1. The Central Character of the Centuries

No one has captured the imagination of the world like Jesus. For twenty centuries the history, art, culture, philosophy and religious belief of the world have been influenced by this man who lived such a short life in the heart of Palestine.

He not only captured the imagination of the world, but he has captured the allegiance of millions of people since who have called themselves by his name: ‘Christians’. 1

Napoleon Bonaparte once said to General Bertrand: ‘I know men, and I tell you that Jesus Christ is no mere man. Between him and every other person in the world there is no possible term of comparison. Alexander, Cesar, Charlemagne and I founded empires, but on what did we rest the creation of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ founded his empire upon love and at this our millions of men would die for him.’ 2

But the allegiance to Jesus Christ continues at an increasing rate today. There are more Christians in the world today than in any other era of history, and the Christian Church is growing faster than in any other period.

Today, one thousand million people around the world acknowledge Jesus Christ as God’s Son and their Lord and Saviour. One hundred thousand men and women have left their own home to go to a foreign land as missionaries to tell others about him.

What is it about Jesus of Nazareth that so activates people? The date of his birth divides the history of the world into its two eras, but impact of his life divides the world further into those who call themselves by his name and those who don’t.

Who is Jesus Christ? What is the basis of our knowledge of him? This pictorial survey of Israel is designed to help us discover something of the life and times of Jesus, and the meaning of his message for today. Somewhere beneath all of the razzle – dazzle of the traps for tourists lies the authentic world into which Jesus came. We shall seek to recover what we can – to see afresh the central character of the centuries.

The Jewish background

The background to the life of Jesus is a varied one. Jesus grew up within the Jewish nation, attending the local synagogue school and learning the Old Testament scriptures by heart. Consequently his own nationality and religion had an enormous influence upon his lifestyle and teaching.

Jesus grew up in one of a hundred similar villages, still a haphazard arrangement of square box-like houses. Each was built of plastered brick or stone, with a living room where the family both worked and ate, and a raised platform at one end where family-members slept. In the doorways, courtyards and narrow twisting streets the potter, metalworkers, bakers, blacksmiths, carpenters and weavers still ply their trades.

The Jewish people were expecting the coming of a Messiah to be a new world leader, to bring them political liberation. Jesus would have known the relevant prophesies from the Old Testament. 3

In our lifetime we have understood more of that Jewish expectation because of the greatest manuscript discovery of modern times. Over three hundred manuscripts, hidden for two thousand years, were discovered in 1947 in the Death Sea area at Qumran. 4 Since then, scholars have carefully worked over these documents, most of which date from the time of Jesus. We have manuscripts from every Old Testament book except Esther. The scroll of Isaiah, copied out in 100BC, is the oldest complete biblical manuscript known to exist.

That community of two hundred men were keeping alive the same Old Testament hopes that Jesus knew. While his teaching differed dramatically from that of the community at Qumran, this vast body of Jewish literature helps us understand the theology, rituals and pattern of everyday life within the Jewish world in which Jesus lived.

There is nothing in the teaching of Jesus that was dependent upon this community – he may not even have known it existed. Nevertheless, their faithful recording of their life and times from the same era gives us a rich insight into the Jewish background of Jesus of Nazareth.

Palestine, in his day, consisted of four parallel ‘bands’ running north and south: a narrow coastal plain along the shore of the Mediterranean down which the north-south highway ran; the central hill are where the villagers tended their orchards and vineyards and grazed their sheep and goats; the deep Jordan valley filled with tropical vegetation and irrigated by the River Jordan; and the desolate waste area across the Jordan. Jesus spent his days in the two central bands.

Palestine in the first century was a multi-lingual society. Most of the people in the villages around Galilee spoke Aramaic, while up in Jerusalem in the Temple area the learned scribes and Pharisees spoke Hebrew. In addition throughout all of Palestine the common Koine Greek was spoken – not only by the Israelites, but by Roman soldiers, Greek teachers, Phoenician seaman and Arab traders. Koine Greek was the common language known and spoken by all throughout the Roman Empire. Not surprisingly, it was in this language that the teachings of Jesus were first recorded.

The only recorded Jewish reference to Jesus came from the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus who wrote for the Romans a history of his own people. He spoke about the stoning in AD 62 of James, the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ. 5 There is no other Jewish historical record of the life of Jesus from his day.

