Understand more :
6. Jesus in Christian history
2. Jesus through Hindu eyes
5. Jesus through Sikh eyes
4. Jesus through Muslim eyes
3. Jesus through Jewish eyes
1. Jesus through Buddhist eyes
1. Jesus through Buddhist eyes
By Sister Ajahn Candasiri. Ajahn Candasiri is a senior nun at the Amaravati Buddhist Monastery in Hertfordshire :
His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, speaking to a capacity audience in the Albert Hall in 1984 united his listeners instantly with one simple statement: "All beings want to be happy; they want to avoid pain and suffering."(“一切众生都想要快乐；他们想要避免痛苦和苦难。” “Yīqiè zhòngshēng dōu xiǎng yào kuàilè; tāmen xiǎng yào bìmiǎn tòngkǔ hé kǔnàn.”) I was impressed at how he was able to touch what we share as human beings. He affirmed our common humanity, without in any way dismissing the obvious differences.
When invited to look at Jesus through Buddhist eyes, I had imagined that I would use a 'compare and contrast' approach, rather like a school essay. I was brought up as a Christian and turned to Buddhism in my early thirties, so of course I have ideas about both traditions: the one I grew up in and turned aside from, and the one I adopted and continue to practise within. But after re-reading some of the gospel stories, I would like to meet Jesus again with fresh eyes, and to examine the extent to which he and the Buddha were in fact offering the same guidance, even though the traditions of Christianity and Buddhism can appear in the surface to be rather different.
A little about how I came to be a Buddhist nun
Having tried with sincerity to approach my Christian journey in a way that was meaningful within the context of everyday life, I had reached a point of deep weariness and despair. I was weary with the apparent complexity of it all; despair had arisen because I was not able to find any way of working with the less helpful states that would creep, unbidden, into the mind: the worry, jealousy, grumpiness, and so on. And even positive states could turn around and transform themselves into pride or conceit, which were of course equally unwanted.
Eventually, I met Ajahn Sumedho, an American-born Buddhist monk, who had just arrived in England after training for ten years in Thailand. His teacher was Ajahn Chah, a Thai monk of the Forest Tradition who, in spite of little formal education, won the hearts of many thousands of people, including a significant number of Westerners. I attended a ten-day retreat at Oakenholt Buddhist Centre, near Oxford, and sat in agony on a mat on the floor of the draughty meditation hall, along with about 40 other retreatants of different shapes and sizes. In front of us was Ajahn Sumedho, who presented the teachings and guided us in meditation, with three other monks.
This was a turning point for me. Although the whole experience was extremely tough - both physically and emotionally - I felt hugely encouraged. The teachings were presented in a wonderfully accessible style, and just seemed like ordinary common sense. It didn't occur to me that it was 'Buddhism'. Also, they were immensely practical and as if to prove it, we had, directly in front of us, the professionals - people who had made a commitment to living them out, twenty-four hours a day. I was totally fascinated by those monks: by their robes and shaven heads, and by what I heard of their renunciant lifestyle, with its 227 rules of training. I also saw that they were relaxed and happy - perhaps that was the most remarkable, and indeed slightly puzzling, thing about them.
I felt deeply drawn by the teachings, and by the Truth they were pointing to: the acknowledgement that, yes, this life is inherently unsatisfactory, we experience suffering or dis-ease - but there is a Way that can lead us to the ending of this suffering. Also, although the idea was quite shocking to me, I saw within the awakening of interest in being part of a monastic community.
So now, after more than twenty years as a Buddhist nun, what do I find as I encounter Jesus in the gospel stories?
Well, I have to say that he comes across as being much more human than I remember. Although there is much said about him being the son of God, somehow that doesn't seem nearly as significant to me as the fact that he is a person - a man of great presence, enormous energy and compassion, and significant psychic abilities.
He also has a great gift for conveying spiritual truth in the form of images, using the most everyday things to illustrate points he wishes to make: bread, fields, corn, salt, children, trees. People don't always understand at once, but are left with an image to ponder. Also he has a mission - to re-open the Way to eternal life; and he's quite uncompromising in his commitment to, as he puts it, "carrying out his Father's will".
His ministry is short but eventful. Reading through Mark's account, I feel tired as I imagine the relentless demands on his time and energy. It's a relief to find the occasional reference to him having time alone or with his immediate disciples, and to read how, like us, he at times needs to rest.
A story I like very much is of how, after a strenuous day of giving teachings to a vast crowd, he is sound asleep in the boat that is taking them across the sea. His calm in response to the violent storm that arises as he is sleeping I find most helpful when things are turbulent in my own life.
I feel very caught up in the drama of it all; there is one thing after another. People listen to him, love what he has to say (or in some cases are disturbed or angered by it) and are healed. They can't have enough of what he has to share with them. I'm touched by his response to the 4000 people who, having spent three days with him in the desert listening to his teaching, are tired and hungry. Realising this, he uses his gifts to manifest bread and fish for them all to eat.
Jesus dies as a young man. His ministry begins when he is thirty (I would be interested to know more of the spiritual training he undoubtedly received before then), and ends abruptly when he is only thirty-three. Fortunately, before the crucifixion he is able to instruct his immediate disciples in a simple ritual whereby they can re-affirm their link with him and each other (I refer, of course, to the last supper) - thereby providing a central focus of devotion and renewal for his followers, right up to the present time.
I have the impression that he is not particularly interested in converting people to his way of thinking. Rather it's a case of teaching those who are ready; interestingly, often the people who seek him out come from quite depraved or lowly backgrounds. It is quite clear to Jesus that purity is a quality of the heart, not something that comes from unquestioning adherence to a set of rules.
His response to the Pharisees when they criticise his disciples for failing to observe the rules of purity around eating expresses this perfectly: "There is nothing from outside that can defile a man" - and to his disciples he is quite explicit in what happens to food once it has been consumed. "Rather, it is from within the heart that defilements arise." Unfortunately, he doesn't at this point go on to explain what to do about these.
What we hear of his last hours: the trial, the taunting, the agony and humiliation of being stripped naked and nailed to a cross to die - is an extraordinary account of patient endurance, of willingness to bear the unbearable without any sense of blame or ill will. It reminds me of a simile used by the Buddha to demonstrate the quality of metta, or kindliness, he expected of his disciples: "Even if robbers were to attack you and saw off your limbs one by one, should you give way to anger, you would not be following my advice." A tall order, but one that clearly Jesus fulfills to perfection: "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do."
Confidence
"Everyone wants to be happy"
So why did I need to look elsewhere for guidance? Was it simply that Jesus himself was in some way lacking as a spiritual template? Was it dissatisfaction with the church and its institutional forms - what Christianity has done to Jesus? Or was it simply that another way presented itself that more adequately fulfilled my need at that time?
Well, in Buddhism I found what was lacking in my Christian experience. It could be summed up in one word: confidence. I don't think I had fully realised how hopeless it all seemed, until the means and the encouragement were there.
There is a story of a Brahmin student called Dhotaka, who implored the Buddha: "Please, Master, free me from confusion!" The Buddha's perhaps somewhat surprising response was, "It is not in my practice to free anyone from confusion. When you yourself have understood the Dhamma, the Truth, then you will find freedom." What an empowerment!
In the gospels we hear that Jesus speaks with authority; he speaks too of the need to have the attitude of a little child. Now, although this could be interpreted as fostering a child-like dependence on the teacher, Buddhist teachings have enabled me to see this differently.
The word 'Buddha' means awake - awake to the Dhamma, or Truth, which the Buddha likened to an ancient overgrown path that he had simply rediscovered. His teaching points to that Path: it's here, now, right beneath our feet - but sometimes our minds are so full of ideas about life that we are prevented from actually tasting life itself!
On one occasion a young mother, Kisagotami, goes to the Buddha, crazy with grief over the death of her baby son. The Buddha's response to her distress, as she asks him to heal the child, is to ask her to bring him a mustard seed - from a house where no one has ever died. Eventually, after days of searching, Kisagotami's anguish is calmed; she understands that she is not alone in her suffering - death and bereavement are inevitable facts of human existence.
Jesus too sometimes teaches in this way. When a crowd had gathered, ready to stone to death a woman accused of adultery, he invites anyone who is without sin to hurl the first boulder. One by one they turn away; having looked into their own hearts, they are shamed by this simple statement.
In practice, I have found the process to be one of attuning, of attending carefully to what is happening within - sensing when there is ease, harmony; knowing also whenone's view is at odds with What Is. I find that the images that Jesus uses to describe the Kingdom of Heaven explain this well. It is like a seed that under favourable conditions germinates and grows into a tree. We ourselves create the conditions that either promote well-being and the growth of understanding, or cause harm to ourselves or others. We don't need a God to consign us to the nether regions of some hell realm if we are foolish or selfish - it happens naturally. Similarly, when we fill our lives with goodness, we feel happy - that's a heavenly state.
On that first Buddhist retreat it was pointed out that there is a way between either following or struggling to repress harmful thoughts that arise. I learned that, through meditation, I can simply bear witness to them, and allow them to pass on according to their nature - I don't need to identify with them in any way at all.
The teaching of Jesus that even to have a lustful thought is the same as committing adultery had seemed too hard, while the idea of cutting off a hand or foot, or plucking out an eye should they offend is sensible enough - but how on earth do we do that in practice? I can see that it would require far more faith than I, at that time, had at my disposal! So I was overjoyed to learn of an alternative response to the states of greed, hatred or delusion that arise in consciousness, obscure our vision and lead to all kinds of trouble.
So, as the Dalai Lama said: 'Everyone wants to be happy; no one wants to suffer.' Jesus and the Buddha are extraordinary friends and teachers. They can show us the Way, but we can't rely on them to make us happy, or to take away our suffering. That is up to us.
Understand more :
6. Jesus in Christian history
2. Jesus through Hindu eyes
5. Jesus through Sikh eyes
4. Jesus through Muslim eyes
3. Jesus through Jewish eyes
1. Jesus through Buddhist eyes
2. Jesus through Hindu eyes
Jesus in Hinduism
By Shaunaka Rishi Das.
Shaunaka Rishi Das has been Director of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies since its inception in 1997. He gives his view :
I've an Indian friend who, when he was seven ,moved with his family from India to England, where he was enrolled at a new school. On his first day he was asked to speak to the class about a saint from his Hindu tradition.
