Who Was Jesus Christ?

1. The sources: Gospels, scholarship and the question of evidence

Jesus left no writings of his own, and everything known about him comes from the writings of others, above all the four Gospels of the New Testament: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The Gospels were written between about 70 and 100 CE, forty to seventy years after his death, by authors who drew on the traditions of the early Christian communities. They are not biographies in the modern sense: they are accounts of his teaching, his actions and his death, written by believers for believers, and they differ from each other in emphasis and in detail. The Gospel of Mark is the shortest and the earliest; Matthew and Luke add material about his birth and his teaching; John presents a more theological account, with long discourses and a different chronology.

Scholars study the Gospels alongside other ancient sources, including the writings of the Jewish historian Josephus and the Roman historian Tacitus, both of whom mention Jesus, and the letters of Paul, which were written earlier than the Gospels and are the earliest Christian documents. The references in Josephus and Tacitus are brief, and the passage in Josephus has been altered by later copyists, but scholars generally accept that both authors provide independent evidence that Jesus existed and was crucified under Pontius Pilate. The evidence is thin compared with the evidence for a Roman emperor or a Greek philosopher, and scholars are careful about what they claim to know.

The distinction between the historical Jesus and the Christ of faith is central to modern scholarship. The historical Jesus is the first-century Jewish preacher whose life can be studied from the Gospels and other ancient sources, using the methods of history. The Christ of faith is the figure confessed by Christian belief: the Son of God, the Messiah, the risen Lord. Virtually all modern scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed historically, and that he was baptised by John the Baptist and crucified under Pontius Pilate. Beyond those points, scholars disagree about the details, and this article notes the disagreements where they matter.

2. Birth and early life: what the Gospels record

According to the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, Jesus was born in Bethlehem, in Roman Judea, to Mary and Joseph. The Gospels place his birth in the final years of the reign of Herod the Great, and modern scholars generally date it to about 6-4 BCE. Matthew reports that the family fled to Egypt to escape Herod and later settled in Nazareth, in Galilee, where Jesus grew up. The two Gospels give different accounts of the birth, and scholars note that the details, including the journey to Bethlehem and the visit of the wise men, are matters of faith rather than of historical record. The date of 25 December, on which Christians celebrate his birth, is a later tradition, not a date given in the Gospels.

Almost nothing is reliably documented about his childhood: Luke alone records an episode in which Jesus, at about twelve years old, is found in the Temple in Jerusalem discussing scripture with teachers. The Gospels describe Joseph as a craftsman, and the Gospel of Mark refers to Jesus himself as a carpenter, a word that in the ancient world covered a range of manual trades. No record of any formal schooling survives, and the sources say nothing about his life between childhood and the start of his public ministry, when he was about thirty years old. The silence is itself informative: the Gospels are interested in his teaching and his death, not in his biography, and the early life is recorded only where it serves the story.

The world into which Jesus was born was the Roman Empire at its height, and Judea was a province under Roman rule, governed by a prefect and by a local king, Herod, who ruled with Roman support. The Jewish people were divided between groups that cooperated with Rome, groups that resisted it, and groups that withdrew from public life to await the coming of the Messiah. Jesus grew up in Galilee, a region of villages and farms, far from the Temple in Jerusalem and from the centres of power. His teaching, when it came, was shaped by that world: by the Jewish law, by the prophets, and by the expectation that God would act in history.

3. Baptism and the beginning of the ministry

According to the Gospels, Jesus began his public ministry at about thirty years of age, after being baptised by John the Baptist in the River Jordan. John was a preacher who called people to repentance and baptised them as a sign of cleansing, and his baptism of Jesus is one of the few events that scholars regard as certainly historical, because it is recorded in all four Gospels and because it is unlikely that the early Christians would have invented a story in which their leader was baptised by another preacher. The Gospels report that at the baptism the heavens opened and the Spirit descended on Jesus, and Christians believe that this was the moment when his ministry began.

