Jesus

A Jewish person in Jesus's time usually had only one name, sometimes followed by a patronymic phrase of the form "son of [father's name]", or by the person's home town. Thus, in the New Testament, Jesus is commonly referred to as "Jesus of Nazareth". Jesus's neighbours in Nazareth referred to him as "the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon", "the carpenter's son", or "Joseph's son"; in the Gospel of John, the disciple Philip refers to him as "Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth".

The name Jesus is the English transliteration, through Latin Iesus, of Ancient Greek: Ἰησοῦς, which is the Greek rendering of the Hebrew יְהוֹשֻׁעַ‎ Yehoshua (Yehōšuᵃʿ). The Hebrew/Aramaic name was common among Judean Jews at the time of Jesus's birth, although by that period it had been shortened to יֵשׁוּעַ Yeshua (Yešūᵃʿ); the contraction had already occurred in later biblical books such as Nehemiah, where Joshua is referred to as Yeshua.

The name means "God saves" in Hebrew, literally "Yahweh saves", from the root ישׁע (y-š-ʿ, 'to save') and the noun יְשׁוּעָה (yeshuah, 'salvation'). The Gospel of Matthew asserts the etymological significance of Jesus's name explicitly in the prophecy of the angel to Joseph about his birth: "you will call his name Jesus (Ἰησοῦς), for he will save (σώσει) his people from their sins".

The fact that Moses' successor Joshua bears the same name as Jesus in the original Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic has been given theological significance by commentators, as a parallel is often drawn between the two leaders and the etymology of their shared name ('to save'): Joshua leads the Jews into the Promised Land, while in Christianity Jesus is understood to save both Jews and Gentiles from their sins.

Since the 1st century, Christians have commonly referred to Jesus as "Jesus Christ". The word Christ is not a given name but was originally a title or office ("the Christ"), meaning "The Messiah". The term derives from the Greek Χριστός (Christos), a calque of the Hebrew word משיח mashiakh (Mašiᵃḥ), transliterated into English as messiah. The Hebrew term means "anointed", from the verb מָשַׁח (mashaḥ), "to rub with oil, to anoint". In biblical Judaism, sacred oil was used to anoint certain exceptionally holy people and objects as part of their religious investiture. In the Septuagint, the Hebrew word was rendered into Greek as χριστός (christos), meaning "anointed", from the verb χρίω (chrio), "to rub with oil, to anoint".

Early Christians designated Jesus as "the Christ" because they believed him to be the Messiah (the "anointed one") whose arrival was prophesied in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament). In post-biblical usage, Christ came to be viewed as a name—one part of "Jesus Christ". The term Christian, meaning a follower of Christ, has been in use since the 1st century.

The four canonical gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) are the foremost sources for the life and message of Jesus. Other parts of the New Testament also include references to key episodes in his life, such as the Last Supper in 1 Corinthians 11:23–26. Acts of the Apostles refers to Jesus's early ministry and its anticipation by John the Baptist. Acts 1:1–11 provides more detail about the Ascension of Jesus than the canonical gospels do. In the undisputed Pauline letters, which were written earlier than the gospels, Jesus's words or instructions are cited several times.

Some early Christian groups had separate descriptions of Jesus's life and teachings that are not included in the New Testament. These include the Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Peter, Gospel of Judas, the Apocryphon of James, and many other apocryphal writings. Most scholars conclude that these texts were written later and are less historically reliable than the canonical gospels.

The canonical gospels are four accounts, each attributed to a different author. The authors of the gospels are generally regarded as pseudonymous and are attributed by tradition to the four evangelists, each associated with Jesus or his close followers: Mark by John Mark, an associate of Peter; Matthew to one of Jesus's disciples; Luke to a companion of Paul mentioned in a few epistles; and John to another of Jesus's disciples, the "beloved disciple".

According to Marcan priority, the first to be written was the Gospel of Mark (AD 60–75), followed by the Gospel of Matthew (AD 65–85), the Gospel of Luke (AD 65–95), and the Gospel of John (AD 75–100). Most scholars agree that the authors of Matthew and Luke used Mark as a source for their gospels. Since Matthew and Luke also share some content not found in Mark, many scholars infer that they used a hypothetical Q source in addition to Mark, while a growing number support the Farrer hypothesis or Matthean Posteriority, in which Matthew and Luke used each other directly. Luke and Matthew treat their sources more conservatively than other ancient historians like Diodorus Siculus, though the parallels and variations of the Synoptic gospels are typical of ancient historical biographies.