Greek and Roman influences

Since the time of Alexander the Great who conquered the entire Eastern world in the late fourth century BC, the influence of Greek culture had been profound. It was seen in the universal use of the Greek language and, with it, the influence of Hellenic thought. The Greek culture influenced even the people in the Palestinian villages. The earliest followers of Jesus expressed his teachings and thoughts accurately, resulting in the development of new words within the Koine Greek to succinctly express Christian truth. 6

The Roman Empire had extended its influence into Palestine under General Pompey in 63 BC. The Romans stationed a cosmopolitan military force in Palestine to keep the peace against regular Jewish rebellion. Their influence can be seen in the Roman architecture scattered throughout Palestine and, in particular, in the recreational areas developed for soldiers on the eastern coast of the Sea of Galilee and along the River Jordan.

Archeologists still discover throughout Palestine remnants of trade from Italy. In return for the grains and wool from Palestine shipped to the capital city, Rome returned its manufactured goods. Even today, we discover iron tools and bronze instruments with Roman trademarks on them.

Many horseshoes have been discovered bearing the names of markers located in Campania, south of Rome. A Roman manufacturer by the name of Fortis had a good line going in his oil-burning lamps, moulded from Italian clay and purchased by Palestinians all over the land.

The political influence of the Romans was powerful in the time of Jesus. He was born at the time of King Herod, a puppet king who kept the peace on behalf of the Romans. Herod ruled for thirty years. He was an Arab by birth, a Greek by education, a Jew by religion, but a Roman by collaboration. He was universally hated. He murdered his own life, three of his sons and the children of Bethlehem. On his deathbed he divided his kingdom between three others sons and the news of his death was greeted with a national feast of celebration.

Yet the Roman Government ensured ease of travel, an uneasy peace impressed upon the rebellious people, the creation of a fine system of aqueducts and public buildings, and a rough sort of justice for criminals. The Roman centurions mentioned in scripture were all men of character. 7 Even the Governor, the Procurator Pontius Pilate who governed from AD 26-36, demonstrated a fairness in his handling of the problem Jews. 8

To support this colonial infrastructure, the Jews were forced to pay heavy taxes. Apart from their tithes to their own synagogue and Temple, national taxes in the form of a tithe of their crops and countless of offerings for such things as firstborn children and animals, there were also taxes for the Romans. These included a poll tax, a salt tax, a marriage tax, a land tax, a sales tax, a water tax, a city tax, a road tax, a house tax and , of course, customs duties! These taxes were collected by political appointees who were motivated by graft and corruption and universally despised. Zacchaeus and Matthew were tax collectors attracted to Jesus. 9

The only Roman sources that speak of Jesus were three Roman historians. Suetonius wrote during Neo’s reign: ‘Punishment by Nero was inflicted on the Christians, a class of men given to a new and mischievous superstition.’ 10 The second century Tacitus also recorded that Nero attempted to blame the burning of Rome upon the Christians, adding, ‘But the pernicious superstition, repressed for a time, broke out again, not only through Judea where the mischief originated, but through the city of Rome also.’11

The Roman writer Lucian described Jesus as ‘the man who was crucified in Palestine because he introduced this new cult into the world.’ 12

Each of these Roman authors was hostile to the Christian faith. Nevertheless, their testimony even as hostile historians underlined the widespread influence of Jesus and ended any doubts concerning his historicity. We can be confident that Jesus was a real person who really lived.

Beginnings of the gospel tradition

Apart from these Jewish and Roman authors, we have no other contemporary records of the life of Jesus. His life was short, writing nothing himself except a cryptic message in the sand, which lasted no longer than his brief meeting with the crowd on their way to stone a prostitute. 13

But the teachings of Jesus were kept alive because of the capacity of the early believers to memorise and continuously repeat his words. For perhaps two decades the teachings of Jesus were carefully remembered passed on by word of mouth from believer to believer. During this early dawn period of Christian history, it is impossible for us to fully appreciate how widespread or accurate was this oral tradition.

Not only did Jesus not write a book himself; his disciples neither took notes as he taught them, nor wrote down his words or deeds until some years after his death. Yet the people of that day, as many primitive peoples today, were most adept at learning by heart and passing on accurately the traditions of their faith. For instance, Australia’s aboriginal people have passed on 60,000 years of history entirely by oral tradition.