He preached and taught in Galilee and Judea for about three years, proclaiming the coming of the kingdom of God, teaching in synagogues and in the open air, and healing the sick, as the Gospels report. The kingdom of God, the central theme of his teaching, is understood by scholars as the rule of God breaking into the world, a hope that was widely shared in first-century Judaism and that Jesus gave a particular meaning: the kingdom was near, it belonged to the poor and the humble, and it could be entered by repentance and by trust in God. His teaching was delivered in short sayings, in parables and in longer discourses, and it was aimed at ordinary people, not at the learned.

He chose twelve apostles to share his work, and his following grew until he came into open conflict with the religious authorities of his day. The twelve were drawn from fishermen, a tax collector and others of no particular standing, and their selection was itself a statement: the movement was not built on the educated or the powerful. The Gospels report that Jesus performed miracles, including healings and the feeding of crowds, and Christians believe that these were signs of the kingdom of God. Historians treat the miracle stories as matters of faith rather than of historical record, and note that similar stories were told about other holy men of the ancient world.

4. The teaching: parables, the Sermon on the Mount and the command to love

Jesus taught largely through parables, short stories that carried a moral or spiritual point, and through direct ethical instruction, most famously the Sermon on the Mount. The parables include the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son and the Sower, stories that are still told and retold two thousand years later. Their power lies in their simplicity: a story about a traveller, a father and his sons, or a farmer scattering seed, becomes a statement about how God treats people and how people should treat each other. Scholars note that the parables were a form of teaching that was well suited to an audience of farmers and fishermen, and that they have survived because they work at more than one level.

The Sermon on the Mount, recorded in the Gospel of Matthew, is the most famous collection of his teaching. It includes the Beatitudes, blessings on the poor, the meek and the peacemakers, and a series of commands that go beyond the Jewish law: not only to avoid murder, but to avoid anger; not only to avoid adultery, but to avoid lust; and above all, to love one's enemies. The command to love one's neighbour is stated in the Gospel of Mark, where Jesus says: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. And in the Sermon on the Mount, in the Gospel of Matthew, he says: But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you. These two passages are among the most widely quoted words in the English language, and they are the heart of the ethical teaching attributed to Jesus.

His teaching, above all the Sermon on the Mount and his parables, set out an ethic of love of God and love of neighbour, forgiveness, mercy and care for the poor and the outcast. The ethic was radical in its time, because it placed the poor and the outcast at the centre of God's concern, and because it called for love of enemies rather than revenge. It was also demanding, and the Gospels record that even his followers found it hard to follow. The teaching has been interpreted in many ways over the centuries, by churches, by philosophers and by political movements, and the interpretations differ widely. What is not disputed is that the teaching, as recorded in the Gospels, has shaped Western ethics more than any other single body of writing.

5. Conflict, trial and crucifixion

As his following grew, Jesus came into open conflict with the religious authorities of his day. The Gospels report that he criticised the Pharisees, the teachers of the law, for their emphasis on rules rather than on mercy, and that he challenged the Temple authorities in Jerusalem by overturning the tables of the money changers. The conflict was not only religious but political: the Temple was the centre of Jewish life and the source of revenue for the priesthood, and a challenge to it was a challenge to the order that Rome supported. Scholars note that the Gospels, written after the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, may have sharpened the conflict in the telling, but that a conflict of some kind is likely.

In about 30 CE he entered Jerusalem for the Passover festival, shared a final meal with his disciples, and was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane, tried before the Sanhedrin and the Roman prefect Pontius Pilate, and crucified outside the city walls. The Gospels give different accounts of the trial, and scholars debate the details, but the broad outline is agreed: Jesus was arrested by the Temple authorities, handed over to the Romans, and executed by crucifixion, the Roman punishment for rebellion and for slaves. The date is debated: scholars place the crucifixion in about 30 CE or 33 CE, and the Gospels differ on the day of the week and on the timing of the Last Supper.

