Jesus of Nazareth
Jewish teacher from Galilee, central figure of Christianity
- Born
- c. 6–4 BCE, traditionally Bethlehem
- Died
- c. 30 CE, Jerusalem, by crucifixion
- Executed under
- Pontius Pilate, Roman prefect of Judea
- Main sources
- The four Gospels, letters of Paul
- Known for
- Preaching the kingdom of God; reported miracles
A first-century Jewish preacher crucified under Pontius Pilate, whom Christians revere as the Son of God and whom historians study through the Gospels.
What is Jesus of Nazareth known for?
Jesus of Nazareth was a Jewish teacher active in Galilee and Judea in the early first century CE. Most historians place his birth around 6 to 4 BCE and his death around 30 CE, when he was crucified in Jerusalem on the orders of the Roman prefect Pontius Pilate.
Almost everything known about him comes from the four Gospels and the letters of Paul, written within a few decades of his death by people who believed in him. They describe his preaching about the kingdom of God, his ethical teaching, healings and other miracles, and his followers' conviction that he rose from the dead and later ascended into heaven (Acts 1:9–11).
Christians revere him as the Son of God; Islam honors him as a prophet, Isa. Historians treat his existence and crucifixion as secure, while miracles and the resurrection are matters of faith rather than historical method.
The Gospel of Luke gives him a genealogy of 77 names running back through Enoch to Adam and God. That list includes a Cainan who is missing from the Hebrew text of Genesis but present in the Greek Septuagint, which is one reason the site keeps coming back to it.
His genealogy in Luke 3 includes the missing patriarch Cainan, and his ascension in Acts 1 is one of the site's accounts of people taken into the sky.
Mentioned on these pages
- Rabbit holeKainam (Cainan)
- Rabbit holeNag Hammadi library
- ChapterOne History 11: The sentence ends
- PassageTaken up in a cloud (Acts 1:9–11)
- PersonApollonius of Tyana
- PersonJude
- PersonLuke the Evangelist
- PersonMelchizedek
- PersonOrigen
- PersonPaul the Apostle
- PersonPeter the Apostle
- PersonR. H. Charles
- PersonRichard Bauckham
- PersonSextus Julius Africanus
- PlaceGolgotha
- PlaceJerusalem
Sources
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, 'Jesus'Reference
- Luke 3:23–38 (KJV), Bible GatewayPrimary text
- Acts 1:9–11 (KJV), Bible GatewayPrimary text
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