Throughout the course of human history, people all over the world have sought answers as to where they have come from and where they are headed. Out of this comes organized religion, and almost always an accompanying figurehead. For the Jews, this figurehead might be Moses, or even Abraham; for Muslims, it is Allah; and for the approximately one third of the global population that practices some form of Christianity, that person is Jesus of Nazareth. The life of Jesus transformed an innumerable amount of people over the last two thousand years. As mentioned above, those who believe Jesus had the divine spirit within number in the billions. Interestingly, all of these people know of Jesus only through the writings of the New Testament which is comprised of Gospels that chronicle his life. Unfortunately, since those writing the Gospels were writing close to seventy years after the death of Jesus, it is absolutely impossible to verify that all of what is written is undeniably factual. Perhaps this is where the notion of faith comes into play. Regardless, historians must use only what is presented in front of them to make an educated determination as to the what went on during the days of Jesus. The information presented herein comes from the New Testament in The New Jerusalem Bible published by Doubleday.
With so much uncertainty as to what went on during the life of Jesus, our most accurate, (yet still shrouded with ambiguity), source is that of the four canonical Gospels in the New Testament. The three Gospels written by Matthew, Mark, and Luke are collectively known as the Synoptic Gospels. The fourth Gospel, which was written by John, bears some stark distinction between itself and the Synoptic Gospels. It is important to understand that the Gosp ...