Jesus of Nazareth
The return of Jesus Christ - or any other god/creational figure - is the return to higher frequency consciousness often called the Christ Grid.
J e s u s , a l s o k n o w n a s J e s u s o f N a z a r e t h , i s t h e c e n t r a l f i g u r e o f C h r i s t i a n i t y , i n w h i c h c o n t e x t h e i s k n o w n a s J e s u s C h r i s t w i t h " C h r i s t " n o t b e i n g a n a m e b u t r a t h e r a t i t l e m e a n i n g " A n o i n t e d " . H e i s a l s o c o n s i d e r e d a v e r y i m p o r t a n t p r o p h e t i n I s l a m a n d a m a n i f e s t a t i o n o f G o d i n t h e B a h ai F a i t h .
Many noted critical historians, such as Shaye Cohen, John Dominic Crossan, Paula Fredriksen, John Meiers, E.P. Sanders, and Geza Vermes argue that Jesus lived from about 8-4 BC/BCE to 29-36 AD/CE. The main sources regarding his life and teachings are the four canonical Gospels from the New Testament, which took written form some decades after his death. They depict him - among many other things - as a Jewish Galilean preacher and healer who was at odds with the Jewish religious authorities , and who was crucified outside of Jerusalem during the rule of the Roman procurator Pontius Pilate. After his death numerous followers spread his teachings, and within a few decades Christianity emerged as a religion distinct from Judaism.
Beyond the historical information accepted by most secular scholars, the gospels make various additional claims about Jesus: that Jesus was the Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament (or Hebrew Bible); that he was the son of God; that his birth by Mary was virginal; and that after his crucifixion he rose from the dead, and then ascended into heaven. Most Christians hold that the Gospels also attribute divinity to Jesus; however, others hold that the Gospels are equivocal on the subject. Many Christians and some scholars believe that the accounts in the New Testament are historical facts, though others maintain that different parts have different degrees of accuracy, and a few hold Jesus did not exist at all.
In Islam, Jesus (called Isa) is considered one of God's most beloved and important prophets, a bringer of divine scripture, and also the messiah; although Muslims attach a different meaning to this term than Christians as they do not share the Christian belief in the divinity of Jesus.
The Qur'an, Islam's holy book, states that the crucifixion was a divinely-created illusion; that Jesus was not killed, is alive in heaven and will return to the earth in the company of the Mahdi once it has become full of sin and injustice.
Other religions also have different perspectives on Jesus, but do not place significant importance on his life and teachings.
The most detailed accounts of Jesus' birth are contained in the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke. [1] There is considerable debate about the details of Jesus' birth even among Christian scholars, and few scholars claim to know either the year or the date of his birth or of his death.
Based on the accounts in the gospels of the shepherds' activities, the time of year depicted for Jesus' birth could be spring or summer. However, as early as 354, Roman Christians celebrated it following the December solstice in an attempt to replace the Roman festival of Saturnalia. Before then, Jesus' birth was generally celebrated on January 6 as part of the feast of Theophany, also known as Epiphany, which commemorated not only Jesus' birth but also his baptism by John in the Jordan River and possibly additional events in Jesus' life.
In the 248th year of the Diocletian Era (based on Diocletian's ascension to the Roman throne), Dionysius Exiguus attempted to pinpoint the number of years since Jesus' birth, arriving at a figure of 753 years after the founding of Rome. Dionysius then set Jesus' birth as being December 25 1 ACN (for "Ante Christum Natum", or "before the birth of Christ"), and assigned AD 1 to the following year - thereby establishing the system of numbering years from the birth of Jesus: Anno Domini (which translates as "in the year of the Lord"). This system made the then current year 532, and almost two centuries later it won acceptance and became the established calendar in Western civilization due to its championing by the Venerable Bede.
In the 248th year of the Diocletian Era (based on Diocletian's ascension to the Roman throne), Dionysius Exiguus attempted to pinpoint the number of years since Jesus' birth, arriving at a figure of 753 years after the founding of Rome. Dionysius then set Jesus' birth as being December 25 1 ACN (for "Ante Christum Natum", or "before the birth of Christ"), and assigned AD 1 to the following year - thereby establishing the system of numbering years from the birth of Jesus: Anno Domini (which translates as "in the year of the Lord").
This system made the then current year 532, and almost two centuries later it won acceptance and became the established calendar in Western civilization due to its championing by the Venerable Bede well known as an author and scholar, whose best-known work, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (The Ecclesiastical History of the English People) gained him the title "The father of English History". Bede wrote on many other topics, from music and metrics to Scripture commentaries.