Eventually, those carefully remembered sayings, parables and stories became written and collected. It is possible to detect in the Gospel writings the various collections of the sayings of Jesus which were written down prior to the Gospel writers copying them carefully themselves. Scholars refer to these earliest collections of sayings as ‘Q’, from the German word ‘quelle’, meaning ‘source documents’. Behind Mark, Matthew and Luke lie at least two of these collections of sayings. 14 But the Gospel writers very quickly began to use these documents plus their own research to bring the story of Jesus to those who were believing in him.

The first writer of Christian truth was the apostle Paul who wrote his series of letters, mainly from prison, from about AD 50. Paul was primarily interested in the great doctrines concerning the life, death and resurrection of Jesus – and how he affects our own life and future – rather than in the normal biographical details of Jesus. Consequently, he records nothing of the sensationalised or highly personalised material that the popular press revels in our day. Paul was interested in the total significance and impact of the life of Jesus, rather than the colour of his eyes, the furniture of his home or the friendship he may have had.

Paul states: ‘I received from the Lord the teaching that I passed on to you.’ Or again, ‘I passed on to you what I received, which is of the greatest importance…’ 15 What he passed on was mainly the doctrine of the faith, not the biography of Jesus.

Luke, an associate of Paul, carefully interviewed those who were eyewitnesses of the life and ministry of Jesus. To his patron he wrote:

Many people have done their best to write a report of the things that have taken place among us. They wrote what we have been told by those who saw these things from the beginning and who proclaimed the message. And so, Your Excellency, because I have carefully studied all these matters from their beginning, I thought it would be good to write an orderly account for you. I do this so you will know the full truth about everything that you have been taught. 16

In this statement Luke gives us an insight into the truth nature of the Gospels: that they were carefully researched and gathered teachings concerning Jesus, designed to affirm the faith of those who had already believed in him.

The Gospels were all associated with the early disciples of Jesus. Matthew was one of the original disciples of Jesus. 17 Mark was the young man in whose parents’ house the Last Supper was celebrated and who, as a teenager, had witnessed the arrest of Jesus. Years later he wrote down the teaching of Peter. 18 Luke was a medical doctor closely associated with Paul and a man of the finest Greek training. 19 John, the closet friend of Jesus, wrote his profound interpretation of the meaning of the life and teaching of his Lord. As John himself said: ‘These have been written in order that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through your faith in him you may have life.’ 20

So the Gospels are in effect collections of the teaching of Jesus, written to affirm people’s faith in Christ and to enable them to have eternal life.

Who is Jesus?

No other recorded material remains. Yet from these four brief records of the life and teaching of Jesus, the most remarkable figure known to history stands larger than life. Let us see what we can capture of his personality from the early records.

People who listened to the teachings of Jesus said, ‘No man ever spoke like this man!’ 21 His personality and character matched the remarkable nature of his teaching.

We know nothing of his appearance, yet all races claim that he belonged to them. He had a great sense of humour and laughed, yet was known as ‘a man of sorrows’. 22 He played with children and took babies in his arms, yet the most hard and cruel men withered beneath his glare. 23 He was known as a man of compassion and love, yet people quaked before his anger. 24 He could outstare a Roman governor, yet could touch the untouchable leper. 25

He was a man of courage and strength, yet the weakest in society felt safe with him. He was meek and lowly of heart, yet he defied the strongest authorities of his day. He was a man of authority who made the greatest personal claims for himself, yet his whole life spoke of humility and of utter concern for other people.

His friendships with disreputable people were an open scandal, yet he would spend hours alone in prayer. 26 He said the harshest things about religious leaders ever uttered, yet spoke the softest words of understanding for broken people. 27 He called people to come and follow him and they left their all in obedience. 28 He demands everything from us, yet wants nothing that this world calls significant. He offers to us his all, forgives us our sins and lays down his life for people who do not know him. 29

His authority is such that many quake before him, yet he patiently knocks at the door and waits until people admit him. 30 He died two thousand years ago, but is more alive in the hearts of people today than any other person.