Enthusiastically he began to tell the story of the saint called Ishu, who was born in a cowshed, was visited by three holy men, performed many amazing miracles, walked on water and spoke a wonderful sermon on a mountain.
Of course, he was telling the story of Christ. But he was bewildered to hear that the teacher laid claim to Ishu for herself and her friends and she let him know that this was her Lord and her story, not his. He was very upset about this, because Ishu's tale was his favourite story.
You see, in a sense, Hindus don't really see Jesus as a Christian at all. (Of course Jesus didn't either, because the term wasn't used during His lifetime.) In Hindu thought, church or temple membership or belief is not as significant as spiritual practice, which in Sanskrit is called sadhana.
As there is no Church of Hinduism, everyone holds their own spiritual and philosophical opinions. It is difficult then to understand someone's spirituality simply by looking at their religious trappings. So, in India it is more common to hear someone ask, "What is your sadhana (practice)?" than, "What do you believe?"
Then when we ask how we can see spirituality in Hindus, the answer comes: by behaviour and practice. We can ask are we humble, are we tolerant and are we non-violent? Can we control our senses and our mind? Are we aware of others' suffering and are we willing to give up our comfort to help them? Looking at these criteria Jesus measures up as a Sadhu, a holy man. He preached a universal message, love of God and love of brother, which was beyond any sectarianism or selfishness. Jesus was one of those people who appealed from heart to heart, and that's what makes him such a good Hindu Saint.
In my particular tradition, and among other Hindus, He is seen as much more, as an Avatar, specifically a Shaktavesha Avatar or an empowered incarnation. This means that God has sent Him to us for a specific mission to fulfil God's will on earth.
The greatest challenge
When I was 14 I began a personal and serious study of the New Testament. I wanted to understand what Christ had to say about things, so I paid particular attention to the words of Jesus Himself. I can see now that the whole direction of my life was determined by this formative study and by the thoughtfulness invoked by it.
I read such passages as Luke 5: "forsake all and follow me". I remember distinctly, as a 14 year old, developing my own understanding of what that meant. I had formed a sense of mission and vocation by reading the Bible, seeing that the love of God should be shared with others. The greatest commandment - to love the Lord our God with all our heart, all our words and all our deeds, and love our neighbour as ourselves - struck me as an instruction, as a plea and, actually, as a necessity. Considering how to do to that, how to forsake all and follow God out of love, has provided me my greatest challenge in life.
As a young boy, that meant giving up sitting in front of the TV with my cup of coffee, two sugars and a biscuit (these were the comforts of my life at that time). It meant to go down to the town centre of Wexford, my hometown, stand in the Bullring, and preach the glory of love of God to all who wanted to hear it. From my reading of Christ's words and the example of his life, I knew that is what I was called to do, but did I do it? No, I couldn't. That surrender to God I had to postpone.
The instructions and teachings of Christ were crystal clear to me but I wasn't having an easy time trying to follow them. Isn't it funny how it sometimes seems easier to fight for our principles than to actually follow them? Thus my script was written, the challenge laid down, a challenge that Christ had posed to the whole world. "He who has ears let him hear", he would say. I seemed to have those unfortunate ears.
Christ was different. He was radically different. He preached for three years and got killed for it. He gave everything. A friend betrayed him. We have all had some experience where someone we trust turns on us, but imagine how we would feel if a friend betrayed us to death! Does the word forgiveness spring to mind? Not in my case, but it comes a close second. In Hindu scripture it says that forgiveness is the principal quality of a civilised man, and civilisation is measured in terms of spiritual qualities rather than economic or scientific advancement. It's quite clear to me where Jesus hung his hat on that issue.
For instance, in our civilised world, who would get away with going to a funeral, approaching the chief mourner and asking him to surrender everything to God now, as Jesus did? When the chief mourner replied "But I've got to bury my father", Christ said "let the dead bury the dead". I wonder what the tabloids in those days had to say about that.
Of course, Jesus didn't get away with this either, but he had the courage of His convictions. He spoke the truth, the absolute truth to a materialistic society and risked life and limb for His mission. I wonder how He might fare today with His uncompromising stand on hypocrites and whited sepulchres? For instance, if he was to visit Belfast he might have problems being heard unless He declared first if he were a Catholic or a Protestant Christian.
The challenge of Jesus
Christ and the Krishnas
And how did an Irish chap like me become a Hindu priest? Why not a Catholic priest or at least a Christian of some sort? There is certainly a great range of Christian sects to choose from these days. Maybe they are becoming as diverse as the Hindus.
Anyway, I first encountered Hindu spirituality through the Vaishnava tradition of the great medieval saint Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. That's a lot of words that boil down to mean I met the Hare Krishnas. At the age of 18, in Dublin, I bumped into a shaven-headed, saffron-robed fellow and visited his temple, ashram, his monastery, so to speak. I had been visiting all kinds of religious groups, Christian and otherwise, but these were surprisingly serious chaps.
They rose at four in the morning for prayer, study and chanting. By the time breakfast came at 8:30am I felt like I had done a full day's work, only to find that the full day's work was just about to begin! The captivating thing for me, though, was the fact that every act was to be offered to God with love, every word spoken in His favour, every song sung for His pleasure, every dance for His eyes and all food prepared and offered first for His taste. Along with this went an ancient philosophy that answered more questions than I had ever asked. But what got me about these devotees of Krishna was what I saw as their practice of Christianity, even though they didn't actually call themselves Christians.
They banded together in small groups, sang the praise of God with drums and loud clashing cymbals, wore flowing robes, abandoned the material world and preached in the public marketplaces. That's actually a description of the early Christians but the Krishnas did this as well. I loved the chanting of Hare Krishna. I'm sure you have seen the devotees chanting in public somewhere. They chant Sanskrit names of God, Hare, Krishna and Rama, meaning 'spirititual happiness', 'all-attractive person' and 'reservoir of pleasure'. Lovely names and they form a prayer to be engaged in the service of God.
The idea of chanting God's name, any name we choose to chant, is that we come into direct contact with God Himself, as his name and His Person are not different, the Hindu story goes. But don't take my word for it. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. I think it was the spontaneous happiness produced by the music, the chant and the dancing that touched my heart so much and it continues to do so to this day. For me it was "Hallowed by thy name" in practice. The practice may look strange to some but that is not the point. I suppose it depends on our cultural view, but nuns may look just as strange as naked Sadhus. Is that a reflection of their spiritual qualities or just their dress sense? To me this spiritual practice was being performed in the essential spirit of Christianity.
The struggle to surrender
If we look in the Hindu scripture, Bhagavad-gita, we hear Lord Krishna asking us to abandon all our sectarianism and just surrender to Him, in love. He vows to protect us from evil and from fear. I hear the same "forsake all and follow me" message, the same call to surrender and the same reassurance.
Jesus shows this struggle of surrender during his evening in the garden of Gethsemane. His sincere appeal to the Lord to let the cup pass from him, although He was willing to go through with His Father's command. I have always found myself in this kind of dilemma, although without the same willingness to do the needful that Christ had. All of us who struggle with spirituality wonder if we are capable of making the effort, or if we are doomed to failure and hypocrisy. Can we meet the challenge? Christ's example is so relevant for all of us who want to practise a spiritual life, and even for those who just want to be good. But how many of us are willing to sacrifice our desires in favour of the will of God, even in small ways?
When we look at his experience during his traumatic arrest, trial and crucifixion we see a man at peace within Himself and with the world. He was condemned for his zeal and for his perceived threat to society, because he was misunderstood. I have experienced that to a lesser degree in my life - being condemned for being a Hare Krishna, for being different and incomprehensible. I have been spat at and derided, but not crucified. I have no idea what Jesus had to give up, in His early thirties, so that I, in my early forties, could be inspired to follow the Godly path.
The fact is, I can see myself in Jesus. I recognise and empathise with His life, His temptations and His suffering. But I can see a lot more in Him than my faltering attempts at spirituality. I can see someone transcending the materialism of this world. Hindus as much as anyone talk much about this noble ideal but it is a true celebration when someone, anyone, of any tradition, begins to make sense spiritually. And so many of us don't seem to make sense spiritually.
We can acquire a religious reputation, be addressed by religious titles. We can easily learn to say the right thing and wear the appropriate clothes and chant the right passwords for all religious occasions, and look passably good. But the example of Jesus and other saints challenges any insincerity in our heart, any duplicity and hypocrisy. They display another level of faith, a level called love, and their love is beyond our need to be right about everything, to dominate others and to demand them to conform to our perception. They are humble.
It's about a deep change of heart. It's about knowing God as a friend and as a lover. It's about being happy to love God with the full trust that He will take care of us in all circumstances, just as a small child will trust their father or mother. It's about accepting absence of God in our lives as enthusiastically as His embrace.
It's difficult for us to neatly categorise Jesus, this lover of God, as a Christian or a Jew. He talked only of His Father and he was not enamoured of politics, religion or wealth as He experienced them. God's service was His life, His love and his religion.
Remember my Indian friend who loved Ishu so much? What about him? Was he a follower of Christ? Could he have a personal relationship with God? Would he have to "bathe in the blood of the Lamb" first (a terrible option for vegetarians)? These are important questions, though: "Can a Hindu follow Jesus?"; "Can a Hindu love God with all his heart and soul?"; "Do you have to be a Christian to follow Christ?"; even "Who owns Christ?".
The Sanskrit word acharya means 'one who teaches by example'. For Hindus, Christ is an acharya. His example is a light to any of us in this world who want to take up the serious practice of spiritual life. His message is no different from the message preached in another time and place by Lord Krishna and Lord Chaitanya. It would be a great shame if we allowed our Hinduism, our Islam, our Judaism or indeed our Christianity to stand in the way of being able to follow the teachings and example of such a great soul as Lord Jesus Christ.