One important aspect of the study of the gospels is the literary genre under which they fall. Whether the gospel authors set out to write novels, myths, histories, or biographies has a significant impact on how their works ought to be interpreted. Although not without critics, the view that the gospels are a type of ancient biography represents the consensus among scholars today.

Concerning the accuracy of the accounts, viewpoints range from considering them inerrant descriptions of Jesus's life, to doubting their historical reliability on various points, to regarding them as providing very little historical information about his life beyond the basics.

Matthew, Mark, and Luke are known as the Synoptic Gospels, from the Greek σύν (syn, 'together') and ὄψις (opsis, 'view'), because they are similar in content, narrative arrangement, language, and paragraph structure, and can readily be set side by side for synoptic comparison. Scholars generally agree that it is impossible to find any direct literary relationship between the Synoptic Gospels and the Gospel of John. Many events—such as Jesus's baptism, crucifixion, and interactions with his apostles—appear in the Synoptic Gospels, but incidents such as the transfiguration and Jesus's exorcising demons do not appear in John, which also differs on other matters, such as the cleansing of the Temple.

The Synoptics emphasize different aspects of Jesus. In Mark, Jesus is the Son of God whose mighty works demonstrate the presence of God's Kingdom. He is portrayed as a tireless wonder worker and the servant of both God and humanity. This short gospel records relatively few of Jesus's words or extended teachings. The Gospel of Matthew emphasizes that Jesus is the fulfilment of God's will as revealed in the Old Testament and the Lord of the Church. He is presented as the "Son of David", a "king", and the Messiah. Luke presents Jesus as the divine-human saviour who shows compassion to the needy. He is depicted as the friend of sinners and outcasts, who came to seek and save the lost. This gospel includes well-known parables, such as the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son.

The prologue to the Gospel of John identifies Jesus as an incarnation of the divine Word (Logos). As the Word, Jesus is described as eternally present with God, active in all creation, and the source of humanity's moral and spiritual nature. In this gospel, Jesus is portrayed as not only greater than any past human prophet but greater than any prophet could be: he not only speaks God's Word; he is God's Word. In the Gospel of John, Jesus reveals his divine role publicly and is depicted as the Bread of Life, the Light of the World, the True Vine, and more.

The authors of the New Testament generally showed little interest in establishing an absolute chronology of Jesus's life or in synchronizing the episodes of his life with the secular history of the age. As stated in John 21:25, the gospels do not claim to provide an exhaustive list of the events of Jesus's life. The accounts were primarily written as theological documents in the context of early Christianity, with timelines as a secondary consideration. The gospels devote about one third of their text to the last week of Jesus's life in Jerusalem, referred to as the Passion. They do not provide enough detail to satisfy the demands of modern historians regarding exact dates, but it is possible to draw from them a general picture of Jesus's life story.

Jesus was Jewish, born to Mary, the wife of Joseph. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke offer two different accounts of his genealogy. Matthew traces Jesus's ancestry to Abraham through David, while Luke traces Jesus's ancestry through Adam to God. The lists are identical between Abraham and David but differ markedly from that point onward; Matthew has 27 generations from David to Joseph, whereas Luke has 42, with almost no overlap between the names on the two lists. Various theories have been put forward to explain why the two genealogies are so different.

Both Matthew and Luke describe Jesus's birth, particularly that he was born to a virgin named Mary in Bethlehem in fulfilment of prophecy. Luke's account emphasizes events before the birth of Jesus and centres on Mary, while Matthew's mostly covers events after the birth and centres on Joseph. Both accounts state that Mary was engaged to a man named Joseph, who was descended from King David and was not Jesus's biological father, and both support the doctrine of the virgin birth of Jesus, according to which Jesus was miraculously conceived by the Holy Spirit in Mary's womb when she was still a virgin. At the same time, there is evidence, at least in the Lukan Acts of the Apostles, that Jesus was thought to have had, like many figures in antiquity, a dual paternity, since there it is stated that he descended from the seed or loins of David. By taking Jesus as his own son, Joseph is understood to confer on him the necessary Davidic descent. Some scholars suggest that Jesus had Levite heritage from Mary, based on her blood relationship with Elizabeth.