Crucifixion was a public and humiliating death, designed to deter others, and it is a measure of how the Romans regarded Jesus that they used it. The Gospels report that he was mocked, beaten and forced to carry his own cross, and that he died after a few hours on the cross. The manner of his death is important for understanding what followed: the early Christians did not hide the crucifixion but made it the centre of their faith, arguing that God had acted through the death of a crucified man. The paradox, that a shameful death became the foundation of a world religion, is one of the most remarkable facts in the history of religion.

6. The resurrection: belief, evidence and the early church

The Gospels report that the tomb was found empty on the third day, and Christians believe that God raised him from the dead. The resurrection is the central claim of the Christian faith, and it is presented in the Gospels as the event that transformed the disciples from a frightened group into a movement that spread across the Roman Empire. The accounts differ in detail: the Gospels name different witnesses, give different sequences of events, and describe the risen Jesus in different ways. Scholars note the differences and regard them as evidence that the stories were told independently, rather than copied from a single source, but they also note that the differences make it impossible to reconstruct a single, agreed account of what happened.

Historians treat the resurrection as a matter of faith rather than of historical record, because it is a claim about an event that cannot be tested by the methods of history. What historians can say is that the early Christians believed it, that the belief spread rapidly, and that it changed the lives of those who held it. Within a few decades of his death, the movement that began with his preaching had spread across the Roman Empire, and within a few centuries it had become the dominant religion of the Roman world. The letters of Paul, written within twenty years of the crucifixion, already present the resurrection as the foundation of the faith, and they are the earliest evidence for it.

The early church was built by the apostles and their followers, who carried the message from Jerusalem to the cities of the Roman Empire, above all to Rome itself. The apostle Paul, who had persecuted the early Christians before his conversion, became the most important missionary, and his letters are the earliest Christian writings. The church faced persecution from the Roman authorities for three centuries, and then, in the fourth century, it was adopted by the emperor Constantine and became the religion of the empire. The transformation from a small Jewish sect to the religion of an empire is one of the great stories of history, and it began with the belief that Jesus had risen from the dead.

7. Legacy: the world's largest religion and a life still debated

Jesus is the central figure of Christianity, the world's largest religion, and Christians believe him to be the incarnation of God the Son and the awaited Messiah. His teaching has shaped Western ethics, law, art, music and literature, and the calendar era used across the world is traditionally counted from his birth. His life and teaching have shaped calendars, art, music, literature, law, education and charitable work across many cultures, and his parables and sayings remain among the most widely quoted words in the English language. The influence is not limited to the West: Christianity is practised in every country, and its art and music have drawn on the life of Jesus for two thousand years.

Scholars distinguish between the historical Jesus, the first-century Jewish preacher whose life can be studied from the Gospels and other ancient sources, and the Christ of faith, the figure confessed by Christian belief; the two are debated, but virtually all modern scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed historically. The debate about the historical Jesus has been running for two centuries, and it has produced a large literature, from the search for the historical Jesus in the nineteenth century to the work of modern scholars who use archaeology, the study of first-century Judaism and the analysis of the Gospels to reconstruct his life. The debate is unlikely to be settled, because the evidence is limited, but it has deepened the understanding of the world in which Jesus lived.

His parables, the Sermon on the Mount and the command to love one's neighbour continue to be read, preached and debated two thousand years after his death, and his life remains a subject of study for historians, theologians and believers alike. Like the Prophet Muhammad, whose life is also studied as a founder of a world religion, Jesus is a figure whose importance goes beyond the religion he founded: he is a part of the shared culture of the world, known to people of every faith and of none. The article has presented what the Gospels record and what historians say, with beliefs attributed throughout, and the reader is left to judge between the history and the faith, as scholars themselves do.