Understand more :
6. Jesus in Christian history
2. Jesus through Hindu eyes
5. Jesus through Sikh eyes
4. Jesus through Muslim eyes
3. Jesus through Jewish eyes
1. Jesus through Buddhist eyes
3. Jesus through Jewish eyes
By Clive Lawton. Clive Lawton looks at Jesus and Christianity from his personal viewpoint as a Jew:
My first encounter with Jesus was in primary school Nativity plays. Teachers desperately - kindly - tried to find me theologically uncontroversial roles - a sheep or a donkey perhaps - but, in the end, they all had to face up to the limits of Jewish-Christian togetherness, I helped with make-up or costume, and the line was drawn.
A few years later, my second encounter was furtive, clandestine. Officially withdrawn from my school assemblies, which were all of a mainly Christian character, I was fascinated by the only thing that seemed to enliven my peers as they poured out of the school hall. "We had a parallel today." Years later, I found out that the word was 'parable', but they might have been right in the first place, even so.
So I snuk in in the hope of 'having a parallel' too. And sure enough, I struck lucky. I don’t remember which it was, but I do remember huge disappointment. It was just another of the commonplace midrashim or hasidic tales I'd been brought up on - "There was once a king..." or "A rich man had two sons..." The only difference was the tedious, pedestrian insistence with which the headmistress explained us all to death after telling it.
Then a slightly more organised encounter - the back page of the Eagle comic. For a long time, the back page serialised great lives - Gordon of Khartoum, Nelson, Henry the Fifth, Jesus. Jesus in this comic strip story glowed amongst the glowering Semitic throng. Though I didn't recognise myself or any of my family in the crowd, I knew enough to recognise that anyone who didn't follow this blond, hunky but gentle, apotheosis was obtuse, stupid or, like the Mekon from Mars on the front page of the Eagle, simply committed to evil. However, having been nurtured in the business of living in two worlds, none of this impacted on the warm, coherent, joyous, Pharisaic inheritance than I was living in mid-20th century Britain.
Years later, I was at secondary school. My dearest friends were a Baptist and a Christadelphian. Somehow I felt I owed them the respect of reading the New Testament so that I'd know what moved them. So one weekend, going at the same pace as an orthodox Jew says his prayers or anyone might read a light novel on holiday, I whizzed through the Book. It was so Jewish! The arguments, the examples, the proofs, the preoccupations - I recognised them all as belonging more to my world than anything I had yet identified as Christian.
While reporting back to my friends about my impressions, I speculated on what might have happened to Jesus's children. "He didn’t have any. He was unmarried," they chorused. "Of course he was," I said. "I've just read it." But they were convinced - and so I had to reread and, sure enough, nothing.
It took me some years to realise that I was so convinced Jesus was married because it didn't explicitly say he wasn't. From my point of view, from the Jewish point of view, to get to 30 and not be married requires comment and explanation!
Jesus in the Gospels
And the reason I made such unexamined assumptions was because I recognised Jesus's life described in the Gospels. I even felt immediately comfortable with the oh-so-Jewish, unselfconscious telling of the same story in four different gospels, from four different contradictory angles - as a tiny fraction, a glimpse into the world of the Talmud, snatched out and wondered over, a brief second in the span of time.
I easily recognised the Last Supper as most probably a Passover Seder (especially since Easter coincides with Pesakh), but had to wonder how come Jesus was welcomed into Jerusalem, according to the Gospels, about six days earlier, but with all the crowd behaviour of six months earlier, the festival of Sukkot - Tabernacles - when we wave palm branches and sing Hoshana - Save us?
I was even more puzzled by why everyone seemed to get so heated about whether or not Jesus thought he was the Son of God - aren't we all? - or even the Messiah - might not anyone be? And each gospel had its own angle, its own story. I could see, even at 17, what Matthew was doing. He was proving that all the prophecies relating to the Messiah were manifest in Jesus.
Virgin birth? Tick ✅️.
White donkey? Tick✅️.
Hanged on a tree? Tick✅️.
But I'd never been taught as a Jew to pay much attention to these details of messianic credential. How will we know the Messiah? Easy. The world will be at peace. Cross❌.
I could see Luke floundering in Jewish preoccupations he couldn't fathom. What were they all squabbling about? But with Mark and John, I felt more at home.
The world Mark describes sounds not dissimilar from the world I know from the Talmud and the Midrash, those compendia of rabbinic debate, quoting about 1000 rabbis, spanning nearly a 1000 years.
I recognised the pleasure in argument and verbal honing, the clever use of prooftexts, the camaraderie and generosity underlying disagreements, as the rabbis call them, for the sake of Heaven. I couldn't detect anything much Jesus says in the Gospel of Mark which couldn't also be found in the mouth of some rabbi - I want to say, some other Rabbi - in these great treasure stores of the Jewish relationship with revelation.
John's worldview is different. But I recognised it too. It carries all the cheerful anachronism of Midrash to prove its point. Just like John's contemporaries, the Rabbis of the Midrash, could have the twins, Jacob and Esau, struggle in Rebecca's womb as they respectively passed Houses of Study and gambling houses, despite the fact that they didn't - couldn't - have existed back then, mere historical precision is not the point. It's not so much the story of Jesus but a commentary, a didactic, a polemic on the story of Jesus.
By the time John writes, decades later, nuances are resolved into simple clarities. Them and us. 'The Jews' are now clearly the villains of the piece. Pilate - vicious, nasty, oppressive Pilate - nearly qualifies as a proto-Saint. In Mark, 'the Jews' includes Jesus and the disciples and just about everybody else. In John, they become the enemy.
Jesus and the Jews
The Scribes and the Pharisees
But that's clearly not how Jesus saw them. The Scribes and the Pharisees are his natural peers and he is clearly at home amongst them. The Pharisees were worker-teachers, proletarian democratisers of the tradition, cultivating the synagogue, prayer and good deeds as the means by which any Jew could secure salvation and by which the messianic age would be hastened. And not just any Jew.
"The righteous of all nations will inherit the World to Come," they taught. They claimed that God silenced his angels in heaven when they tried to praise him at the downfall of the Egyptians at the Red Sea. "There will be no rejoicing in my heavens at even the necessary destruction of my creatures", I learnt as a Jewish child, as those Pharisaic teachings rolled through the millennia to me.
These Pharisees taught the people in the marketplaces. The best of them had huge followings. They were ambivalent about eschatological talk. Would it distract ordinary folk from living the good life in the here and now? Would it stir up unnecessary conflict with the Roman rulers and occupiers? If all Jews could be helped to make the best of the world they lived in, wouldn’t the coming of the Messiah look after itself?
Inheriting the prophetic tradition, they condemned hypocrisy and the excesses of the Temple industry. They loved the Temple and felt it to be the pinnacle of what was possible in God kissing the lips of the Jewish people and, through them, the world. But they certainly did not always condone the behaviour of the priests and their priestly party, the Sadducees. Indeed, the Talmud records an occasion one Sukkot, the festival of Tabernacles, when the obviously Pharisaically-educated and inspired crowd pelted the high priest as he mis-performed part of the ritual which had popular significance.
Passions ran high in those days. Religious details mattered. And they still do. When I read the account of Jesus being expelled from the synagogue for preaching something the crowd didn't like, I didn't even realise this was supposed to be controversial. I bet the Jewish Jesus - the one I recognise - would have been back the following week arguing the toss all over again.
Who was Jesus?
So, who then, do I, a practising Jew, think Jesus was? Even that question, of course, is Jewish. A Christian would be as interested, even more interested perhaps, in who Jesus is, not who he was.
But before I answer, I have to say that this is not the kind of question that Jews would ever bother to ask ourselves. After all, how often do Christians challenge themselves with questions as to where they would place Muhammad in their pantheon? Most Christians, quite reasonably, would say, "He doesn't come into our frame of reference." For the sake of peace and goodwill between communities, they might concede or agree that Muhammad was a good man or a great prophet or whatever, but it wouldn't be a Christian statement. So it is with Jews and Jesus.
So, from my very Jewish take on the world, who - what - was he?
Over the years, my view of Jesus has become a little more subtle than it was thirty and more years ago, when hardly anyone would listen to my insistence that Jesus was really very Jewish. Nowadays, the comment hardly raises an eyebrow - well, in Britain anyway. Since then, I’ve read a Hebrew translation of the Lord's Prayer and it sounds exactly like all those prayers that my prayer book is full of - selected quotations from the Psalms, knitted together to build to a crescendo of equilibrium between God's responsibilities to us and ours to Him, as best expressed through our dual duty to God and humanity.
I've looked more closely at Jesus's reported challenges to the religious teachers and authorities of his day and I can find nothing much shocking. Argument and polemical exaggeration are the stuff of Jewish debate. If a teacher condemns something and says it doesn't matter in comparison to something else, you shouldn't take their comments out of the context of how they actually behaved or what they said elsewhere. They may have just been making a point.
Those who enshrined the prophecies of Isaiah in the canon of the Bible - the Rabbis - didn't think he was urging the end of sacrifices just because he attacked those who offered sacrifice without also amending their moral behaviour. His statements are polemical and are making the strong - and who could disagree? - point that the ritual is a bit pointless if it doesn't lead to a concomitant improvement in behaviour.
I read Jesus and get his point exactly. Ritual is pointless without it having an impact on behaviour. When Mark, for example, says that Jesus's comments that eating the right foods doesn't make you righteous inside indicates that he thus declared all foods 'clean', he doesn't explain that those listening to him - even his own closest disciples - didn't understand it that way. Later, in the Acts of the Apostles, they still debated whether or not converts to Christianity should observe the dietary and other laws.
Similarly, Jesus's comments on Shabbat observance are the very stuff of Pharisaic dispute. We know so much about Pharisaic dispute because the rabbinic tradition did not suppress opinions which didn't chime with the consensus. All the variant opinions are recorded in the Talmud. Disagreeing wasn't a crime. Nor was claiming to be the Messiah - as several failed claimants have done before and since.
So it's fairly easy to see Jesus as a Pharisee from the Liberal wing, probably heavily influenced by the Messianic fervour that was current and, apparently deeply impressed by John the Baptist who may have been associated with the Essenes or some other such separatist sect. He was deeply bothered by the Temple excesses of the time, didn't want to get involved in the politics, and wanted the people to be take themselves seriously as being able to bring about God's kingdom on Earth by right living.
