanctioned execution that was reserved for thieves and rebels. It was a public and humiliating way to die, and it was used as a kind of propaganda weapon by Rome. You can read all about the gory details in Chapters 13 and 14, but you can’t read about them in the gospels because the gospel authors treat the event very briefly. According to the gospels, Jesus was crucified with the charge “King of the Jews” over his head. Jesus wasn’t on the cross for very long. His death took only three hours. Some Jewish leaders approached Pilate and requested special permission to take his body down and bury it, and Pilate agreed. Because it was the eve of Sabbath (meaning that work had to stop) Jesus was placed in the tomb quickly and without the usual preparation of the body.
On the third day: Jesus's resurrection
After the Sabbath ends, Mary Magdalene and perhaps a few others among Jesus’s female followers go to the tomb to anoint the body with spices and rewrap it properly in linens. When they arrive at the tomb, they find the stone rolled away from the entrance. With the help of some angelic revelations, they understand that Jesus has been raised from the dead. The women report Jesus’s resurrection to the other disciples, and soon others begin reporting encounters with the risen Jesus. The reports vary a good bit from each other (you can read all about them in Chapter 15).
Jesus’s resurrection marks the turning point between the life of Jesus the man and the life of the risen Christ. The only way you or I can get back to the historical man is through the reports of witnesses who believed that he was much more than just a historical man. Their faith is what helped make Christianity a major world religion.
It also complicates and enlivens the quest for the historical man.