Frequently asked questions

Sources and further reading

• Encyclopaedia Britannica — Jesus Christ
• Wikipedia — Jesus
• Bible Gateway — Mark 12:31 (King James Version)
• Bible Gateway — Matthew 5:44 (King James Version)

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• Who Was Alan Turing? — Alan Turing defined modern computing, broke German naval Enigma and proposed the Turing test. This explains his science, his war work and his tragic end.
• Who Was Albert Einstein? — Albert Einstein rewrote physics with relativity and won the Nobel Prize for the photoelectric effect. This explains his ideas, his life and his legacy.
• Who Was Alexander Graham Bell? — Alexander Graham Bell patented the first practical telephone in 1876. This explains his work with the deaf, the patent fight and his wider inventions.
• Who Was Alexander the Great? — Alexander the Great built one of history's largest empires before dying at 32. This explains his conquests, his cities and the debate over his legacy.
• Who Was Alfred Nobel? — Alfred Nobel invented dynamite, held 355 patents and founded the Nobel Prizes. This explains his explosives empire, his will and the prizes' legacy.
• Who Was Allama Iqbal? — Allama Iqbal was Pakistan's national poet, whose ideas shaped the case for Pakistan. This explains his poetry, his philosophy and his legacy.
• Who Was Benazir Bhutto? — Benazir Bhutto was the first woman to lead a Muslim-majority country, serving as prime minister of Pakistan in 1988-90 and 1993-96.
• Who Was Bob Marley? — Bob Marley took reggae from Jamaica to the world and became a symbol of peace, resistance and unity. This explains his life, his music and his legacy.
• Who Was Bruce Lee? — Bruce Lee was the martial artist and actor who carried Hong Kong action cinema to the world and founded Jeet Kune Do, leaving a lasting influence.
• Who Was Charles Darwin? — Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, published in On the Origin of Species in 1859, became the foundation of modern biology.
• Who Was Charles Dickens? — Charles Dickens was the greatest novelist of the Victorian era, whose serialised novels mixed comedy, social criticism and unforgettable characters.
• Who Was Charlie Chaplin? — Charlie Chaplin created the Little Tramp, the most famous screen character of the silent era, and directed classics City Lights and The Great Dictator.
• Who Was Cleopatra? — Cleopatra VII was the last ruler of Ptolemaic Egypt, a multilingual stateswoman who kept her kingdom independent for 21 years before Rome annexed it.
• Who Was Diego Maradona? — Diego Maradona was an Argentine footballer who captained Argentina to the 1986 World Cup and is widely regarded as one of the greatest players in history.
• Who Was Don Bradman? — Don Bradman was an Australian cricketer who averaged 99.94 in Test cricket, a record so far ahead of any other batsman that it remains famous in sport.
• Who Was Elvis Presley? — Elvis Presley took gospel, country and rhythm and blues and turned them into rock and roll, becoming the most famous singer of his century.
• Who Was Emily Dickinson? — Emily Dickinson was an American poet who wrote nearly 1,800 poems in private in Amherst, Massachusetts, and was barely published in her lifetime.
• Who Was Faiz Ahmed Faiz? — Faiz Ahmed Faiz was Pakistan's most celebrated modern Urdu poet, whose verse joined romantic lyricism with resistance to injustice.
• Who Was Franz Beckenbauer? — Franz Beckenbauer was a German footballer known as Der Kaiser, who won the World Cup as captain in 1974 and as manager in 1990.
• Who Was Freddie Mercury? — Freddie Mercury was the lead singer of Queen, a four-octave voice and fearless showman who wrote Bohemian Rhapsody and We Are the Champions.
• Who Was Frida Kahlo? — Frida Kahlo was a Mexican painter known for uncompromising, brilliantly coloured self-portraits exploring identity, the body and death.
• Who Was Galileo Galilei? — Galileo Galilei reshaped astronomy with his telescopic discoveries of 1610, defended a Sun-centred universe, and was tried by the Inquisition in 1633.
• Who Was Genghis Khan? — Genghis Khan united the Mongol tribes and built the largest contiguous land empire in history, a conqueror and lawgiver whose legacy is still argued over.
• Who Was George Washington? — George Washington won American independence, presided over the Constitutional Convention, and as first president defined the office — then walked away.