But I can't see Jesus as the Messiah we Jews are waiting for. And nor, as the Gospel accounts themselves make clear, could the disciples who knew him once he was executed. After the crucifixion, the disciples did not sit around calmly and reassure each other that all was going according to plan. They were instead understandably devastated. This was not the messianic plan. Nothing in Jewish teaching had suggested the execution of the Messiah. Not one of them was able to come up with the idea that this was all as it should be. It wasn't. They had invested their faith in this man and he was now dead.
And this is the fresh mystery at the heart of the Christian story - and one which raises no echoes or meaning for Jews. Something happened back then that first Easter that persuaded those disheartened followers that what they'd been expecting and waiting for, what they believed Jesus was about despite - or because of? - their years of living in his company and hearing his teachings - wasn't the point after all. It was all entirely different to the way Jews had understood the idea of the messiah for centuries... and still do.
And fair enough. But you'll have to understand when we Jews look at the claims made about Jesus with incomprehension and remain true to our own tradition. After all, Jesus did.
Understand more :
6. Jesus in Christian history
2. Jesus through Hindu eyes
5. Jesus through Sikh eyes
4. Jesus through Muslim eyes
3. Jesus through Jewish eyes
1. Jesus through Buddhist eyes
4. Jesus through Muslim eyes
By Tarif Khalidi:
In the year 630 A.D, the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him, pbuh) achieved one of his most cherished goals: the occupation of Mecca and the subsequent cleansing of the city from idol worship: it was at once a political and a religious victory of immense symbolic importance. Mecca had been declared the centre of the new faith; its conquest was therefore the fulfillment of a divine promise.
Entering the Ka'aba, the square structure which housed the city's idols, Muhammad (pbuh) ordered all its icons cleansed or destroyed. One of the icons in what must have been a very mixed gallery of divinities was a Virgin and child. Approaching the Christian icon, Muhammad (pbuh) covered it with his cloak and ordered all the others washed away except that one.
Fact or fiction? The question is immaterial. The report I cited is at least 1200 years old and therefore belongs to some of the earliest strata of Muslim historical writing.
What this episode illustrates is the fact that between Islam and the figure of Jesus Christ there exists a literary tradition spanning a millennium and a half of a continuous historical relationship -- a preoccupation with Jesus that may well be unique among the world's great non-Christian religions. To do full justice to this record, I would need a far larger canvas than the one available to me today. Instead I can only hope to draw a sketch of the contours of that relationship; to point to only a few of its highest peaks, its defining moments.
The Qur'an is the axial text of Islamic civilization, and it is of course where we must begin for Islam's earliest images of Jesus. Approximately one third of the Quranic text is made up of narratives of earlier prophets, most of them Biblical. Among these prophetic figures, Jesus stands out as the most puzzling. The Qur'an rewrites the story of Jesus more radically than that of any other prophet, and in doing so it reinvents him. The intention is clearly to distance him from the opinions about him current among Christians. The result is surprising to a Christian reader or listener. The Jesus of the Qur'an, more than any equivalent prophetic figure, is placed inside a theological argument rather than inside a narrative. He is very unlike his Gospel image. There is no Incarnation, no Ministry and no Passion. His divinity is strenuously denied either by him or by God directly. Equally denied is his crucifixion. A Christian may well ask, what can possibly be left of his significance if all these essential attributes of his image are gone?
Jesus reinterpreted by the Qur'an is singled out, again and again, as a prophet of very special significance. Uniquely among prophets he is described as a miracle of God, an aya; he is the word and spirit of God; he is the prophet of peace par excellence; and , finally it is he who predicts the coming of Muhammad (pbuh) and thus, one might say, is the harbinger of Islam.
How did these earliest images of Jesus grow and develop inside Islamic culture? The Hadith or Prophetic Tradition of Muhammad (pbuh) depicts him as a figure who will come at the end of days to help bring the world to its end. He can now be said to bracket the era of Islam, standing right at its beginning and right at its end. But it is the rapidly growing literary tradition of Islam which now began to embrace the various images of Jesus current in the lands that Islam had conquered. There came together a corpus of sayings and stories attributed to Jesus which in their totality one could call the Muslim Gospel (a collection of these I have just published under the title The Muslim Jesus). Let me quote a few of these sayings and stories: "Jesus said, Blessed is he who sees with his heart but whose heart is not in what he sees". Here's another: "Jesus said, The world is a bridge; cross this bridge but do not build upon it". And here's a short exchange: "Jesus met a man and asked him, What are you doing? 'I am devoting myself to God,' the man replied. Jesus asked, 'Who is caring for you?' 'My brother,' said the man. Jesus said, 'Your brother is more devoted to God than you are'." And so it goes on, some three hundred such sayings and stories, which Muslim culture was to ascribe to Jesus across a millennium of continuous fascination with his images and manifestations. At times he is a fierce ascetic, at other times he is the gentle teacher of manners, at yet others the patron of Muslim mystics, the prophet of the secrets of creation, the healer of the wounds of nature and of man.
But back now to my sketch, to just a few other illuminations inside this lengthy historical record. In the tenth century A.D. we have the great Baghdad mystic al-Hallaj, whose life and crucifixion was called "The Passion of al-Hallaj" by the celebrated French Orientalist Massignon. If you want to take my word for it, you would regard him as one of the most Christ-like figures in human history, up there with Socrates, Gandhi and one or two of the greatest saints of mankind. What made al-Hallaj a Christ-like figure was total absorption in the life of the spirit, a realm lying beyond law, and an exploration of a reality that led him ultimately to claim identity with the divine. But at the same time, there is in him the unshakable willingness to submit to the law, even unto death. So he dies under the law, as it were, in order to rise above it, in order to triumph over the law. Thus, at one time he used to advise his disciples: "Why go on pilgrimage to Mecca? Build a small shrine inside your own house and circumambulate it in true faith, and it is as if you have performed the pilgrimage." The tension between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law endows the life of Hallaj with a Gospel-like aura, culminating in his trial, his tragic last days and his heart-rending crucifixion. The model of sanctity prefigured by al-Hallaj was to survive most notably inside Muslim mysticism where Jesus was to become a patron saint of Muslim sufism.
But let me move now to later times. The era of the Crusades, a two-hundred year war, pitted European Christian against Western Asian Muslim armies. And here was a chance for Muslim scholars to point to the glaring disparity between Jesus, the prophet of peace, and the barbaric conduct of his so-called followers. In the twelfth century, Jesus was once again reclaimed by Muslim polemics, once again reinvented, if you prefer, in order to stand shoulder to shoulder with the Muslims against his alleged followers. In the battle for the legacy of Jesus, there was no doubt whatsoever in Muslim eyes that the true Jesus belonged to Islam. It was in a sense a replay of the Qur'anic scenario, this time more urgent and dangerous.
As we approach our own days, we observe that many of his earlier manifestations continue to dominate the spiritual horizons of contemporary Islam. Let me speak of only two major images: Jesus the healer of nature and man, and Jesus the Crucified. To encounter Jesus the healer, I invite my listeners to take a trip to to the Monastery of Sidnaya north of Damascus or to the Iranian city of Shiraz. The Monastery of Sidnaya was founded by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian in the 6th century AD. It sits on an outcrop of rock high above a valley. To this Monastery travels an endless stream of men and women seeking the blessings and healing of our Lady and her infant son. The vast majority of visitors are Muslim, who come to this Christian shrine as did their ancestors for a thousand years.
A visit to Shiraz might come next. Here, the celebrated city, a treasure house of Muslim art and architecture and a garden-city of poets and mystics, is home also to a living Muslim medical tradition of healing, the tradition of the Masiha-Dam, the healing breath of Christ. This theme is already reflected in the poetry of the great Persian poet Hafiz, some seven hundred years ago. Thus, in both the literary as well as medical tradition of contemporary Iran, there runs a continuous preoccupation with the healing Christ figure. For Shii Islam, which dominates Iran, the martyrdom of Husayn, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), in 682 A.D. is a central spiritual event. And for Shii Islam in particular, the life and death of Christ is a parallel spiritual event. The Christ/Husayn analogy is ever present in the religious sensibility of Shi'i Islam.
I should now make mention of another poet, widely considered the greatest Arab poet of the twentieth century: the Iraqi Badr Shakir al-Sayyab. His life was one of exile, imprisonment, ill health and of total commitment to the cause of the oppressed; his was a poetry utterly Modernist in form but utterly classical in diction. In his verse one will find what is probably the most memorable impact of Christ on modern Arabic/Islamic literature. One poem in particular, entitled Christ after the Crucifixion is a Passion, a vision of Christ as lord of nature and redeemer of the wretched of the earth. At the risk of doing violence to its tight structure, I will give only its first and its final stanzas:
[After they brought me down, I heard the winds
In a lengthy wail, rustling the palm trees,
And steps fading away. So then, my wounds,
And the Cross upon which they nailed me all afternoon and evening
Did not kill me. I listened. The wail
Was crossing the plain between me and the city
Like a rope pulling at a ship
As it sinks to the sea-bed. The dirge
Was like a thread of light between dawn and midnight,
Upon a grieving winter sky. And the city, nursing its feelings, fell asleep.
I was in the beginning, and in the beginning was Poverty.
I died that bread may be eaten in my name; that they plant me in season.
How many lives will I live! For in every furrow of earth
I have become a future, I have become a seed.
I have become a race of men, in every human heart
A drop of my blood, or a little drop.
After they nailed me and I cast my eyes towards the city
I hardly recognised the plain, the wall, the cemetery;
As far as the eye could see, it was something
Like a forest in bloom. Wherever the vision could reach,
there was a cross, a grieving mother
The Lord be sanctified! This is the city about to give birth.
Badr Shakir al-Sayyab, Christ after the Crucifixion ]
This is a poem of salvation, political and theological, a poem that interweaves, in a apocalyptic voice, the Jesus of the Gospels and the risen Christ triumphant, a Jesus who is lord of the wretched of the earth and a Christ who is lord and healer of nature. It is a poetic gospel in miniature, a vision of Christ in suffering and ultimately in victory.
So: I think it can safely be shown that Islamic culture presents us with what in quantity and quality are the richest images of Jesus in any non-Christian culture. No other world religion known to me has devoted so much loving attention to both the Jesus of history and to the Christ of eternity. This tradition is one that we need to highlight in these dangerous, narrow-minded days. The moral of the story seems quite clear: that one religion will often act as the hinterland of another, will lean upon another to complement its own witness. There can be no more salient example of this interdependence than the case of Islam and Jesus Christ. And for the Christian in particular, a love of Jesus may also mean, I think, an interest in how and why he was loved and cherished by another religion.
