Jesus Christ Research Paper

The foundation of the Christian faith is cradled within truth of the virgin birth, life, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. As diverse as the world-wide Christian culture is, the truth in the birth and life of Jesus stands without border and language limitations. Just as each individual life story can be adapted to be relevant for a variety of audiences, the birth story of the Messiah was also. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke are an example of the well-rounded and diverse narration of the birth story of Jesus—Matthew’s narration spoke to the history of the Jewish people and Luke presented to the citizen of Rome.

It is possible to write on the life of Jesus from the information gathered from the bible. I will be dividing my essay into three parts. In the first part of the paper, I will talk about the nature of the gospels, John’s views vs. the Synoptic, discuss if the authors of the gospels are eyewitnesses and how they used written sources. Also I will talk about the Q source. Then I will elaborate on the topic of how Matthew and Luke were similar. Then I will continue on by discussing how the Old Testament uses Moses, Samuel and Elijah to interpret Jesus, and finally whether or not the Sermon on the Mount happened. In the second part of my paper, I will talk about Jesus’s birth and childhood, his miracles, his resurrection, and what Jesus did to cure people, spirits and how they are interpreted to the prophet, magician and the mad man compared to Saul and Elijah. The final part of the paper I will talk about what Jesus talked about as regards to the Kingdom of God vs. the Kingdom of the Romans and what he intended by speaking of the end of the world. I will also speak of the reasons behind the Romans executing him. My sources for this paper will be the New Jerusalem Bible Readers edition as my primary source and lecture notes from Professor Trumbach.

Some scholars argue that evidence of Jesus of Nazareth 's existence can only be found within the writings of the New Testament. They believe that the New Testament is a biased and unreliable source for the existence of Jesus. They therefore claim that Jesus did not exist. The historical existence of Jesus is necessary to demonstrate the truth of Christianity. While Christian scholars do not discount the reliability of the New Testament as a historical document, they are also able to point to other historical documents and consider non-Christian writings which support the existence of Jesus. In this paper I will argue that Jesus the Nazarene was an actual, historical person and that this can be demonstrated through extra-Biblical resources.

One of the many things that puzzle people even today; is how Jesus was portrayed and how he became a part of history throughout the centuries. Fortunately, within the book Jesus Through the Centuries, written by Jaroslav Pelikan, readers are able to get a sense of what societies viewed Jesus as and how he was/is important to many aspects of the world such as; the political, social, and cultural impact he had left. As Pelikan discusses this very topic and theme in his book, we see how there’s a connection between his audience in this book and Jesus’s are closely similar. When he got his motivation to write about Jesus through the Centuries, Jaroslav had an open audience, which was intended for anyone of all ages, races, and beliefs to read

126). Next, Strobel writes about his interview with Bruce Metzger concerning the reliability of the text in the New Testament. Since the original books of the New Testament was lost, how do we know that the copied text is identical to the memo? According to Metzger, "the more often you have copies that agree with each other, especially if they emerge from different geographical areas, the more you can cross-check them to figure out what the original document was like" (p. 76). Also, Strobel asked Metzger why some books weren’t included in the New Testament and his response was that the church did want to portray such pictures of Jesus in the canon, that the church only wanted the New Testament to contain only the best historical stories of Jesus. The next scholar interviewed was Edwin Yamauchi. He was asked about additional biblical proof that confirms the New Testament but he was not very convincing. The question for Strobel’s fourth interview was whether archeology increased or decreased the New Testaments reliability. Three New Testament statements are entirely unsupported by archaeology. First, the three hours of worldwide darkness during the crucifixion (Mark 15:33). Second, the resurrection of the saints, and their following appearance to many in Jerusalem (Matthew 27:52-53). Finally third, Jesus ' burial in the tomb.