The uniqueness of Jesus

What is it that makes Jesus Christ different? His friend Peter said:

Christ himself suffered for you and left you an example, so that you would follow in his steps. He committed no sin and no one ever heard a lie come from his lips. When he was insulted, he did not answer back with an insult; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but placed his hopes in God, the righteous Judge. Christ himself carried our sins in his body to the cross, so that we might die to sin and live for righteousness. It is by his wounds that you have been healed. 31

His character was absolutely transparent. No one ever accused him of committing any obvious sin; even his worst enemies admitted the quality of his life. When he challenged them, ‘Which one of you can prove that I am guilty of sin?’, not one of his enemies could point a finger at any wrong he had ever committed. 32 The scriptures testify that he ‘was tempted in every way that we are, but did not sin.’ 33

His temperament was equally complex. He was a man of charm whom ordinary people followed, yet a man of commanding authority from whom self-righteous people could shrink. He combined patience with power, remoteness with nearness, passion with serenity. He has given to some the greatest comfort and to others the greatest challenge, he comforts the afflicted.

Of all people who have ever existed, Jesus stands as one of the great intellects of all time. His teaching had passed the tests of every philosopher and thinker. His dialectic caught the best brains of lawyers and theologians of his day constantly on the horns of a dilemma, yet he could express profound truth with utter simplicity so that even children could understand it. 34 No one need have trouble with any of the teachings of Jesus they cannot understand – but many have trouble living up to the teachings they can.

Once in the synagogue at Capernaum, Jesus confounded the intellects of his day:

Then Jesus went back to the synagogue where there was a man who had a paralysed hand. Some people were there who wanted to accuse Jesus of doing wrong; so they watched him closely to see if he would cure the man on the Sabbath. Jesus said to the man, ‘Come up here to the front.’ Then he asked the people, ‘What does our Law allow us to do on the Sabbath? To help or to harm? To save man’s life or destroy it?’

But they did not say a thing. Jesus was angry as he looked around at them, but at the same time he felt sorry for them, because they were so stubborn and wrong. Then he said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ He stretched it out, and it became well again. So the Pharisees left the synagogue and met at once with some members of Herod’s party, and they made plans to kill Jesus. 35

Such was the impact that Jesus had upon the minds of people who could not match wits with him.

Many intellectuals cannot cope with ordinary people. Yet time and again we read that Jesus had compassion upon hearing the ordinary people who were hurting under the heavy load imposed by the religious, political and economic structures of their day. He said:

Come to me, all of you who are tired from carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke and put it on you, and learn from me, because I am gentle and humble in spirit; and you will find rest. For the yoke I will give you is easy, and the load I will put on you is light.36

Yet Jesus was a man of tough personal discipline, able to look a Roman commander in the eye, and unflinchingly bear the taunts and rebukes of people who scourged him. 37 He was the ultimate moral example of self-control and personal discipline. He announced his purpose: ‘I have come to seek and to save the lost.’ 38 At the end of his life he could say, ‘It is finished’ and know he had accomplished his life’s work. 39

Raised from the dead, his influence has continued in every century and on every continent. Within our own lifetime China has closed the door on all Western missionary activity, persecuting indigenous Christians and intending to wipe out Christian belief as an imperialist Western superstition. Yet today the number of active Christians has multiplied forty-fold, thirty million people now claiming Christ as Lord. 40

The relevance of Jesus

What relevance does Jesus have to us today? We may take for granted that Jesus was unsurpassed by any other in the field of religious insight – unsurpassed in his capacity to express profound truth in simple words, unsurpassed in the expression of ultimate moral truth and his own personal life, outstanding in the supreme mastery over life which he demonstrated. This may all be true… but that only places a distance between him and me. With all of my weaknesses and faults, the fact that one man lived a superb life is of little relevance; indeed it is quite demoralising. Unless – and this is the point which makes all the difference with Jesus – unless God was working in Jesus in such a way that his life would enable me to triumph in mine.

The vital difference is that Jesus Christ was unsurpassed in his ability to identify with us, to rescue us as individuals, to forgive us from our sins and to give us the right to become children of God. 41 The uniqueness of Jesus lies not in his mind, ability or power, but that in him, in a mysterious but real way, God fully dwelt. 42

First, Christians see in Jesus what God was like. When they say that Jesus is the Son of God Christians are affirming that, when they look at Jesus, they see ‘the light of the glory of the knowledge of God on his face’. 43

Second, Christians see in Jesus what we might become. Christians believe that ‘we shall all come together to that oneness in our faith and in our knowledge of the Son of God. We shall become mature people reaching to the very height of Christ’s full stature.’ 44

Third, Christians discover that in Jesus everything had purpose and meaning. He is the one who becomes central to everything else: ‘In union with him all things have their proper place.’ 45

When we look at Jesus, we see that he is God’s method of helping us become his sons and daughters. 46 And that is the greatest discovery any of us can ever make.