In Matthew, Joseph is troubled because Mary, his betrothed, is pregnant, but in the first of Joseph's four dreams an angel assures him not to be afraid to take Mary as his wife because her child was conceived by the Holy Spirit. In Matthew 2:1–12, wise men or Magi from the East bring gifts to the young Jesus as the King of the Jews. They find him in a house in Bethlehem. Herod the Great hears of Jesus's birth and, wanting him killed, orders the killings of male infants in Bethlehem and its surroundings. However, an angel warns Joseph in his second dream, and the family flees to Egypt, later returning and settling in Nazareth.

In Luke 1:31–38, Mary learns from the angel Gabriel that she will conceive and bear a child called Jesus through the action of the Holy Spirit. When Mary is due to give birth, she and Joseph travel from Nazareth to Joseph's ancestral home in Bethlehem to register in the census ordered by Caesar Augustus. While there, Mary gives birth to Jesus, and, as they have found no room in the inn, she places the newborn in a manger. An angel announces the birth to a group of shepherds, who go to Bethlehem to see Jesus and subsequently spread the news abroad. Luke 2:21 recounts how Joseph and Mary have their baby circumcised on the eighth day after birth and name him Jesus, as Gabriel had commanded Mary. After the presentation of Jesus at the Temple, Joseph, Mary, and Jesus return to Nazareth.

Jesus's childhood home is identified in the Gospels of Luke and Matthew as Nazareth, a town in Galilee in present-day Israel, where he lived with his family. Although Joseph appears in descriptions of Jesus's childhood, no mention is made of him thereafter. His other family members, including his mother Mary; his four brothers, James, Joses (or Joseph), Judas, and Simon; and his unnamed sisters, are mentioned in the Gospels and other sources. Jesus's maternal grandparents are named Joachim and Anne in the Gospel of James. The Gospel of Luke records that Mary was a relative of Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist. Some extra-biblical contemporary sources consider Jesus and John the Baptist to be second cousins, based on the belief that Elizabeth was the daughter of Sobe, the sister of Anne.

The Gospel of Mark reports that at the beginning of his ministry, Jesus comes into conflict with his neighbours and family. Jesus's mother and brothers come to get him because people are saying that he is out of his mind. Jesus responds that his followers are his true family. In the Gospel of John, Jesus and his mother attend a wedding at Cana, where he performs his first miracle at her request. Later, she is present at his crucifixion, and he expresses concern for her well-being.

Jesus is called a τέκτων (tektōn) in Mark 6:3, a term traditionally understood as "carpenter" but which can also refer to makers of objects in various materials, including builders. Given the term's broad semantic range and "the socio-historical reality of a common Nazarene τέκτων", Matthew K. Robinson, a minister and academic, prefers to translate τέκτων as 'builder-craftsman'. The Gospels indicate that Jesus could read, paraphrase, and debate scripture, but this does not necessarily mean that he received formal scribal training.

The Gospel of Luke reports two journeys of Jesus and his parents in Jerusalem during his childhood. They come to the Temple in Jerusalem for the presentation of Jesus as a baby in accordance with Jewish law, where a man named Simeon prophesies about Jesus and Mary. When Jesus, at the age of twelve, goes missing on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem for Passover, his parents find him in the Temple sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking questions, and the people are amazed at his understanding and answers. Mary scolds Jesus for going missing, to which Jesus replies that he must "be in his Father's house".

The synoptic gospels describe Jesus's baptism in the Jordan River and the temptations he faced while spending forty days in the Judaean Desert as a preparation for his public ministry. In each of these accounts, the accounts of Jesus's baptism is preceded by information about John the Baptist. They portray John preaching repentance for the forgiveness of sins, encouraging the giving of alms to the poor, baptizing people in the region of the Jordan River around Perea, and foretelling the arrival of someone "more powerful" than he.

In the Gospel of Mark, John the Baptist baptizes Jesus, and as Jesus comes up out of the water he sees the Holy Spirit descending on him like a dove, and a voice comes from heaven and declares him to be God's Son.

After Jesus's life, his followers, as described in the first chapters of the Acts of the Apostles, were all Jews either by birth or conversion, for which the biblical term "proselyte" is used, and referred to by historians as Jewish Christians. The early Gospel message was spread orally, probably in Aramaic, but almost immediately also in Greek. The New Testament's Acts of the Apostles and Epistle to the Galatians record that the first Christian community was centred in Jerusalem and its leaders included Peter, James, the brother of Jesus, and John the Apostle.