It can be argued that the similarities and differences of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke can cause the reader to either see both of these accounts to complement one another with their different perspectives or that they contradict one another by certain events being mentioned in one birth narrative but not the other. Different aspects of both of these birth narratives such as the way Matthew and Luke treat Mary, the extent to which they use the Old Testament and the audience to whom they are writing to reveals the authors’ agenda as they allow their culture and own personal beliefs to influence what they write. These factors could be argued to have an effect on the historical authenticity of these texts as it could be possible that they could have caused the authors to twist the truth to fit in with their own beliefs.

Gary Habermas in The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus calls this the minimal facts approach. “The minimal facts approach considers only the data that meets two criteria: 1. The data are strongly evidenced 2. The data are granted by virtually all scholars on the subject, even the skeptical ones.” On the basis of this approach, four different arguments will be examined for the resurrection of Christ in this paper.

Tillich suggests in the article “A Reinterpretation of the Doctrine of the Incarnation” that Christians do not have a purely historiographical interest in the man known as Jesus, but a thriving interest in the Christ. He elaborates by saying the reports about Jesus of Nazareth found in the gospels are the reports of Jesus as the Christ, not just a man. Tillich finds that mere historical research cannot tear down the foundation of Christianity because there is immense power in the symbol of “Christ” (a topic later discussed in the essay).

Most of what is known about Jesus’s life comes from the Gospels. However, historians and religious scholars do not agree about how much of the Gospels is literally true. The Gospels were all written between 40 and 60 years after the death of Jesus. Although there is non-Biblical evidence to show that Jesus was a historical figure, there is limited evidence outside the Gospels documenting the events of his life.

Throughout all of the years that Jesus Christ has lived on this earth, he had the power of

Immediately preceding Jesus’ death by crucifixion an oral tradition of recounting the story began to take hold. Numerous scriptures in Evolution of the Word by Marcus J. Borg, the primary version of the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) Bible that will be used in this paper, contradict each other not only while recounting the death of Jesus but, a plethora of times while recounting his life or the interpretations of his message. Even though scriptures contradict each other at every turn it is hardly enough evidence to simply proclaim that the Bible is false. Oral tradition simplified is the passage of significant events, like Jesus’ crucifixion, from one generation to the next via speech. Antiquity was a time of vast illiteracy and sub-par

Jesus Christ was born during the reign of Herod the Great who ruled over Palestine at the end of the first century B.C. on the twenty-fifth of December, which is celebrated by Christians every year in honor of the day the Son of God was born to bring eternal salvation to all. Jesus was born in the city of Bethlehem in Judea by the Virgin Mary in a stable. Joseph was the earthly father of Jesus. During this time Herod was bothered by the birth of Jesus because he heard a new king had been born. Herod became frantic and sent his soldiers to Bethlehem to kill all the boys under the age of two. Joseph and Mary fled to Egypt before the soldiers could reach them. When Herod died and all settled, Joseph and Mary went to Galilee and settled in a town

Jesus Christ is the main root of Christianity. Yet, some do not know that Jesus was not Christian himself; He was Jewish. However, he broke away from certain Jewish traditions in order to preach the word of God. After Jesus death, many of his followers, such as Paul, carried on with his teachings.

The gospels are believed to be accurate historical records of Jesus’ life. The first members of the Christian communities were able to encounter Jesus in their lives first hand. They experienced and seen his teachings, the healing of the sick, and bringing their neighbor’s daughter back to life. These events and stories were shared at gatherings when others would question the miracles and ask for them to share what they saw. In order to preserve the history of Jesus, the tradition of orally passing the word was used often as many had difficulty reading at that time. This oral tradition had quickly transitioned to written form. The gospels were placed into written form in order to make sure it could reach the masses at further destinations quicker than a verbal encounter would.

The first four books of the New Testament are called the Gospels. Four men, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, were inspired by the Holy Spirit to write down the life of Jesus. Each man had different reasons for writing and different people they were writing to so their books didn’t all have to be identical; just accurate. Many more people wrote about Jesus, but only these four testimonies made it into the canon of the New Testament. As John MacArthur’s Study Bible explains, only these four books were necessary to form “a complete testimony about Jesus Christ.”