On Saturday, July 1, I enjoyed a panel discussion on the historical Yeshua versus the Christ of faith. All the questions posed were good questions. Some I was able to answer with clarity and some I was not. However, each question provoked deep thought. We don't all know everything. Sometimes, we thought we knew what we knew maybe a year ago, but since then, the answer we thought we knew may have evolved. Thus, we are forever evolving in our knowledge and understanding of life, of our environment, the rules and constraints that bind us, and our spiritual journeys.
Although the Christ of faith is the universal concept of a messiah-like figure who represents all of Christendom in its current form, it took early church leaders several centuries to make up their minds which version of the Messiah concept they'd decide upon and put into canonical scripture, and other versions of the New Testament. The earliest records on the Christ of faith are the Pauline epistles, thirteen of which were dated between 60 and 67 AD. In addition, there were other epistles written some 75 years after the death of Paul, which were falsely attributed to him. The gospel according to Mark, who was a travelling companion of Paul and cousin of Barnabas, was written somewhere in between Paul's epistles. Dated sometime after 60 AD, Mark is the earliest of the Four Gospels. Alongside Mark, most of Paul's epistles tell the story of the earliest record on the Messiah whom historians have come to know as Yeshua, which is an Aramaic translation of Yehoshua. Yehoshua is rendered Jeshua/Joshua. By the time of the Greek occupation of Palestine, the Greek version of the name Yeshua spelled J-E-S-U-S today was already a common name in the ancient world.
All Four Gospels contain contradictions, but they all settle upon a messiah-like figure called Jesus who lived in ancient Palestine, hailed from Nazareth of Galilee, had siblings, was a teacher of the law & commandments, taught in the synagogues on the Sabbath, observed the holy days of his people, was a healer, championed the poor and needy, was accused of sedition by the Romans, and crucified. The Christ of faith was resurrected from the dead and was seen by many after his resurrection. After 40 days, he ascends into the heavens with the promise that he'd return as both King of kings and Lord of lords.
The Jesus of history was also a teacher who started a new religion. His brother James became the head of the church at Jerusalem after his death. It is unanimous among biblical scholars and historians that the Jesus of history was a healer and miracle worker. Jesus also opposed the ruling class and their oppression of the poor. He hung around criminals. Like the Christ of faith, the Jesus of history also observed the Sabbath and other holy days. The Pharisees and Sadducees also became jealous of his fame. The Romans also took notice, and he was later accused him of sedition and of declaring himself a leader of his people. He was crucified by the government because they saw him as a potential enemy of Rome and perhaps would lead an uprising against them. In fact, a leader of the Zealots who came from the same countryside as Yeshua, whose name was Judas, was crucified in 6 AD for leading a tax revolt against the Romans. Finally in 66 AD, the Zealots waged war against the Roman occupation of Palestine.
All we really have are the records of Paul, the gospel writers, Pliny's writings concerning the early Christians, Josephus' writings, and Tacitus as empirical evidence. However, we are indeed absent of archaeological findings on the historical Jesus.
Pliny, when writing to the emperor Trajan (112 AD), asked for help on dealing with the early Christian community, some of whom he put on trial and later executed. During that time, the Christian religion was at conflict with the old Roman religion. The Romans weren't thrilled about this new god known as Christos that upstaged their ancient gods and goddesses. Prior to Yeshua, there were other messiah-like figures, which could be considered precursors to the New Testament Messiah such as Serapis, Mithras, even Julius Caesar who was deified after his assassination in 44 BC, and worshiped throughout the Roman world.
For years, skeptics have asserted that Tacitus' passage in his work, The Annals concerning Christus, was a Christian interpolation. But would Christians have described Christ's resurrection from the dead as a superstition that broke first in Judea but also found its way to Rome? According to The Annals 15.44, Tacitus wrote, "But all human efforts, all the lavish gifts of the emperor, and the propitiations of the gods, did not banish the sinister belief that the conflagration was the result of an order. Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judæa, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind."
Many people don't believe that Yeshua/Jesus existed historically based upon zero archaeological findings. However, we have the earliest writings on the historical Yeshua, which suggest that someone fitting that description contained in the Tacitus passage, Josephus' writings titled, The Antiquities of the Jews, and other works, existed in First Century Palestine. We also have 2,000 year-old records by the ancient Buddhists kept by the Tibetans on what is alleged to be the missing years of Jesus from the Four Gospels when he was between the ages of 17 and 29. According to The Lost Years of Jesus written by Elizabeth Clare Prophet, the Tibetans claim that Yeshua also known as Saint Issa travelled to India and the Himalayas, and was taught the Vedas by the Brahmin priests. He was both student and teacher who also taught the Vedas to the lower caste. But soon, Saint Issa would butt heads with the Brahmin priests because he taught the Vedas to the lower caste. The legend of Saint Issa continued to grow from there. He returned to Palestine and began his ministry shortly after. He gained fame rather quickly and because he was well-known and popular among the masses, the ruling class began to take notice and they sought to have him speak to them. They took notice of his ability to draw huge crowds. After all, Yeshua was a man of the people, and the Roman rulers that occupied his country became afraid. This is when they sought to take his life. He was later accused of sedition and crucified.
Everywhere in the world, the Christ of faith is represented within each culture. There's the Hindu Jesus. Chinese Jesus. Indian Jesus. But the historical Jesus is a figure most people don't know about. It would appear that the historical Jesus was not really a pacifier. He opposed the Romans' oppression of his people. He would be the equivalent of a humanitarian had he lived today versus the ancient world.
The Christ of faith is what much of the known world knows. But the Jesus of history still remains a mystery to many, even many Christians. If Christ was a mere mortal and never divine, why can't we have faith in him still? The Christ of the New Testament is the same person as the Jesus of history. But very little is known of the personal life of the Jesus of history.
The End
Works Cited
Denova, Rebecca, Pliny the Younger on Christianity, 6 Oct. 2021, Web. 1 July 2023, World History Encyclopedia.
Retrieved from https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1846/pliny-the-younger-on-christianity/
Leasure, Ryan, TACITUS - ANCIENT ROMAN HISTORIAN - REPORTS ON JESUS, 2 Oct. 2019, Web. 1 July 2023, CROSSEXAMINED.ORG.
Retrieved from https://crossexamined.org/tacitus-ancient-roman-historian-reports-on-jesus/
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