Understand more :
6. Jesus in Christian history
2. Jesus through Hindu eyes
5. Jesus through Sikh eyes
4. Jesus through Muslim eyes
3. Jesus through Jewish eyes
1. Jesus through Buddhist eyes
5. Jesus through Sikh eyes
By Nikki Singh. Nikki Singh writes about her experience of Jesus as a Sikh:
My earliest memories are etched with the physical beauty of Jesus Christ. His blond hair and blue eyes were so different from all the people that I knew in India. I attended a convent school where we recited "Our Father" during the morning assembly, and we took courses on Moral Science. Most of all I loved going into the Convent where we sang psalms and collected beautiful images of Christ, and of Our Lady of Fatima, after whom my school was named.
At home of course it was a different matter. It was a Sikh household in which the centre of life was the Guru Granth. The holy book is regarded as the divine revelation and utmost respect is paid to it. As children we'd help our parents dress the Book in silks and brocades. It was put on a pedestal while we sat on the floor in front. We recited its passionate poetry patterned on the raga system of ancient India. At home we heard about the life of the Ten Sikh Gurus who did not look like Jesus Christ.
And yet life was not schizophrenic, for the two worlds with their different languages, different histories, different images and different styles of worship co-existed colourfully. Together they became an essential part of my psyche. The "question" of identity never came up: just as I knew my name, I knew I was a Sikh. But that did not stop me from participating excitedly in the religious space created by my Catholic teachers: it was mysterious and enchanting in its own way. I can still feel the fervour with which I would sing "The Lord is my shepherd nothing shall I fear" - in spite of my desperately poor musical talents! But when I came to finish High school in America, I saw Christ pervading the fabric of western society and my own tradition extremely distant. As the only "brown" student in an all "white" girls' school, I became more conscious about my identity. I recall reading Walt Whitman's Passage to India, and beginning my journey home. This American poet, who viewed himself in the role of Christ, impelled me to explore my Sikh heritage. Ironically then, the more I grew up in a Christian environment, the more consciously Sikh I became, with the result that Jesus of my childhood imagination got blurry and lost. Growing up in postcolonial Punjab, I did not think very deeply about the Sikh Gurus, and now that I am living in this part of the world, I must admit that I didn't think very seriously about Christ. So to look at Christ from a Sikh perspective today is indeed an interesting and challenging assignment. As I try to do so the figure of Jesus from the multidimensional world of my childhood resurfaces - giving me much joy and enrichment.
Who is Jesus Christ? I see him as a wonderful parallel with the person of Nanak, the first Sikh Guru. There is no direct connection between Christ and the Sikh Gurus. They do not intersect each other. The two form separate and distinct temporal and spatial points in our history, but when we look closely at them, they illuminate each other. By looking at them as parallel phenomena, we not only learn more about the founders of Christianity and Sikhism, but we also get a better sense of ourselves, of our neighbours, and of the world we live in. Both Christ and Nanak are remembered in almost identical ways. Churches resound with hymns like "Christ is the light of the world," and Sikh Gurdwaras with "satgur nanak pragatia miti dhundh jag chanan hoia" - "as Nanak appeared, mist and darkness disappeared into light." The powerful and substanceless light used across cultures and across centuries reveals the common patterns of our human imagination.
Jesus and Nanak ushered a way of life that was illuminating and liberating. It is interesting that both claimed they had no control over their speech. Spontaneously, effortlessly, they revealed what they were endowed with. According to the gospel of John: "I do not speak of my own accord... what the Father has told me is what I speak" And Guru Nanak, "haun bol na janda mai kahia sabhu hukmao jio" - "I don't know how to speak, I utter what you command me." In each case, then, the Divine is the Voice.
Their message too bears a striking resemblance. Against ceremonial rituals and orthodox formalities, both Jesus and Nanak directed their followers to the human condition. For them cleanliness did not reside in external codes and behavior; it was an inner attitude towards life and living. Just as Christ denounced the superiority of all those who walked about in long robes, Nanak denounced those who wore loincloths and smeared themselves with ashes.
Most importantly, both Jesus and Nanak showed us the path of love. In the Gospels Jesus says, "The greatest commandment of all is this - love your God with all your soul, mind and strength, and love your neighbour as yourself." In the same vein, the Sikh Gurus applauded love as the supreme virtue, "sunia mania, manu kita bhau." Bhau or love is passionate and takes lovers to those depths of richness and fullness where there is freedom from all kinds of prejudices and limitations. But we need to put their words in practice. Love for the Divine would open and expand us towards our families and neighbours; it would enable us to cast aside racism, sexism, and classism so prevalent in our contemporary society. We need to remember their message of love for all our "neighbours" - high and low, black and white, men and women too. In fact Christ revealed himself first to Mary. Throughout his ministry, he healed and helped women, and reminds us of "mother's joy" that a human being has been born into the world. The Mother is an important figure in Sikh scripture, for the transcendent One is both father and mother, and Guru Nanak repeatedly points to the womb in which we are first lodged. Mother's body and joy, and the earth, our common matrix to which we all equally belong, are celebrated throughout the sacred scripture of the Sikhs. But of course, memory is selective and the patriarchs with their access to the words of Christ and Nanak have remembered, interpreted, and kept them for themselves. It is important that each of us begins to see the Christian and Sikh scriptures from our own eyes and experience their rich legacy.
So, who is Jesus Christ for me, a Sikh? In my mind he is an enlightener, and though I may not see him as one of the Ten Sikh Gurus, he is a distinct and vital parallel who continues to play a very significant role in my life as a Sikh. In a way, I trace my happiness and at-homeness in contemporary America because he opened me up to another mode of spirituality at a very young age. He did not take anything away from my being a Sikh. In fact, Jesus Christ concretised the message of Guru Nanak: "Countless are the ways of meditation, and countless are the avenues of love." (Japji, 17). Jesus has been a wonderful mirror who in his unique form and vocabulary promoted my self-understanding. The image of Christ imbedded in my childhood has made the verses of the Gurus alive for me. I can see and feel what Guru Nanak meant: "Accept all humans as your equals, and let them be your only sect" (Japji 28), or Guru Gobind Singh: "manas ki jat sabhe eke paihcanbo" - "recognise the single caste of humanity." However, it also complicates the situation. Coming from the pluralist tradition of Sikhism where the holy book contains not only the verses of the Sikh Gurus but also of Hindu and Muslim saints, and where the Ultimate is received in a variety of perceptions and relationships, I do have problems with the exclusivism of Jesus. The Sikh Gurus reiterate that Allah and Ram are the same, so is the Muslim Mosque and the Hindu Temple. Emerging historically and geographically between the eastern tradition of Hinduism and the western faith of Islam, Sikhism whole-heartedly accepts both eastern and western perceptions of the Divine, and their various modes of worship. But when Christ alone is declared the Omega Point, or Baptism the exclusive way to the Kingdom of God, then where do I stand? As a Sikh I have no place.
Personally, I find it hard to understand how the God of Genesis becomes the biological father of Christ in the Gospels. According to Genesis, God creates the earth, animals, Adam and Eve - but he remains distant and far away. How can this totally transcendent God become the Father of Christ? How can he beget Jesus? Now Guru Nanak is not viewed as an incarnation of the Divine; rather, he is an enlightener whose inspired poetry becomes the embodiment of the Transcendent One. I guess the issue of incarnation really troubles me as a Sikh. Creation in Christianity is modelled on a distant artist, more in the sense of a commander-in-chief, rather than on the biological mother who actually bodies forth her offspring. The Virgin Birth of Christ sends negative messages about our bodies, our world, and of our selves. Now that I think of it, saying "Our Father" in a language that was not my mother tongue did not make me any less committed to Sikhism. But it has left an indelible paternal figure in my imagination, which - in spite of all my Sikh and feminist mental footnotes - still dominates. I sometimes wonder how my world would have been shaped had I attended a Hindu school and visited goddess Kali's temple, which was close to my home! In postcolonial Sikh society it was safe and secure to go to Convent schools and even attend Catholic services because it was all very "distant." But the Hindu tradition so close geographically, historically, anthropologically, and psychologically, was all too dangerous and threatening.
I find similar fears and phobias now circulating in our contemporary western society. As our world is getting to be a smaller and smaller place we are getting more and more afraid of losing our self, of losing our "identity." So instead of opening ourselves up and appreciating others, we are becoming more narrow and insular. Our tunnel vision makes us grope in darkness. How can we remain afraid and threatened by each other's religions? It is not a matter of simple tolerance, and it is not simply mastering facts and figures about other religious traditions, and it is certainly not about converting and conversions from one faith to another. As Jesus resurfaces in my mind, I realise the beauty and power of his personality for me, and I realise the urgency of breaking our narrow mental walls. Just as he entered the imagination of us Sikhs in far away India, Sikhs and others have to enter into the imagination of people here in the West. We have to see the "light" that Jesus and Nanak ushered in for us.
So many Indians, Chinese, Japanese, Africans, Middle-easterners have made their homes here, but how little we know about each other's spiritual worldviews! We may sit in the same classroom, work in the same office, and fly in the same planes, but we remain segregated at a fundamental level. During the first waves of migrations, the racial policies pretty much forced into homogenising matters, and in recent waves, sacred spaces and sacred times are confined to ethnic ghettos and left to their individual communities. The result? We are impoverished. We have lost out on the extremely rich arabesques of images, languages, metaphysics, rituals, music, and poetry and many other wonderful resources of our global society. Sadly, even after century and a half, we are far from fulfilling Walt Whitman's exhortation:
[ Lo, soul, seest thou not God's purpose from the first?
The earth to be spann'd, connected by network
The races, neighbours, to marry and be given in marriage,
The oceans to be cross'd, the distant brought near,
The lands to be welded together.