• Who Was Guglielmo Marconi? — Guglielmo Marconi was an Italian inventor who built the first practical wireless telegraph and sent the first transatlantic radio signal in 1901.
• Who Was Henry Ford? — Henry Ford was an American industrialist who founded the Ford Motor Company, built the Model T and perfected the moving assembly line.
• Who Was Isaac Newton? — Isaac Newton wrote the laws of motion and universal gravitation, invented calculus and transformed optics, leaving a lasting legacy in science.
• Who Was James Watt? — James Watt did not invent the steam engine, but his separate condenser of 1765 made it efficient enough to power the Industrial Revolution.
• Who Was Jane Austen? — Jane Austen published six novels in her lifetime, anonymously, and died at 41. This explains her life, her novels, her irony and her growing reputation.
• Who Was Johan Cruyff? — Johan Cruyff was the star of Total Football, won three Ballon d'Or awards, and as a manager built the Barcelona team that shaped modern football.
• Who Was Johannes Gutenberg? — Johannes Gutenberg built the first mechanised printing press in Europe and printed the Gutenberg Bible around 1455, changing how the world shared ideas.
• Who Was John Keats? — John Keats died of tuberculosis in Rome at 25, having written his six great odes in a single year. This explains his short life, his poetry and his fame.
• Who Was Joseph Stalin? — Joseph Stalin led the Soviet Union from the 1920s until 1953, industrialised the country and led it through the Second World War, ruling through terror.
• Who Was Julius Caesar? — Julius Caesar conquered Gaul, crossed the Rubicon and remade Rome's calendar and government, and was murdered by senators who feared he would be king.
• Who Was Kobe Bryant? — Kobe Bryant won five NBA championships with the Los Angeles Lakers and became known for the Mamba Mentality, on and off the court.
• Who Was Leo Tolstoy? — Leo Tolstoy wrote War and Peace and Anna Karenina, then abandoned literary fame for a radical moral philosophy that influenced Gandhi and the world.
• Who Was Leonardo da Vinci? — Leonardo da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper and filled notebooks with anatomy and engineering, becoming the symbol of the Renaissance.
• Who Was Ludwig van Beethoven? — Ludwig van Beethoven wrote nine symphonies, 32 piano sonatas and the Missa Solemnis, much of it while deaf. This explains his life and legacy.
• Who Was Mahatma Gandhi? — Mahatma Gandhi led India to independence through nonviolent resistance, and his ideas shaped civil-rights movements worldwide.
• Who Was Mao Zedong? — Mao Zedong founded the People's Republic of China in 1949 and led it until 1976, bringing unification and the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution.
• Who Was Margaret Thatcher? — Margaret Thatcher was the first woman to serve as British prime minister, leading the UK from 1979 to 1990 through reform, the Falklands War and division.
• Who Was Marie Curie? — Marie Curie discovered polonium and radium and remains the only person to win Nobel Prizes in two different sciences, a pioneer of radioactivity research.
• Who Was Marilyn Monroe? — Marilyn Monroe was the biggest star of the 1950s, the blonde bombshell of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Some Like It Hot, who fought the studio system.
• Who Was Mark Twain? — Mark Twain, born Samuel Langhorne Clemens, wrote Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn and became America's most famous humorist.
• Who Was Maya Angelou? — Maya Angelou was a poet, memoirist and civil rights activist whose autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings made her widely read.
• Who Was Michael Jackson? — Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, made Thriller, the best-selling album in history, and changed music video, dance and pop stardom.
• Who Was Mirza Ghalib? — Mirza Ghalib (1797-1869) is the pre-eminent Urdu and Persian poet of the last Mughal era, whose ghazals on love, loss and doubt are still recited.
• Who Was Muhammad Ali Jinnah? — Muhammad Ali Jinnah was the barrister and statesman who led the All-India Muslim League and became Pakistan's first Governor-General in 1947.