Endnotes:

1. Acts 11:26
2. Charles L. Wallis, Treasury, Abingdon, 1950, p.147
3. Psalm 2; Psalm 45:6-7; Isaiah 9:2-7 and 42:1-9; Jeremiah 23:5-6; Isaiah 53; Isaiah 61:1-4; John 11:27; Acts 8:26-40
4. T.H. Gaster, The Dead Sea Scriptures, 1964 Helmer Ringgren, The Faith of Qumran, 1963
5. Flavius Josephus, Antiquities, Book 17, chapter 3, section 3, plus Book 20, chapter 200
6. The Interpreter’s One Volume Commentary on the Bible, Abingdon, 1972, pp.1194-2000
7. Matthew 8:1-13; Mark 15:39; Acts 10:1
8. Matthew 27:11-26; Luke 3:1
9. Luke 19:1-10; Matthew 9:9-13
10. Suetonius, Nero, p.111
11. Tacitus, Annals, p.423
12. Lucian, The Passing of Peregrinus, p.13
13. John 8:1-11
14. See for example the saying of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew chapters 5-7). Also any standard Introduction to the New Testament
15. 1 Corinthians 11:23 and 15:3
16. Luke 1:1-4
17. Matthew 9:9; Mark 2:13-17
18. Mark 14:51-52; Acts 12:12; 1Pter 5:13
19. Colossians 4:14
20. John 20:31
21. John 7:46 RSV
22. Isaiah 53:3 RSV
23. Matthew 18:2; Mark 10:13-16 and 12:34
24. Matthew 9:36 and 14:14; Mark 3:5; Luke 19:45
25. Matthew 8:2 and 27:11-26; Luke 5:13
26. John 17:1; Matthew 11:19; Mark 1:35
27. John 8:11; Matthew 23:1-28
28. Matthew 4:18-22, 9:9 and 16:24
29. Luke 19:10 and 23:34; Matthew 20:28; John 10:1-18
30. Revelation 3:20
31. 1 Peter 2:21-24
32. John 8:7-11
33. Hebrews 4:15
34. Matthew 18:2-3, 19:13-15 and 22:15-22
35. Mark 3:1-6
36. Matthew 11:28-30
37. Matthew 27:27-31; Luke 22:63-65 and 23:10-11
38. Luke 19:10
39. John 19:30
40. Quoted by Dr J. Hudson Taylor Ш, General Director of the Overseas Missionary Fellowship, September 1983, quoting Chinese Government figures which admit a four-fold growth in thirty-five years. Source: World Evangelical Information Service, 8 December 1983. Endorsed by Dr. Thomas Wang, General Secretary of the Chinese Co-ordination Centre for World Evangelism, Hong Kong.
41. John 1:12
42. 2 Corinthians 5:19
43. 2 Corinthians 4:6
44. Ephesians 4:13
45. Colossians 1:17
46. Romans 8:29

For personal reading

Theme: The Coming of the Messiah

Monday : Reasons for writing (Luke 1:1-4 and Acts 1:1-11)
Tuesday : Awaiting a deliverer (Isaiah 64:1-4and Zechariah 9:9-10)
Wednesday : Light in the darkness (Isaiah 9:2-7 and 52:5-53:5)
Thursday : A word for a warring world (Micah 4:1-7)
Friday : A model to work by (1 Peter 2:19-25)
Saturday : Idols which deceive (1 Corinthians 10:11-21)
Sunday : A promise for all people (Zechariah 2:10-13)

For group study

Topic: The Central Character of the Centuries

1. What is the connection between Jesus capturing the imagination of the world and winning the allegiance of people?

2. What influences from Greek, Roman and Jewish cultures prepared the world for the coming of Jesus?

3. Examine Luke 1:1-4 and discover how Luke sought accuracy for his Gospel. What are the essential ingredients for accuracy?

4. What were the primary interests of Gospel writers? How did the Gospel writers differ from modern writers of biography

5. What makes Jesus, the Jesus of history, so different?

6. Jesus was a man of tough personal discipline. What can we learn from him when facing our problems?

7. What was the one unique feature of the life of Christ which stands out more than any other?

Tuesday, 14th July, 2009, 5:36 pm | Bible Studies