However, based on a lunar eclipse that Josephus reports shortly before the death of Herod the Great, the birth of Christ would have been some time before the year 4 BC/BCE. This estimate itself relies on the historicity of the story in the Gospel of Matthew of the A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_the_Innocents">Massacre of the Innocents under the orders of Herod - an event mentioned nowhere else in contemporaneous accounts. Having fewer sources and being further removed in time from the authors of the New Testament, establishing a reliable birth date now is particularly difficult.
The exact date of Jesus' death is also unclear. The Gospel of John depicts the crucifixion just before the Passover festival on Friday 14 Nisan, called the Quartodeciman, whereas the synoptic gospels describe the Last Supper, immediately before Jesus' arrest, as the Passover meal on Friday 15 Nisan. Further, the Jews followed a lunisolar calendar with phases of the moon as dates, complicating calculations of any exact date in a solar calendar. According to John P. Meier's A Marginal Jew, allowing for the time of the procuratorship of Pontius Pilate and the dates of the Passover in those years, his death can be placed most probably on April 7, 30 or April 3, 33.
According to the Gospels, Jesus was born in Bethlehem to Mary, a virgin, by the Holy Spirit. The Gospel of Luke gives an account of the angel Gabriel visiting Mary to tell her that she was chosen to bear the son of God (Luke 1:26-28). Catholics call this the Annunciation. Joseph, Mary's betrothed husband, appears only in stories of Jesus' childhood; this is generally taken to mean that he had died by the time of Jesus' ministry.
Mark 6:3 (and analogous passages in Matthew and Luke) reports that Jesus was "Mary's son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon," and also states that Jesus had sisters. The 1st-century Jewish historian Josephus and the Christian historian Eusebius (who wrote in the 4th century but quoted much earlier sources that are now lost) refer to James the Just as Jesus' brother.
However, Jerome argued that they were Jesus' cousins, which the Greek word for "brother" used in the gospels would allow. This was based on the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox tradition that Mary remained a perpetual virgin, thus having no biological children before or after Jesus. Luke's gospel records that Mary was a relative of Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist (Luke 1:36). The Bible, however, does not reveal exactly how Mary and Elizabeth were related.
Jesus' childhood home is represented as Nazareth in Galilee. Aside from a flight to Egypt in infancy to escape Herod's Massacre of the Innocents and a short trip to Tyre and Sidon, all other events in the Gospels are set in ancient Israel. Only one incident between his infancy and his adult life, the Finding in the Temple, is mentioned in the canonical gospels, although New Testament apocrypha go into these details, some quite extensively.
This "original nuclear family" symbolized the Holy Trinity to many early Christian believers and solidified the family unit with such deep spiritual significance that it eventually became an integral part of the Catholic religious dogma, which has a tenet belief in the Holy Family.
The Scriptures and other apocryphal works were passed down either by word of mouth and through song, and much later in works of art that did much to instruct the believer. The symbolism of the Child Jesus in art reached its apex during the Renaissance where the holy family were a central theme in the works of Leonardo Da Vinci and many other masters.
From the 4th century up to the renaissance many stories were passed down concerning this "secret time" of Jesus' early childhood, where even as a baby Jesus possessed and used his messianic powers to protect his parents during their journey to and from Egypt, up to the time where as a child of twelve he left his parents fretting for three days while he held court with the doctors of the temple.
The majority of these stories were derived from ³forbidden² or unapproved apocryphal books based on Latin or Greek translations of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and as the majority of Christians at the time were illiterate, the stories acquired a dark or morbid feel similar to the Brothers Grimm tales, as concern for approval from the Roman Curia began to wane in the later centuries.
A common theme of the medieval stories attribute Jesus as a fearless and carefree child who innocently gets into mischief that inexorably led to his playmates' demise. The most common story is the cloud story. The child Jesus, wanting to play in the clouds, crawled into the sky on a sunbeam, but all of the playmates who followed him soon lost their faith and fell to their deaths.
Another story reveals the tale of a child (sometimes referred to as the "Judas Child" - as though Jesus and the disciples had run-ins with each other throughout their lives), dammed the channel that supplied water to pools which the Child Jesus bathed in until a tidal wave swept the boy away and cleared the channel in one pass.
These events naturally made other parents panic and forbid their children to play with him, so when the child Jesus arrived in the town plaza to play the parents quickly hid their children in a large kiln-oven for shelter.
The child Jesus, naturally well aware of this, inquired about his playmates' whereabouts and was told all the children had left. When he asked what the noise coming from the large oven was he was told that pigs were being cooked.