Walt Whitman, Passage to India! ]
We may have triumphed in producing physical and technological networks, but we have failed in creating mental and spiritual links. We need to "weld together". We need to experience the fullness of humanity and the transcendence of the Divine. Together, Christians, Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Jains, men and women, we should relish the plurality and diversity of our human culture. It is more than a coincidence that Christians and Sikhs celebrate the birth of their communities on the first day of spring - called Easter in northern Europe and Baisakhi in India. Our joint celebration of the annual renewal of life carries on the legacy of Jesus Christ and Guru Nanak.
Understand more :
1. Jesus through Buddhist eyes
2. Jesus through Hindu eyes
3. Jesus through Jewish eyes
4. Jesus through Muslim eyes
5. Jesus through Sikh eyes
6. Jesus in Christian history
6. Jesus in Christian history
Jesus is believed by Christians to be the Christ - the Son of God. This article explains what we know about him from history and the Gospels, presents an audio journey through Jesus's life, and explores his legacy in religion, art and cinema.
Jesus's life
In this section Mark Goodacre, Senior Lecturer in New Testament at the University of Birmingham, gives a brief biography of Jesus:
Introduction
We know more about Jesus than we know about many ancient historical figures, a remarkable fact given the modesty of his upbringing and the humility of his death. Jesus did not grow up in one of the great cities of the ancient world like Rome or even Jerusalem but lived in a Galilean village called Nazareth. He died an appalling, humiliating death by crucifixion, reserved by the Romans for the most contemptible criminals.
That such a person could have become so significant in world history is remarkable. But how much can we know with certainty about the Jesus of history? How reliable are the New Testament accounts about him? Opinions vary widely among scholars and students of the Bible.
Gospel accounts
Our most important resource for the study of Jesus, though, is the literature of early Christianity and especially the Gospels. In order to understand them, it is important to realise that the Gospels are not biographies in the modern sense of that word and they often have gaps at just the points where we would like to know more.
They are books with a message, an announcement. They are, for want of a better word, propaganda for the cause of early Christianity. This is why they are called Gospels - a word derived from the old Anglo-Saxon word God spell, from the Greek evangelion: 'good news'. John's Gospel provides a clear example of how the Gospel writers, or evangelists, were thinking about their task.
The Gospel is written not simply to provide information about Jesus but in order to engender faith in him as Messiah and Son of God. This purpose is reflected throughout the Gospels, which are all about the twin themes of Jesus' identity and his work. For the Gospel writers, Jesus was the Messiah who came not only to heal and deliver, but also to suffer and die for people's sins.
If it is important to realise, however, that while the Gospels are similar in purpose, there are some radical differences in content. Most importantly, John differs substantially from the other three, Matthew, Mark and Luke (the Synoptic Gospels).
Who Jesus is
Given the similarities in wording and order between the Synoptic Gospels, it is certain that there is some kind of literary link between them. It is usually thought that Mark was the first Gospel to have been written, most likely in the late 60s of the first century AD, at the time of the Jewish war with Rome. It is unparalleled in its urgency, both in its breathless style and in its conviction that Christians were living in the end days, with the kingdom of God about to dawn.
Unlike Matthew and Luke, Mark does not even have time to include a birth narrative. Instead, he starts with a simple declaration that this is 'The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ.' (Mark 1.1). The name Jesus is actually the same name as Joshua in the Old Testament (one is Greek, one is Hebrew) and it means 'God saves'.
It is worth thinking also about the word Christ. This is not Jesus' surname. The Greek-derived Christ is the same word as the Hebrew Messiah and it means Anointed One. In the Old Testament, it is the word used for both priests and kings who were anointed to their office (just as David was anointed by Samuel as King of Israel); it means someone specially appointed by God for a task. By the time that Jesus was on the scene, many Jews were expecting the ultimate Messiah, perhaps a priest, a king or even a military figure, one who was specially anointed by God to intervene decisively to change history.
While the Gospels clearly depict Jesus as having a special relationship with God, do they actually affirm what Christianity later explicitly affirmed, that Jesus is God incarnate, God become flesh? The evidence points in different directions. Mark, the earliest of the four, certainly believes that Jesus is God's Son, but he also includes this extraordinary passage:
[As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone."–Mark 10:17-18]
Jesus appears to be distancing himself from God; it is a passage that at least puts a question mark over the idea that Mark would have accepted the doctrine of the incarnation. But the Gospels differ on this point as they do on several others. John, usually thought to be the latest of the four, is the most forthright. He speaks of the role played by the "Word" in creating and sustaining the world in a passage echoing the very beginning of the Bible, in Genesis:
[In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. –John 1:1-4]
If John's Gospel provides the clearest indication of early Christian belief in the incarnation, it is at least clear that the other Gospels believe that in Jesus God is present with his people in a new and decisive way. Right at the beginning of Matthew's Gospel, before Jesus has been born, we are told:
[All this took place to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: "Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel," which means, "God is with us."–Matthew 1:22-23]
What Jesus did
The Gospels narrate the story of how God's relationship with human beings manifested itself in Jesus' life and death. These books are therefore not just about Jesus' identity (who Jesus is) but also about his work (what Jesus did). There are three key areas of Jesus' activity, his healing, his preaching and his suffering.
Jesus' impact
Whatever one thinks about the historicity of the events described in the Gospels, and there are many different views, one thing is not in doubt: Jesus had an overwhelming impact on those around him. The Gospels speak regularly of huge crowds following Jesus. Perhaps they gathered because of his reputation as a healer. Perhaps they gathered because of his ability as a teacher. Whatever the cause, it seems likely that the authorities' fear of the crowd was a major factor leading to Jesus' crucifixion. In a world where there was no democracy, mobs represented a far greater threat to the Romans' rule than anything else.
Yet in spite of Jesus' popularity during his lifetime, the early Christian movement after Jesus' death was only a small group with a tiny power base in Jerusalem, a handful of Jesus' closest followers who stayed loyal to Jesus' legacy because they were convinced that Jesus was the Messiah, that he had died for everyone's sins, and that he was raised from the dead. It was a movement that received its greatest boost when the most unlikely figure joined it, the apostle Paul.
Gospels and Christology
•The Gospels
The Gospels are a form of ancient biography and are very short. They take about an hour and a half, two hours to read out loud. They're not what we understand modern biography to be: the great life and times of somebody in multi volume works. They've got between ten and twenty thousand words and ancient biography doesn't waste time on great background details about where the person went to school or all the psychological upbringing that we now look for in our kind of post-Freudian age.
They tend to go straight to the person's arrival on the public scene, often 20 or 30 years into their lives, and then look at the two or three big key things that they did or the big two or three key ideas. They'll also spend quite a lot of time concentrating on the actual death because the ancients believe that you couldn't sum up a person's life until you saw how they died. In their death, very often, they would die as they lived and then they would conclude with the events after the death - very often on dreams or visions about the person and what happened to their ideas afterwards.
The four gospels are four angles on one person and in the four gospels there are four angles on the one Jesus. It was a wonderful insight of the early Fathers, guided by the spirit of God, who recognised that these four pictures all reflect upon the same person. It's like walking into a portrait gallery and seeing four portraits, say, of Winston Churchill: the statesman or the war leader or the Prime Minister or the painter or the family man.
Of course we actually have to do all sorts of historical critical analysis and try to get back to what this tells us about the historical Jesus. It also shows us the way in which the early church tried to make that one Jesus relevant and to apply him to the needs of their own people of that day, whether they were Jews as in Matthew's case or Gentiles as in Luke's case and so on. And so those four portraits give us a challenge and a stimulus today to actually try to work out how we can actually tell that story of the one Jesus in different ways that are relevant for the needs of people today.
By Reverend Dr Richard Burridge, Dean of King's College London and Lecturer in New Testament Studies
• Christology
Christology is literally 'words about the Christ.' It refers to perspectives on Jesus that indicate he was more than a mere mortal. Christology can involve the humanity of Jesus, but there is often a special focus on the fact that he is more than merely a mortal person, he is divine in some way and in some sense the different gospel writers come at this somewhat differently. The synoptics - Matthew, Mark and Luke - have more a similar point of view than what you find in the Gospel of John which stands apart and alone. But none the less, they are all interested in this matter, they are certainly interested in what we would call Christology.
The Gospel of Mark, the earliest gospel, begins 'This is the good news about Jesus the Christ the son of God'. Right from the very outset of this gospel he is presenting a particular theological interpretation of Jesus as the Messiah, as the divine son of God and he is going to pursue that agenda throughout his gospel and reveal those truths about him. In Mark, at the the climax of the first part of the ministry and Peter stands up and says, 'you are the Christ, the son of God'.
There's certainly a Christological agenda in all these books, even in the earliest gospel. There really isn't a non-Christological Jesus to be found under any of the rocks in the gospel; so thoroughly are our gospel writers concerned about that issue, that the portraits in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are all Christological through and through.
By Ben Witherington, Professor of New Testament at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky
• Jesus' understanding of himself
It's difficult to know how much of what's written in the Gospels is an insight into how Jesus saw himself and how much is comment of other people as to how they saw Jesus. In John's gospel for example, there are many 'I am' sayings: 'I am the light of the world', 'I am the good shepherd', 'I am the bread', 'I am the vine'. These phrases, if they came from the lips of Jesus, don't tell us a great deal about his spiritual biography, but tell us more about his purpose and they kind of hang with you and you have to think them through.
What does it mean that Jesus is the shepherd, what does it mean that Jesus is the light, what does it mean that Jesus is the bread of life? And you have to kind of puzzle over them. I don't think Jesus was interested in giving a great deal of information about himself. I mean, Jesus said that whoever saw him, saw the Father. But I don't think he was very interested in padding that out; his mission was more to redeem people, to love people into goodness, to save people from the distress and errors of their ways and he doesn't make a big issue about himself.
There's that whole thing in the gospels of Matthew and Mark about how he's very wary of people nailing him as the Messiah. He does that sometimes because I think he wants to approach everybody on an equal basis, if he comes with his entourage and a lot of hype about himself, he'll not be able to relate to folk, they'll stand in awe of him rather than relate to him.
By Reverend John Bell, leader in the Iona Community and minister of the Church of Scotland
• I think Jesus thought of himself very much as a healer - he saw healing as a key to his work and presumably this arose because he just found out he was able to do it. A lot of Jews in this period would have prayed for people for healing and Jesus must have done this and found that actually he was rather good at it and he had a real reputation for healing and that might have led him to Old Testament scriptures like Isaiah 35, that talks about healing in end days - maybe he thought that that was a sign that the end of days was on its way.
