Who Was Jesus?
It is generally accepted that the historical Jesus was born a Jew and that Christianity originated as a sect of Judaism. The synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) tell us that Jesus was born 7-4 BCE and died 30-33 CE. He is said to have spent about a year in Galilee teaching and performing miracles. Most Christian and Jewish scholars accept as a given that Jesus grew up in Nazareth of Galilee and lived and died believing himself to be a true religious Jew.
The historical Jesus was supposedly persecuted by the Pharisees, the high priest, and just about every Jewish group that existed in first-century Judea. Eventually he was tried by the Sanhedrin, found guilty of blasphemy, turned over to Pontius Pilate (the Roman governor), charged with sedition, and crucified.
Who was this man who influenced so many millions of people over the next 2,000 years?
Many Jewish writings from about 200 BCE to 200 CE have been discovered in recent decades which give a more diverse picture of Judaism than had previously been understood. The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the gnostic Nag Hammadi documents have contributed to this change in perspective.Scholars and believers have been able to find a niche for Jesus among the many "Judaisms" of the time.
However, if one examines the various Jewish groups and sects of the first century CE, one finds that no matter how much they differ from one another, they still remain Jewish. The books of the Law and the Prophets are still their primary sacred scriptures; the Temple in Jerusalem is still the center of their worship; their belief in one single God remains unchanged.
Jesus and his followers rejected everything. The Church replaced the Synagogue. Christian Holy Days replaced Jewish Holy Days. In Acts of the Apostles, Peter tells us that the prohibition against unclean foods has been canceled. The rite of circumcision is not required of non-Jews for conversion. How then could Christianity have originated as a Jewish sect?
In our book, Jesus Christ: A Pagan Myth, we take a skeptical look at the influence of Judaism and the Greco-Roman culture on Paul and the writers of the gospels in an effort to uncover the "real" historical Jesus and the origins of Christianity.