After his conversion, Paul the Apostle spread the teachings of Jesus to various non-Jewish communities throughout the eastern Mediterranean region. Paul's influence on Christian thinking is said to be more significant than that of any other New Testament author. By the end of the 1st century, Christianity began to be recognized internally and externally as a separate religion from Judaism which itself was refined and developed further in the centuries after the destruction of the Second Temple.

Numerous quotations in the New Testament and other Christian writings of the first centuries indicate that early Christians generally used and revered the Hebrew Bible (the Tanakh) as religious text, mostly in the Greek (Septuagint) or Aramaic (Targum) translations. Early Christians wrote many religious works, including the ones included in the canon of the New Testament. The canonical texts, which have become the main sources used by historians to try to understand the historical Jesus and sacred texts within Christianity, were probably written between AD 50 and 120.

Prior to the Enlightenment, the Gospels were usually regarded as accurate historical accounts, but since then scholars have emerged who question the reliability of the Gospels and draw a distinction between the Jesus described in the Gospels and the Jesus of history. Since the 18th century, three separate scholarly quests for the historical Jesus have taken place, each with distinct characteristics and based on different research criteria, which were often developed during the quest that applied them. While there is widespread scholarly agreement on the existence of Jesus, and a basic consensus on the general outline of his life, the portraits of Jesus constructed by various scholars often differ from each other, and from the image portrayed in the gospel accounts.

Approaches to the historical reconstruction of the life of Jesus have varied from the "maximalist" approaches of the 19th century, in which the gospel accounts were accepted as reliable evidence wherever it is possible, to the "minimalist" approaches of the early 20th century, where hardly anything about Jesus was accepted as historical. In the 1950s, as the second quest for the historical Jesus gathered pace, the minimalist approaches faded away, and in the 21st century, minimalists such as Price are a small minority. Although a belief in the inerrancy of the Gospels cannot be supported historically, many scholars since the 1980s have held that, beyond the few facts considered to be historically certain, certain other elements of Jesus's life are "historically probable". Modern scholarly research on the historical Jesus thus focuses on identifying the most probable elements.

In AD 6, Judea, Idumea, and Samaria were transformed from a client state of the Roman Empire into an imperial province, also called Judea. A Roman prefect, rather than a client ruler, governed the land. The prefect governed from Caesarea Maritima, leaving Jerusalem to be run by the High Priest of Israel. As an exception, the prefect came to Jerusalem during religious festivals, when religious and patriotic enthusiasm sometimes inspired unrest or uprisings. Galilee with Perea was a Herodian client state under the rule of Herod Antipas since 4 BC. Galilee was evidently prosperous, and poverty was limited enough that it did not threaten the social order.

Philip (d. AD 34), half-brother of Herod Antipas, ruled as Tetrarch yet another Herodian client state to the north and east of the sea of Galilee that included Gaulanitis, Batanea, and Iturea; it was mostly non-Jewish. South of this on the east bank of the Jordan was the Decapolis; a collection of Hellenistic city-states that were clients of the Roman Empire. North of Galilee were the cities of Tyre and Sidon which were in the Roman province of Syria. Though non-Jewish lands surrounded the mostly Jewish territories of Judea and Galilee, Roman law and practice allowed Jews to remain separate legally and culturally.

This was the era of Hellenistic Judaism, which combined Jewish religious tradition with elements of Hellenistic culture. Until the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the Muslim conquests of the Eastern Mediterranean, the main centres of Hellenistic Judaism were Alexandria (Egypt) and Antioch (now Southern Turkey), the two main Greek colonies of the Middle East and North Africa area, both founded at the end of the 4th century BC in the wake of the conquests of Alexander the Great. Hellenistic Judaism also existed in Jerusalem during the Second Temple Period, where there was conflict between Hellenizers and traditionalists (sometimes called Judaizers). The Hebrew Bible was translated from Biblical Hebrew and Biblical Aramaic into Jewish Koine Greek; the Targum translations into Aramaic were also generated during this era, both due to the decline of knowledge of Hebrew.

Jews based their faith and religious practice on the Torah, five books said to have been given by God to Moses. The three prominent religious parties were the Pharisees, the Essenes, and the Sadducees. Together these parties represented only a small fraction of the population. Most Jews looked forward to a time when God would deliver them from their pagan rulers, possibly through war against the Romans.