Did Jesus think of himself as a teacher? Probably he did. Nobody spends that much time standing up and teaching crowds of people such words that have stuck with us for centuries. Even people like Gandhi were inspired by it so it's not just Christians that are inspired by that. But I think if we limit Jesus to purely teaching and healing than we don't get the full measure of him.
I think he would also have seen himself as a prophet. There are real signs that he sees himself in continuity with Old Testament prophets and just as Old Testament prophets were persecuted and suffered, Jesus thought that was likely to be his end too. He saw himself as following a line of prophets that had suffered for what they believed and sometimes even suffered from the hands of their own people as well as from others.
The big question about Jesus is: did Jesus think of himself as Messiah, did he believe he was the distinctive person that had a really pivotal role to play in God's plan? Scholars are divided about this. I personally think that Jesus did think of himself as a Messiah, he did think that God had specifically anointed him to do his work and that he had a special task for him to do. He also was convinced that he had to suffer as part of God's plan and this caused controversy with his disciples. It seems that Jesus wanted to push the idea that he was going to suffer and his disciples were really worried about this idea, probably expecting Jesus either to be some sort of priestly Messiah or some sort of warrior Messiah but certainly not a Messiah that would end up on a cross. They saw this as hugely problematic and a lot of Christians said for years afterwards that this was still a stumbling block to many people, a scandal - the idea that the Jewish Messiah could be crucified. This just didn't make sense to a lot of people.
By Mark Goodacre, Senior Lecturer in New Testament, University of Birmingham
Jesus - an audio journey
Edward Stourton presents a journey in the footsteps of Jesus. Four programmes, showing four completely different understandings of Jesus, explore the man, his image and his message.
(Galilee. A girl sits in the shade of a tree while a man walking with a staff goes past Galilee)
Jesus the Jew
This first episode looks at the essentials of what can really be said about Jesus with any degree of historical certainty and places him in the context of the wandering charismatics and faith healers who were about at the time.
It also explores how his Jewish roots were gradually airbrushed out of theology, culminating in Nazi theologians who produced a Bible excised of all references to Judaism and who portrayed Jesus as an Aryan.
[ It's only really modern scholarship, if you want to call it that, that's begun to say "Well hold on a minute. He was not a Christian, He was not born a Christian, he didn't live a Christian - He didn't even know what the term 'Christian' meant. Jesus was a Jew." –Mark Goodacre ]
Chapel of the True Cross, The Church of the Holy SepulchreChurch of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem
Jesus the God
With the crucifixion we move from the historical Jesus to the Christ of faith. But how aware was Jesus of his destiny? And at what point does Jesus the Messiah break away from his Jewish roots?
[ All the lines converge back on the fact that there must've been an empty tomb... and that there must've been sightings of some sort of being, a figure, a person who they knew to be Jesus, and who they knew to be not a ghost. They knew all about ghosts and visions and so on - that, that wasn't anything out of the ordinary. People had that sort of experience. This was different - this was bodily, but it was a transformed body. It wasn't a resuscitation - they believed Jesus had gone through death and out the other side, into a new physical body, which was now equally physical - only if anything more so rather than less so. He wasn't a ghost, He was alive, and the only way I can make sense of that as a historian is by saying that it actually happened. –Tom Wright, author of Who was Jesus? and The Resurrection of the Son of God ]
Jesus the King
When the Roman Emperor Constantine had a vision of Jesus just before his victorious battle for Rome it was arguably one of the most important moments in the history of the West.
[The Vatican, Rome]
It was the start of the process whereby Christianity would go from a persecuted minority to the official religion of the largest Empire the world had seen. But how did that change Jesus and His message?
[ We wanna say "Come on guys - live in the real world. Things have moved on. Take all your ideals and translate them into the new world" - and that's what the Christians struggled to do.–Tom Wright, theologian and Bishop of Durham ]
[ Christ, a historical Christ that you have referred to as a Jewish peasant, was not in the forefront of their minds. They were thinking of Christ as Saviour and Christ who died for our sins. This is what Christ was to them at that time. And in fact their concentration was in all of the phases of His Passion. –Iris Carulli, art historian ]
Presenter Edward Stourton looking out over Indian landscape, Kerala:
Jesus the Guru
This final journey in the footsteps of Jesus reaches what could be one of the oldest Christian communities in the world; in Kerala on the southwest coast of India, where in around 52AD the Apostle Thomas is said to have landed with the news of the Gospel.
But it's also the place where the Jesus who is so much a part of European culture meets new worlds and new cultures and where the belief that he has a message for all humanity is really tested.
[In our western, traditional understanding of Jesus, the person of Jesus is very much objectified. He's the Lord, the Saviour, the great, divine Tao whom we worship in liturgy for instance, whom we listen to as the great saviour and teacher...
Reflecting on the mystery of Christ in India... Jesus Christ the sub-divine subject of our being more than an object of worship. This becomes very clear when we compare the traditional, western, Christian understanding of Jesus Christ which emphasises then 'I - Tao' relationship and the Indian vedandic approach where an 'I -I' relationship. In other...in other words er, er Christ is my true self within me - this is the Vedantic Christology.–Sebastian Painadath, Jesuit priest in Kerala ]
Jesus's miracles
Apart from being an inspirational leader and teacher, the Gospels describe many miraculous feats performed by Jesus. They can sound unbelievable today, but what would they have meant to first-century Jews?
The raising of the widow's son
The miracle of the raising of the widow's son takes place in the village of Nain in Galilee. Jesus arrives in Nain on the occasion of a funeral when he is approached by a widow whose only son has died. When Jesus brings the man back to life the crowd are astonished, but what delights them more than this triumph over death is the meaning of the miracle.
The miracle reminds them of the great Jewish prophet Elijah who, eight centuries earlier, had also raised the only son of a widow in a town in Galilee. Elijah was famous as a miracle worker and as a prophet who rebuked those Jews who under the influence of pagan idolatry had strayed from devotion to God. Elijah never died - he was transported to heaven in a chariot of fire.
The parallels between Jesus and Elijah were hugely significant. At the time the Jews were longing for an end to Roman oppression and the return of the kingdom of God - a new age in which peace, freedom, righteousness, faithfulness and the rule of God would prevail. The first stage in that road to salvation was the arrival of a prophet who - like Elijah - would rail against sin. Maybe Jesus was that prophet - maybe even a reincarnation of Elijah?
The Gospels repeatedly make the link between Jesus and Elijah:
[When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do people say the Son of Man is?" They replied, "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets." –Matthew 16:13-14]
Clearly though, the Gospel writers believed Jesus was more than a prophet. In Matthew 17:10-13 (and Mark 9:12-13), just after the transfiguration,
[The disciples asked him, "Why then do the teachers of the law say that Elijah must come first?" Jesus replied, "To be sure, Elijah comes and will restore all things. But I tell you, Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but have done to him everything they wished. In the same way the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands." Then the disciples understood that he was talking to them about John the Baptist. –Matthew 17:10-13]
The resonances between Jesus and Elijah would have been striking to first century Jews and to Christians familiar with the Old Testament. But as Christianity spread into the Roman Empire, the miracle of the raising of the widow's son acquired other meanings. The most important is that it prefigured Jesus' own resurrection. In fact the miracle in Nain is one of three times when Jesus raises the dead. He also raises Jairus' daughter (Matthew 9:18-25, Mark 5:22-42, Luke 8:41-56) and his friend Lazarus (John 11:1-44). But there was a key difference between these miracles and the resurrection of Jesus. The widow's son, Jairus' daughter and Lazarus were resuscitated or revived: they would eventually die again. Jesus on the other hand would live forever. His resurrection entailed a complete transformation in his body and spirit, a complete victory over death.
The feeding of the 5,000
Jesus receiving a basket of fishJesus feeds the multitudes from a few loaves and fishes
When Jesus arrives in a deserted and remote area to preach to a crowd of 5000, he is told that the people are hungry. They discuss whether to go back to the villages to get food, but it's getting late, so instead Jesus asks the disciples to order the crowd to sit in groups of fifties and hundreds, and to gather what food is available. All they manage to collect is five loaves and two fishes. But Jesus works a miracle and there is enough to feed the multitude, so much so there are twelve basketfuls of leftovers.
The ancient meaning of this miracle would have been clear to the disciples and the crowd. Jesus had acted like Moses, the father of the Jewish faith. In every respect, the miracle echoed Moses and his miracle in the Sinai wilderness when he fed the multitude of Hebrews. Moses had left Ramesses on the fertile lands of the Nile Delta, crossed a sea - the Red Sea - and headed east towards a deserted area - the Sinai wilderness. Jesus had left Bethesda on the fertile lands of the Jordan Delta, crossed a sea - the Sea of Galilee - and headed east towards a deserted and remote area - the Golan Heights on the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee. When Jesus orders the crowd to sit in fifties and hundreds he is echoing Moses the general who often ordered the Hebrews to sit in squares of fifty and one hundred. In the Sinai, Moses fed a multitude with quails and manna, the bread of heaven; in the Golan Heights Jesus fed a multitude with fish and bread. In both miracles there were basketfuls of leftovers.
To first-century Jews the miracle of the loaves and fishes signalled that Jesus was like Moses. The reason is that in Jewish minds, Moses was a role model for the Messiah. The Jews were praying for a saviour to come and free them from foreign oppression. They believed he would be someone like Moses who had freed the Israelites from Egyptian slavery. Maybe Jesus was the leader they were waiting for? The crowd certainly thought so - after the miracle, the crowd try to crown Jesus king of the Jews there and then.
Walking on water
Jesus walking across the surface of a lake at nightJesus walked across the surface of the sea
After the miracle of the loaves and fishes, Jesus tells the disciples to head back to the fishing village of Bethsaida whilst he retires to the mountain to pray on his own. Later that night, the disciples are crossing the sea of Galilee and making little progress against the strong wind when they suddenly see Jesus walking on the water. At first they think it's a ghost, but Jesus reassures them, telling them - 'Take heart, it is I! Do not be afraid!' Then Jesus joins the disciples on the boat.
https://alladvices.blogspot.com/2023/05/1-on-water-walking-with-jesus.html
The miracle of the walking on water is best understood in the context of the previous miracle. The feeding of the 5000 would have reminded the disciples of Moses and the Exodus. The miracle of the walking on water would have reminded them of the climax to the Exodus - Joshua and the conquest of the land of Canaan. After wandering for 40 years in the wilderness Moses led the Israelites to the eastern shores of the river Jordan to prepare for the conquest. But Moses died on Mt Nebo before he could begin the invasion. His mission was accomplished by his right man Joshua.