Jesus left and when the parents opened the oven doors, they found (according to which version of the story one heard) either uncooked squealing piglets or roasted chops.
The stories created about the activities of the child Jesus were not all gruesome, and detail that even as a baby or child Jesus set out to do the Divine Will of his Father. Other stories chronicle how even as an infant his smile could make the rain or storms end and the sun shine, or could heal the sick. Another story tells of how a baby that was dying was placed in a tub of his bathwater and was brought back to life, and that any child in his presence would not cry or fret.
Although the importance of the religious symbolism of the Child Jesus waned after the Middle Ages, during the Spanish Conquest of the Philippines, when the Spanish explorer Ferdinand Magellan landed in Cebu on April 7, 1521, the island ruler King Humabon and Queen Juana were converted to Christianity along with four hundred of their subjects a few weeks after Magellan's arrival.
Magellan planted a large wooden cross and gave Queen Juana a wooden doll of the Santo Nino (the Child Saint) to commemorate the event. While the original doll and cross are still on public display in Cebu, the symbolism of the Child Jesus and reproductions of the original can be seen throughout the Philippine archipelago as the venerated Santo Niño de Cebu, in either the Child-King pose wearing a gold crown, holding a sceptre, and draped in a flowing gilded red cape, or as a representation of the common man wearing black pajama pants and a straw hat, symbolizing that all men are children and that Salvation is obtainable if one approaches it like a child does.
For most Christians, only the virgin birth and the Incarnation itself are major articles of faith for this period of time before the beginning of Jesus' ministry. The Muslim religion also espouses a virgin birth through Mary.
According to Christian belief, just after he was baptized by his kinsman John the Baptist Jesus began his public ministry. According to the Luke, he was about thirty years old at the time. Jesus used a variety of methods in his teaching, in particular parables and metaphors.
He frequently taught, "Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand." Some of his most famous teachings are to be found in the Sermon on the Mount, which also contains the beatitudes and the Golden Rule.
His most famous parables (or stories with a deep or metaphorical meaning) include the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son. Jesus had a number of disciples. His closest followers were the twelve apostles.
According to the New Testament, Jesus also performed various miracles in the course of his ministry, including healings, exorcisms, turning water into wine and the raising Lazarus from the dead.
Jesus frequently put himself in opposition to the Jewish religious hierachy of the Pharisees and Sadducees. His teaching castigated the Pharisees primarily for their legalism and hypocrisy, although he also had followers among the religious leaders such as Nicodemus. Jesus was also known as a social reformer, and the controversial view that he was the Jewish Messiah.
Jesus' preachings included the forgiveness of sin, life after death, and resurrection of the body. Jesus also preached the imminent end of the current era of history, or even the literal end of the world and in this sense he was an apocalyptic preacher. Some interpretations of the Gospels, particularly amongst Protestants, suggest that Jesus opposed stringent interpretations of Jewish law, supporting the spirit more than the letter of the law.
It is commonly thought that Jesus preached for a period of three years, but this is never mentioned explicitly in any of the four gospels, and some interpretations of the Synoptic Gospels suggest a span of only one year. The consensus view remains three years however.
Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem at the end of his ministry is usually associated with the Passover Feast, but some scholars (such as Hyam Maccoby and Eliezer Segal) point out that details of the entry, such as the Hosanna shout, the waving of palm fronds, and the proclamation of a king, are more consistent with the Feast of Tabernacles, or Sukkoth, than with Passover.
Christian belief holds that Jesus came with his followers to Jerusalem during the Passover festival, and created a disturbance at the Temple by overturning the tables of the moneychangers there. He was subsequently arrested on the orders of the Sanhedrin and the high priest, Joseph Caiaphas for blasphemy, because he claimed to be "God's son". He was identified to the guards by one of his apostles, Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Jesus by a kiss in the Garden of Gethsemane, after which another apostle, Peter, used a sword to attack one of the captors. After his arrest, Jesus' apostles went into hiding.
Jesus was condemned for blasphemy by the Sanhedrin and turned over to the Romans for execution, on the charge of sedition for claiming to be King of the Jews. The usual penalty for sedition was a humiliating death by crucifixion, but according to the gospels, the Roman governor Pontius Pilate ruled that Jesus was not guilty of any such civil crime. The gospel accounts say it was a custom at Passover for the Roman governor to free a prisoner, and that Pilate offered the crowd a choice between Jesus of Nazareth and an insurrectionist named Jesus Barabbas.
According to the gospels, the crowd chose to free Barabbas, and Pilate washed his hands to display that he himself was innocent of the injustice of the decision. All four gospels say Pilate then ordered Jesus to be crucified with a charge placed atop the cross (called the titulus crucis) which read "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews". (The titulus crucis is often written as INRI, the Latin acronym.)