New Testament scholars face a formidable challenge when they analyse the canonical Gospels. The Gospels are not biographies in the modern sense, and the authors explain Jesus's theological significance and recount his public ministry while omitting many details of his life. James Dunn has argued that the accounts of his teachings and life were initially conserved by oral transmission, which was the source of the written Gospels. The Gospels are commonly seen as literature that is based on oral traditions, Christian preaching, and Old Testament exegesis with the consensus being that they are a variation of Greco-Roman biography; similar to other ancient works such as Xenophon's Memoirs of Socrates.

The reports of supernatural events associated with Jesus's death and resurrection make the challenge even more difficult. Scholars regard the Gospels as compromised sources of information because the writers were trying to glorify Jesus. Ed Sanders argues that surviving textual sources provide more reliable details for Jesus's thoughts than they do for the thoughts of Alexander the Great, owing to the texts discussing Jesus being authored closer in time to the events they relate to. Biographies written about Alexander the Great during his own lifetime (who lived 330 years earlier) have all been lost, but are known of through references in biographies written by later authors. Although the texts about Jesus contain ideas from both Jesus and his later followers, it is possible to distinguish which parts originate from Jesus's own view, and which were ideas from his later followers.

Scholars use several criteria, such as the criterion of independent attestation, the criterion of coherence, and the criterion of discontinuity to judge the historicity of events. The historicity of an event also depends on the reliability of the source; indeed, the Gospels are not independent nor consistent records of Jesus's life. The Synoptics, especially Mark, the earliest written gospel, have been considered the most reliable sources of information about Jesus for many decades. John, the latest written gospel, differs considerably from the Synoptic Gospels, and has been considered less reliable, although John's gospel is seen as having more reliability than previously thought or sometimes even more reliable than the synoptics since the third quest.

Some scholars (such as the Jesus Seminar) believe that the non-canonical Gospel of Thomas might be an independent witness to many of Jesus's parables and aphorisms. For example, Thomas confirms that Jesus blessed the poor and that this saying circulated independently before being combined with similar sayings in the Q source. The majority of scholars are sceptical about this text and believe it should be dated to the 2nd century AD. Other select non-canonical Christian texts may also have value for historical Jesus research.

Early non-Christian sources that attest to the historical existence of Jesus include the works of the historians Josephus and Tacitus. Josephus scholar Louis Feldman has stated that "few have doubted the genuineness" of Josephus's reference to Jesus in book 20 of the Antiquities of the Jews, and it is disputed only by a small number of scholars. Tacitus referred to Christ and his execution by Pilate in book 15 of his work Annals. Scholars generally consider Tacitus's reference to the execution of Jesus to be both authentic and of historical value as an independent Roman source.

Non-Christian sources are valuable as they show that even neutral or hostile parties never show any doubt that Jesus existed. They present a rough picture of Jesus that is compatible with that found in the Christian sources: that Jesus was a teacher, had a reputation as a miracle worker, had a brother James, and died a violent death.

Archaeology helps scholars better understand Jesus's social world. For example, it indicates that Capernaum, a city important in Jesus's ministry, was poor and small, without even a forum or an agora. This archaeological discovery resonates well with the scholarly view that Jesus advocated reciprocal sharing among the destitute in that area of Galilee.

Jesus was a Galilean Jew, born around the beginning of the 1st century, who died in AD 30 or 33 in Judea. The general scholarly consensus is that Jesus was a contemporary of John the Baptist and was crucified as ordered by the Roman governor Pontius Pilate, who held office from AD 26 to 36.

The Gospels offer several indications concerning the year of Jesus's birth. Matthew 2:1 associates the birth of Jesus with the reign of Herod the Great, who died around 4 BC, and Luke 1:5 mentions that Herod was on the throne shortly before the birth of Jesus, although this gospel also associates the birth with the Census of Quirinius which took place ten years later. Luke 3:23 states that Jesus was "about thirty years old" at the start of his ministry, which according to Acts 10:37–38 was preceded by John the Baptist's ministry, which was recorded in Luke 3:1–2 to have begun in the 15th year of Tiberius's reign (AD 28 or 29). By collating the gospel accounts with historical data and using various other methods, most scholars arrive at a date of birth for Jesus between 6 and 4 BC, but some propose estimates that include a wider range.