• Who Was Muhammad Ali? — Muhammad Ali was the three-time heavyweight champion who called himself The Greatest, and the most famous athlete of the twentieth century.
• Who Was Napoleon Bonaparte? — Napoleon Bonaparte rose from Corsica to Emperor of the French, redrew the map of Europe, and left a legal code that still shapes law across the world.
• Who Was Nelson Mandela? — Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in prison under apartheid, then became South Africa's first democratically elected president and a Nobel Peace laureate.
• Who Was Nikola Tesla? — Nikola Tesla developed the alternating-current power system, the induction motor and the Tesla coil, making long-distance electric power practical.
• Who Was Osama bin Laden? — Osama bin Laden founded al-Qaeda in 1988 and organised the September 11, 2001 attacks, in which nearly 3,000 people were killed.
• Who Was Pablo Neruda? — Pablo Neruda was Chile's great poet, a Nobel laureate, a communist senator and a diplomat. This explains his poetry, his politics and his death.
• Who Was Pablo Picasso? — Pablo Picasso co-founded Cubism, painted Guernica, and spent 75 years breaking the rules of art — the most influential artist of the twentieth century.
• Who Was Pelé? — Pele is the only footballer to win three World Cups, the youngest winner, and the game's first global icon. This is his life, his goals and his legacy.
• Who Was Pope Francis? The People's Pope — Pope Francis, the first pope from the Americas and the first Jesuit pope, led the Catholic Church from 2013 to 2025 with an emphasis on mercy and the poor.
• Who Was Prophet Muhammad? — The Prophet Muhammad is the founder of Islam, the world's second-largest religion. This explains his life, his teachings and his legacy.
• Who Was Queen Elizabeth II? — Queen Elizabeth II reigned for 70 years, from 1952 to 2022 — the longest reign in British history. This explains her life, her reign and her legacy.
• Who Was Rabindranath Tagore? — Rabindranath Tagore was the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, and the author of the national anthems of India and Bangladesh.
• Who Was Rosa Parks? — Rosa Parks was not a tired seamstress who acted on impulse. She was a trained activist and NAACP secretary whose bus refusal was a deliberate act.
• Who Was Rosalind Franklin? — Rosalind Franklin's X-ray image, Photograph 51, gave Watson and Crick the key evidence for the double helix. This is her life and the credit debate.
• Who Was Rumi? — Rumi, the thirteenth-century Persian poet of Konya, wrote the Masnavi and the Divan-e Shams, and became the most widely read poet in the world.
• Who Was Shane Warne? — Shane Warne took 708 Test wickets, bowled the Ball of the Century in 1993 and won the 1999 World Cup with Australia. This explains his career.
• Who Was Stephen Hawking? — Stephen Hawking was a theoretical physicist who showed that black holes emit radiation and wrote A Brief History of Time. He died in 2018, aged 76.
• Who Was Steve Jobs? — Steve Jobs co-founded Apple in 1976, was forced out in 1985, built Pixar, and returned to launch the iMac, iPod, iPhone and iPad. He died in 2011, aged 56.
• Who Was Thomas Edison? — Thomas Edison held 1,093 US patents, invented the phonograph and the practical incandescent lamp, and built the first commercial electric power system.
• Who Was Vincent van Gogh? — Vincent van Gogh produced about 2,100 artworks in a single decade, including The Starry Night and Sunflowers, and became famous only after his death at 37.
• Who Was William Shakespeare? — William Shakespeare is the most performed playwright in history, yet almost nothing is reliably known about his private life.
• Who Was William Wordsworth? — William Wordsworth launched English Romanticism with Lyrical Ballads and wrote The Prelude, the great autobiographical poem. This explains his life.
• Who Was Winston Churchill? — Winston Churchill led Britain through the Second World War and won the Nobel Prize in Literature, and his record on empire is still debated.
• Who Was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart? — Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a child prodigy who composed more than 600 works before his death at 35, defining the Classical era.
• Why Van Gogh Became Famous After Death — Vincent van Gogh died in 1890 almost unknown, and within a few decades his paintings were among the most loved in the world.