The gospels further state that after Jesus died on the cross, his followers were allowed to take his body down and place it in a tomb.
In accordance with the four canonical gospel accounts Christians believe that Jesus was raised from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. This article of faith is referred to in Christian terminology as the Resurrection of Jesus Christ; and each year at Easter (on a Sunday) it is commemorated and celebrated by most Christians groups apart from a few groups such as the Jehovah's Witnesses.
No one was a witness to the resurrection. However, the women who had witnessed the entombment and the closure of the tomb with a great stone, found it empty when they arrived on the third day to anoint the body. The synoptic gospel accounts further state that an angel was waiting at the tomb to explain to them that Jesus had been resurrected, though the Gospel according to John makes no mention of this encounter.
The sight of the same angel had apparently left the guards unconscious (cf. Matt 28:24) that, according to Matthew 27:6266, the high priests and Pharisees, with Pilate's permission, had posted in front of the tomb to prevent the body from being stolen by Jesus' disciples.
Mark 16:9 says that Mary Magdalene was the first to whom Jesus appeared very early that morning. John 20:1118 states that when Mary looked into the tomb, two angels asked her why she was crying; and as she turned round she initially failed to recognize Jesus - even by his voice - until he called her by her name.
The Gospel accounts and the Acts of the Apostles tell of several appearances of Jesus to various people in various places over a period of forty days before he ascended into heaven. Just hours after his resurrection he appeared to two travelers on the road to Emmaus.
To his assembled disciples he showed himself on the evening after his resurrection, but Thomas was absent, though he was present when Jesus repeated his visit to them a week later. Thereafter he went to Galilee and showed himself to several of his disciples by the lake and on the mountain; and they were present when he returned to Bethany and was lifted up to heaven and a cloud concealed him from their sight.
Most Christians - even those who do not hold to the literal truth of everything in the canonical gospel accounts - accept the New Testament presentation of the Resurrection as a historical account of an actual event central to faith.
Belief in the resurrection is one of the most distinctive elements of Christian faith; and defending the historicity of the resurrection is usually a central issue of Christian apologetics. Some liberal Christians do not accept that Jesus was raised bodily from the dead, or that he still lives physically.
A c c o r d i n g t o m o s t C h r i s t i a n i n t e r p r e t a t i o n s o f t h e B i b l e , t h e t h e m e o f J e s u s ' p r e a c h i n g w a s t h a t o f r e p e n t a n c e , f o r g i v e n e s s o f s i n , g r a c e , a n d t h e c o m i n g o f t h e k i n g d o m o f G o d .
D u r i n g h i s p u b l i c m i n i s t r y J e s u s e x t e n s i v e l y t r a i n e d t w e l v e d i s c i p l e s t o c o n t i n u e a f t e r h i s d e p a r t u r e h i s l e a d e r s h i p o f t h e m a n y w h o h a d b e g u n t o f o l l o w h i m m a i n l y i n t h e t o w n s a n d v i l l a g e s t h r o u g h o u t G a l i l e e , S a m a r i a , a n d t h e D e c a p o l i s . M o s t C h r i s t i a n s h o l d t h a t t h e a p o s t l e s a l s o g a i n e d t h e p o w e r t o p e r f o r m m i r a c l e s a n d h e a l i n g s a f t e r t h e y h a d b e e n e m p o w e r e d b y t h e H o l y S p i r i t o f T r u t h t h a t J e s u s h a d p r o m i s e d t h e F a t h e r w o u l d s e n d t h e m a f t e r h i s d e p a r t u r e a p r o m i s e t h a t a c c o r d i n g t o A c t s 2 : 4 w a s f u l f i l l e d a t P e n t e c o s t . F r o m t h e w o r k s o f J e s u s ' f o l l o w e r s c a m e t h e f o u n d a t i o n o f C h r i s t i a n i t y a n d i t s c h u r c h e s .
F o r s o m e t h e l e g a c y o f J e s u s w a s a l o n g h i s t o r y o f C h r i s t i a n a n t i - S e m i t i s m ( o f c o u r s e , a l w a y s w i t h e x c e p t i o n s ) , a l t h o u g h i n t h e w a k e o f t h e H o l o c a u s t m a n y C h r i s t i a n g r o u p s h a v e g o n e t o c o n s i d e r a b l e l e n g t h s t o r e c o n c i l e w i t h J e w s a n d t o p r o m o t e i n t e r - f a i t h d i a l o g u e a n d m u t u a l r e s p e c t .
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