The date range for Jesus's ministry has been estimated using several different approaches. One of these applies the reference in Luke 3:1–2, Acts 10:37–38, and the dates of Tiberius's reign, which are well known, to give a date of around AD 28–29 for the start of Jesus's ministry. Another approach estimates a date around AD 27–29 by using the statement about the temple in John 2:13–20, which asserts that the temple in Jerusalem was in its 46th year of construction at the start of Jesus's ministry, together with Josephus's statement that the temple's reconstruction was started by Herod the Great in the 18th year of his reign. A further method uses the date of the death of John the Baptist and the marriage of Herod Antipas to Herodias, based on the writings of Josephus, and correlates it with Matthew 14:4 and Mark 6:18. Given that most scholars date the marriage of Herod and Herodias as AD 28–35, this yields a date about AD 28–29.

Various approaches have been used to estimate the year of the crucifixion of Jesus. Most scholars agree that he died in AD 30 or 33. The Gospels state that the event occurred during the prefecture of Pilate. The date for the conversion of Paul (estimated to be AD 33–36) acts as an upper bound for the date of Crucifixion. The dates for Paul's conversion and ministry can be determined by analysing the Pauline epistles and the Acts of the Apostles. Astronomers have tried to estimate the precise date of the Crucifixion by analysing lunar motion and calculating historic dates of Passover, a festival based on the lunisolar Hebrew calendar. The most widely accepted dates derived from this method are 7 April AD 30, and 3 April AD 33 (both Julian).

Nearly all historians (both modern and historical) agree that Jesus was a real person who historically existed. Scholars have reached a limited consensus on the basics of Jesus's life.

Many scholars including biblical ones agree that Joseph, Jesus's father, died before Jesus began his ministry. Joseph is not mentioned in the Gospels during Jesus's ministry. Joseph's death would explain why in Mark 6:3, Jesus's neighbours refer to Jesus as the "son of Mary" (sons were usually identified by their fathers).

According to Theissen and Merz, it is common for extraordinary charismatic leaders, such as Jesus, to come into conflict with their ordinary families.

Jesus's teachings and the retelling of his life story have significantly influenced the course of human history, and have directly or indirectly affected the lives of billions of people, even non-Christians, worldwide. He is considered by many people to be the most influential figure to have ever lived, finding a significant place in numerous cultural contexts.

Apart from his own disciples and followers, the Jews of Jesus's day generally rejected him as the messiah, as does Judaism today. Christian theologians, ecumenical councils, reformers and others have written extensively about Jesus over the centuries. Christian denominations have often been defined or characterized by their descriptions of Jesus. Meanwhile, Manichaeans, Gnostics, Muslims, Druzes, the Baháʼís, and others have found prominent places for Jesus in their religions.

Jesus is the central figure of Christianity. Although Christian views of Jesus vary, it is possible to summarize the key beliefs shared by the major denominations, as stated in their catechetical or confessional texts. Christian views of Jesus are derived from the texts of the New Testament, including the canonical gospels and letters such as the Pauline epistles and the Johannine writings. These documents outline the key Christian beliefs about Jesus, including his divinity, humanity, and earthly life, and that he is the Christ and the Son of God. Despite their many shared beliefs, not all Christian denominations agree on all doctrines, and both major and minor differences on teachings and beliefs have persisted throughout Christianity for centuries.

The New Testament states that the resurrection of Jesus is the foundation of the Christian faith. Christian doctrine holds that through his sacrificial death and resurrection, humans can be reconciled with God and are thereby offered salvation and the promise of eternal life. Recalling the words of John the Baptist in the gospel of John, these doctrines sometimes refer to Jesus as the Lamb of God, who was crucified to fulfil his role as the servant of God. Jesus is thus seen as the new and last Adam, whose obedience contrasts with Adam's disobedience. Christians view Jesus as a role model, whose God-focused life believers are encouraged to imitate.

Most branches of Christianity believe that Jesus is both human and the Son of God. While there has been theological debate over his nature, Trinitarian Christians generally believe that Jesus is the Logos, God's incarnation and God the Son, both fully divine and fully human. The doctrine of the Trinity is not universally accepted among Christians. With the Reformation, Christians such as Michael Servetus and the Socinians started questioning the ancient creeds that had established Jesus's two natures. Nontrinitarian Christian groups include the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Unitarians and Jehovah's Witnesses.

Christians revere not only Jesus but also his name. Devotions to the Holy Name of Jesus go back to the earliest days of Christianity. These devotions and feasts exist in both Eastern and Western Christianity.