Jesus' miracle of the walking on water would have reminded the disciples of Joshua. Like Joshua, Jesus was crossing waters. Ahead of Joshua was the Ark of the Covenant with the Ten Commandments carried by twelve priests. That scene was inverted and echoed on the Sea of Galilee; ahead of Jesus was a different kind of ark - the wooden boat, carrying the twelve disciples. But the biggest similarity between the two was in their names: Jesus is the Latin for the Hebrew name Joshua.
In the Jewish mindset of the time, Joshua was another role model for the Messiah - the flipside of Moses. Whereas Moses had freed the Israelites from oppression, it was Joshua who had finished the job by conquering the Promised Land for them. At the time of Jesus, the Jews were looking for a Messiah would not only free them from foreign oppression (as Moses had done), but someone who would also reclaim Judea and Galilee and restore it to the rule of God. In both the miracles of the loaves and fishes and the walking on water, Jesus seemed to fit the bill perfectly.
But the miracle of the walking on water had many other meanings, especially in that difficult period from the middle of the first century onwards when early Christianity faced hostility and persecution from Imperial tyrants. The sea miracle functioned as a metaphor for the precarious situation in which Christian churches found themselves - especially in Rome. To many Christians the Church must have felt like the fishing boat on the sea of Galilee, buffeted by strong winds and rocked by the waves. They must also have felt that Jesus had left them alone on the boat to fend for themselves. At best he was a ghostly appearance. But the message of the miracle is that they should 'take heart' and not be 'afraid': Jesus had not abandoned them, he was with them. It was a message which helped Christians endure persecution through the centuries. ( click here for Water-Walkers )
The wedding at Cana
Jesus and his mother Mary are invited to a wedding in the Galilean town of Cana. Jewish wedding feasts lasted all week and everyone in the village was invited, so it's not surprising that the hosts' wine is said to run out. Jesus asks one of the servants to fill the large water jars with water, and soon there is plenty of wine again.
The miracle would have carried many messages. When the Jewish scriptures looked forward to the kingdom of God, they used a number of metaphors to describe it. One of the most frequently used images is that of a marriage. The Book of Isaiah says:
[Do not be afraid; you will not suffer shame... For your Maker is your husband... The Lord will call you back as if you were a wife deserted and distressed in spirit - a wife who married young, only to be rejected.
–Isaiah 54:4-8 ]
Another key image is that of a banquet overflowing with a superabundance of wine.
[ On this mountain the Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine - the best of meats and the finest of wines.–Isaiah 25:6 ]
Amos says:
[ "The days are coming," declares the Lord, "when ... new wine will drip from the mountains and flow from all the hills. I will bring back my exiled people Israel; they will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine."–Amos 9:13-14 ]
Healings and exorcisms
Jesus holds a man down to exorcise himJesus cast demons out of a man
The Gospels contain records of over 35 miracles and of these the majority were healings of the lame, the deaf and the blind, exorcism of those possessed by demons.
The meaning of the healings and exorcisms is best understood against the background of Jewish purity laws which stipulated that those deemed impure could not enter the sacred precinct of the Temple in Jerusalem to make their sacrifice to God. The Jewish scriptures tell us that the impure included the lame, the sick, the blind and those possessed by demons. By implication, such people could not under Jewish law enter the Kingdom of God.
In healing the sick and casting out demons Jesus was sending a powerful signal - that they were now able to fulfill their obligations as Jews, and by implication that they were now entitled to enter the Kingdom of God. The fact that the cures are done by Jesus himself carried a further layer of meaning - that Jesus had the authority to decide who could enter the Kingdom of God. This becomes explicit in the healing of the paralysed man in Capernaum. Jesus heals the man by forgiving his sin - an act that would have been considered a blasphemy by Jews: only God had the authority to forgive sins. By forgiving sins Jesus was acting with an authority that the Jews believed only God possessed.
In the healing of the Syro-Phoenician woman's daughter Jesus goes a step further and effectively signals that Gentiles too are eligible to enter the Kingdom of God. Authors have applied this first-century meaning of the miracle to modern life.
The stilling of the storm
Jesus and the disciples were on one of their many trips on the Sea of Galilee, when the Gospels say they were hit by an unexpected and violent storm. The disciples were struggling for their lives. But by comparison Jesus' reaction is bewildering. He's said to have been asleep. And when awoken, his response couldn't have been less reassuring. "Why are you afraid, O men of little faith?"
But what the disciples didn't know was that they were about to receive help in a way they could never have imagined. Jesus stood up and rebuked the wind and sea. The disciples must have wondered who on earth Jesus was: this man who appeared able to control the elements. But just as with other miracles, what amazed them wasn't what Jesus did, it was what it revealed about his identity. They would have known the ancient Jewish prophecies which said very clearly, there was only one person who had the power to control the stormy seas - God.
One passage from the Book of the Psalms recalls an occasion where God had shown his power to save his people from distress in exactly the same way as Jesus had on the Sea of Galilee - by stilling a storm. The similarities wouldn't have been lost on the disciples. Jesus' actions seemed to suggest that he had the power of God himself.
Later in the century this miracle took on a new meaning - a meaning that would resonate down the centuries. The Gospel writers saw that the miracles could speak directly to the Christians suffering persecution in Rome. Like that boat in peril, the Christians in Rome might well have feared that their Church was in danger of sinking. And like Jesus asleep on the boat, they might have worried that Jesus had forgotten them. But the message of the evangelists was this: if they had faith in Jesus, he would not abandon them; he could calm the storm on the Sea of Galilee or in Rome.
The Resurrection
Hands nailing Jesus to the crossJesus was executed by crucifixion
The belief that Jesus had been raised from the dead became the foundation of the early Christian Church. What the early Christians made of the resurrection can be gleaned from the letters of St Paul, the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. It is a complex picture: did the early Christians believe that Jesus had undergone a spiritual or physical resurrection? The earliest sources are the letters of St Paul. His belief in the resurrection of Jesus is based on a vision of the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus. Like the letters of St Paul, the Gospel writers also report appearances of Jesus to the disciples. But the evangelists also report the story of the empty tomb - the discovery of the disappearance of the corpse of Jesus from his tomb on the third day after his crucifixion. The clear implication from this account is that the early Christians took Jesus to have been physically raised from the dead.
That in itself would have been hailed as a miracle. But a series of religious experiences convinced the early Christians that the resurrection meant much more than that. First, Jesus was the divine son of God. The Acts of the Apostles reports that during the feast of Pentecost the disciples were gathered together when they heard a loud noise like a wind from heaven, and saw tongues of fire descend on them. The Bible says they were filled with the Holy Spirit - and they took that as a sign that Jesus had been resurrected by God. The experience brought about a sudden and powerful transformation in the disciples. Until then Jesus had been a memory. Now for the first time Jesus became the focus of something unprecedented. A new faith flickered into life, a faith that worshipped Jesus as the son of God.
Another meaning attached to the miracle of the resurrection is that it conferred eternal life to Christians. At the time Jews believed that there would be an after-life - but only at the very end of time. Some Jews believed that at the last judgement the dead would be resurrected, and that it would begin in the cemetery on the Mt of Olives, which overlooks Jerusalem. But the dead would have to wait an eternity before they could taste resurrection. The resurrection of Jesus changed everything. There was no need to wait for the last judgement. If Jesus could conquer death so could others. All one had to do is commit completely to Jesus and follow his path. This would be the new way to an eternal life.
This meaning gave the early Christians - and Christians throughout history - the strength to endure suffering. The Romans executed thousands of Christian martyrs but the resurrection of Jesus gave people renewed hope. If his resurrection signified victory over death - if it meant eternal life - then death could hold no terror. Because of what the resurrection symbolised, Christian martyrs like St Peter and St Paul were fearless in the face of such persecution.
Evidence for the Resurrection
In this 2002 broadcast Dr Mark Goodacre, Senior Lecturer in New Testament at the University of Birmingham, and Dr Ed Kessler, executive director of the centre for Jewish-Christian Relations at Cambridge, discussed the historical evidence concerning the resurrection of Jesus with Prof Daryl Schmidt (now deceased), former Professor of New Testament at Texas Christian University and Fellow of the Jesus Seminar.
In 2008 Professor Gary Habermas, one of the USA's most respected philosophers, gave an interview to the Today Programme on BBC Radio 4. He talks about his claim that there's historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. Watch YouTube click here
Jesus in art
Neil McGregor, Director of the British Museum, surveys the face of Jesus portrayed in art, starting with what may well be the earliest image there is: a mosaic from a Roman villa in Dorset.
See more click here
Jesus in cinema
How has cinema developed the representation of Jesus?
Father Peter Malone, President of the World Catholic Association for Communications, considers how directors have portrayed Jesus and the crucifixion.
See details click here
Watch movie here
Jesus’ Suffering and Crucifixion - A Medical Point of View here
Further reading resources:
The Crucified God, Jurgen Momovie ltmann and Richard Bauckham, pub. SCM Classics (2001)
The gospels and Jesus, Graham N Stanton, pub. OUP (2002)
The Muslim Jesus: Sayings and Stories in Islamic literature, Tarif Khalidi, pub. Harvard University Press (2001)
The parables of Jesus, Joachim Jeremias, pub. SCM Press (2003)
The new illustrated companion to the Bible: Old Testament, New Testament, the life of Jesus, Early Christianity, Jesus in Art, J R Porter, pub. Duncan Baird Publishers (2003)
The historical figure of Jesus, E P Sanders, pub Penguin (1995)
Introduction to New Testament Christology, Raymond E, SS Brown, pub. Continuum International Publishing Group (1994)
The shadow of the Galilean, Gerd Theissen and James D G Dunn, pub. SCM Press (2001)
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