Jesus Of History And The Christ Of Faith

While the Councils of Nicea and Chalcedon allow for a more elucidated understand of Christ, the reality of other factors inhibits its full potential. There are factors that exist which produce the opposite effect. Several issues, including history, philosophy, and language, impede the attempt to better apprehend Jesus Christ. In regards to the issue with history, there is an inverse relationship between the desire for Jesus’ history with the current amount of information that humanity has recorded of him. For a religious figure who has left an immeasurable amount of influence onto mankind with his abilities, interactions with others, humility, and ultimate sacrifice, procuring more knowledge on this being would a great benefit to Christological studies. There would be no amount of books large enough to contain the knowledge of the Messiah’s actions that are not already detailed (O’Collins 2). This unquantifiable yearning for learning is unfortunately contrasted with the amount of detailed information on him currently available after nearly two millennia. There are not many details that the world knows about Jesus Christ since “he left no letters or other personal documents” (O’Collins 2). Not a lot of information is known about the Redeemer before he established his “public ministry”

Over the course of history, the historical information regarding Jesus Christ has been interpreted by many different individuals and has led to different beliefs and views regarding the existence of Jesus Christ as a real man. Today I will be interpreting this evidence and i will be attempting to answer the question “Was Jesus Christ a real man?”. The evidence I will be looking at to answer this question will be information regarding the context of Jesus Christ, the historical accounts of non-Christian authors as well as the evidence for the Bible which is the main source regarding the life of Jesus Christ.

There are many different components that make up the Christian religion and ideology. The chapters and stories that made it into the Bible are what people see as the foundation of the different denominations of Christianity. However, what a lot of people do not realize is that there are several stories that did not make it into the Bible as well as a few denominations that have become “forgotten.” Those lost stories and denominations are the focus of Bart Ehrman’s book, Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew. The book was split into three parts and then each part had between three and five chapters. Part one discussed different discoveries that were made throughout Christian history. The second part covered the different types of Christianity that were fighting for power and competing against each other to be the successful form of Christianity. Lastly, the third section shows which texts and beliefs gained popularity and formed the Christian religion that is practiced today.

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

Two thousand years ago, the birth of Jesus, arguably the most influential man the world has ever seen, altered history forever. Christians know him as the Messiah, the son of God who came to save all of mankind, and for others, he may just be a great teacher and person of history. It is the latter that Reza Aslan attempts to shed an unbiased light on by comparing the Jesus that modern Christians believe in to the Jesus that Aslan believes would have fit into first-century Palestine: a violet revolutionary, dedicated to the eradication of the Roman government in Israel and the deposition of the rich priestly class. Aslan paints a portrayal of Jesus using knowledge of the time period, Scripture that has been taken out of context and misinterpreted, and most of all, the author’s imagination and powerful rhetoric to cover up his faulty argumentation. In his book Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, Reza Aslan recreates an interesting but purely speculative image of the historical Jesus through exploring the political and social history of first-century Palestine, the life and teachings of Jesus, and the development of early Christianity.

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.

Matthew’s Christology is one that emphasises to a Jewish audience the Jewishness of Jesus. It will be the purpose of this paper to argue that the raison d’etre of Matthew’s Christology is to portray Jesus as entirely compatible if not with the Judaism of his day then with ancient Judaic tradition, namely the Old Testament. Whilst there are numerous titles given to Jesus that are exclusive/predominant within the Matthean account, such as that of Son of God, it is the writer’s assertion that these merely complement Matthew’s central theses; this being the portrayal of Jesus as Messiah and so, as such, will not be investigated except where they promote this conclusion. This fulfilment of Judaic tradition will be

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.

Jesus: What is Jesus' true identity? What did Jesus do? Why is Jesus' identity and work significant for the Christian worldview?

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.

Over the centuries, Christianity has organised its beliefs into a systematic theology that draws from its sacred writing and tradition. While the main beliefs of Christianity are shared by all Christian variants, there are degrees of different in the interpretation of these beliefs and how they are lived out in everyday life. This can be seen in the important of sacred text, principle belief of the concept of salvation in John 3:16, principle belief of divine and humanity in ‘John 1:14’, principle belief of resurrection in ‘Mark 16:1-8’, principle belief of revelation in ‘1 corinthians14:6’, and beliefs through the Trinity in ‘2 Corinthians 13:14’. This essay will explain the important of the sacred text and the principal beliefs of Christianity.

In this article Harold Attridge examines Luke’s background, the scriptures Luke wrote, Jesus’s values, the context and purpose of Luke’s gospel and the treatment of Christians at the time of Luke’s writings. The article expresses that Luke’s Gospel was written before the destruction of Jerusalem and at a time when Christians were being persecuted for practicing their faith so consequently the purpose of his Gospel was to show an ethical example and imply that Christians could be good citizens. This source is relevant to the topic as it suggests the purpose of Luke's Gospel and the treatment of Christians before the fall of Jerusalem. A limitation of the website is that it has not been recently published, it’s publish date is April 1998 so it may not be up to date with the latest, accurate information. Nonetheless, this source is very beneficial and appropriate to the task as it provides facts and research on the chosen sacred text. This source will not be the cornerstone of my research but will add a good understanding to the purpose of the sacred text.

We need Jesus because there is no hope of salvation without him. This is a concept that holds the basis of Christianity. In this paper I want to go over what I think are the most important pieces of evidence to this thesis: Jesus as the prophesied seed of the women, Jesus as our mediator, prophet, and priest, and lastly Jesus as our king.

Luke and Acts tells the story of what Jesus did and taught during his ministry, first in his earthly life and then as the exalted Christ and Lord through his disciples. This essay will outline the various titles Luke used to portray or described Jesus in his two-volume narrative, in doing this we hope to get a better understanding and a complete picture of who Jesus was. Luke in his two volume work described Jesus in numerous ways and I am only going to be discussing four which referred to him as Christ, Lord, Prophet and Savior. The main Christological themes that appear in Luke-Acts highlighted and emphasised on the concept of the “Lord 's Christ”, meaning the coming ruler of God 's people, who will serve as their Savior and performing prophetic work [2 pg. 123-143]. Moreover, Jesus’s role was not assumed on his own initiative, but rather it was the work of God. Thus we can say that God’s work and plans were at the center of the Book of Acts and Luke’s gospel [1 pg 22].

This paper will provide an understanding the theories of theology of the history of the church, the celebration of the atonement; Jesus Christ being the vicarious substitutionary lamb slain for the sins of mankind.