In Christian Gnosticism (now a largely extinct religious movement), Jesus was sent from the divine realm and provided the secret knowledge (gnosis) necessary for salvation. It is important to note that Gnosticism is not a homogeneous religion, but an umbrella term used by modern scholars to describe diverse religious and philosophical ideas and systems that emerged in the late first century among early Christian sects and other religious movements.

Most Gnostics believed that Jesus was a human who became possessed by the spirit of "the Christ" at his baptism. This spirit left Jesus's body during the crucifixion but was rejoined to him when he was raised from the dead. Some Gnostics were docetics, believing that Jesus did not have a physical body, but only appeared to possess one. The Gnostic Jesus can both differ greatly from the Christian Jesus, but also build on him. For instance, the Testimony of Truth, a Gnostic Christian text found in the Nag Hammadi library buried around 400 AD, explains that the serpent in Genesis 3 who instructs Adam and Eve is Jesus.

Judaism rejects the idea of Jesus (or any future Jewish messiah) being God, or a mediator to God, or part of a Trinity. It holds that Jesus is not the messiah, arguing that he neither fulfilled the messianic prophecies in the Tanakh nor embodied the personal qualifications of the Messiah. Jews argue that Jesus did not fulfil prophecies to build the Third Temple, gather Jews back to Israel, bring world peace, and unite humanity under the God of Israel. Furthermore, according to Jewish tradition, there were no prophets after Malachi, who delivered his prophecies in the 5th century BC.

Judaic criticism of Jesus is long-standing and includes a range of stories found in the Talmud, written and compiled between the 3rd and 5th centuries. In one such story, Yeshu HaNozri ('Jesus the Nazarene'), a lewd apostate, is executed by the Jewish high court for spreading idolatry and practising magic. According to some, the form Yeshu is an acronym which in Hebrew reads "may his name and memory be blotted out". The majority of contemporary scholars consider that this material provides no information on the historical Jesus. The Mishneh Torah, a late 12th-century work of Jewish law written by Moses Maimonides, states that Jesus is a "stumbling block" who makes "the majority of the world to err and serve a god other than the Lord".

Mediaeval Hebrew literature contains the anecdotal "Episode of Jesus" (known also as Toledot Yeshu), in which Jesus is described as being the son of Joseph, the son of Pandera (see: Episode of Jesus). The account portrays Jesus as an imposter.

Manichaeism, an ancient religious movement, became one of the earliest organized religions outside of Christianity to honour Jesus as a significant figure. Within the Manichaean belief system, Jesus is revered alongside other prominent prophets such as Zoroaster, Gautama Buddha, and Mani himself.

A major figure in Islam, Jesus (often referred to by his Quranic name ʿĪsā) is considered to be a messenger of God and the messiah (al-Masīḥ) who was sent to guide the Children of Israel (Banī Isrāʾīl) with a new scripture, the Gospel (referred to in Islam as Injīl). The form ʿĪsē is a pre-Islamic phonosemantic correspondence with the Safaitic name ʿsy, attested in Arabian inscriptions. Muslims regard the gospels' accounts in the New Testament as partially authentic, and believe that Jesus's original message was altered (taḥrīf) and that Muhammad came later to revive it. Belief in Jesus (and all other messengers of God) is a requirement for being a Muslim. The Quran mentions Jesus by name 25 times—more often than Muhammad—and emphasizes that Jesus was a mortal human who, like all other prophets, had been divinely chosen to spread God's message. While the Quran affirms the Virgin birth of Jesus, he is considered to be neither an incarnation nor the son of God. Islamic texts emphasize a strict notion of monotheism (tawḥīd) and forbid the association of partners with God, which would be idolatry.

The Quran describes the annunciation to Mary (Maryam) by the Holy Spirit that she is to give birth to Jesus while remaining a virgin. It calls the virgin birth a miracle that occurred by the will of God. The Quran (21:91 and 66:12) states that God breathed his spirit into Mary while she was chaste. Jesus is called a "spirit from God" because he was born through the action of the Spirit, but that belief does not imply his pre-existence.

To aid in his ministry to the Jewish people, Jesus was given the ability to perform miracles, by permission of God rather than by his own power. Through his ministry, Jesus is seen as a precursor to Muhammad. In the Quran (4:155–160) it is said that the Jews claim to have killed Jesus in a similar manner to previous prophets sent to them, but that this was only made to appear that way, and that they neither killed nor crucified him and that he was raised into the heavens by God and that he will testify against the Jews during the Day of Resurrection.

According to most classic Sunni and Twelver Shi'ite interpretations of these verses, the likeness of Jesus was cast upon a substitute (most often one of his disciples), who was crucified in Jesus's stead. Some mediaeval Muslims, including the ghulāt writing under the name of al-Mufaddal ibn Umar al-Ju'fi, the Brethren of Purity, various Isma'ili philosophers, and the Sunni mystic al-Ghazali, affirmed the historicity of Jesus's crucifixion. These thinkers held the docetic view that, although Jesus's human body had died on the cross, his spirit had survived and ascended into heaven, so that his death was only an appearance. Nevertheless, to Muslims it is the ascension rather than the crucifixion that constitutes a major event in the life of Jesus. There is no mention of his resurrection on the third day, and his death plays no special role in Islamic theories of salvation. Jesus is a central figure in Islamic eschatology: Muslims believe that he will return to Earth at the end of time and defeat the Antichrist (ad-Dajjal) by killing him.

According to the Quran, the coming of Muhammad (also called "Ahmad") was predicted by Jesus:

And ˹remember˺ when Jesus, son of Mary, said, "O children of Israel! I am truly Allah's messenger to you, confirming the Torah which came before me, and giving good news of a messenger after me whose name will be Aḥmad." Yet when the Prophet came to them with clear proofs, they said, "This is pure magic."

Through this verse, early Arab Muslims claimed legitimacy for their new faith in the existing religious traditions and the predictions of Jesus.

The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community has several teachings about Jesus. Ahmadis believe that he was a mortal man who survived his crucifixion and died a natural death at the age of 120 in Kashmir, India, and is buried at Roza Bal.

In the Druze faith, Jesus is considered and revered as one of the seven spokesmen or prophets (natiq), defined as messengers or intermediaries between God and mankind, along with figures including Moses, Muhammad and Muhammad ibn Isma'il, each of them sent at a different period of history to preach the message of God. In Druze tradition, Jesus is known under three titles: the True Messiah (al-Masih al-Haq), the Messiah of all Nations (Masih al-Umam), and the Messiah of Sinners. This is due, respectively, to the belief that Jesus delivered the true Gospel message, the belief that he was the Saviour of all nations, and the belief that he offers forgiveness.

In the Baháʼí Faith, Jesus is considered one of the Manifestations of God, defined as divine messengers or prophets sent by God to guide humanity, along with other religious figures such as Moses, Krishna, Zoroaster, Buddha, Muhammad, and Baháʼu'lláh. Baháʼís believe that these religious founders or leaders have contributed to the progressive revelation by bringing spiritual and moral values to humanity in their own time and place. As a Manifestation of God, Jesus is believed to reflect God's qualities and attributes, but is not considered the only saviour of humanity nor the incarnation of God. Baháʼís believe in the virgin birth, but see the resurrection and the miracles of Jesus as symbolic.

Hinduism has no established set of beliefs and no universal or common view of Jesus. However, a lot of Hindus, including religious and political leaders, tend to variously consider Jesus as either a Āchārya, Sadhu or Avatar. Some Hare Krishnas also claim that Jesus Christ is an exemplary Hare Krishna devotee, and was predicted and prophesied in the Bhavishya Purana.

Paramahansa Yogananda, an Indian guru, taught that Jesus was the reincarnation of Elisha and a student of John the Baptist, the reincarnation of Elijah.

As in other Early Christian art, the earliest depictions date to the late 2nd or early 3rd century, and surviving images are found in the Catacombs of Rome. Some of the earliest depictions of Jesus at the Dura-Europos church date to before 256. A wide range of depictions of Jesus appeared during the next two millennia, influenced by cultural settings, political circumstances and theological contexts.

The depiction of Christ in pictorial form was highly controversial in the early Church. From the 5th century, flat painted icons became popular in the Eastern Church. The Byzantine Iconoclasm acted as a barrier to developments in the East, but by the 9th century, art was permitted again. The Protestant Reformation brought renewed resistance to imagery, but total prohibition was atypical, and Protestant objections to images have tended to reduce since the 16th century. Although large images are generally avoided, few Protestants now object to book illustrations depicting Jesus. The use of depictions of Jesus is advocated by the leaders of denominations such as Anglicans and Catholics and is a key element of the Eastern Orthodox tradition.

In Eastern Christian art, the Transfiguration was a major theme, with every Eastern Orthodox monk trained in icon painting having to prove his craft by painting an icon depicting it. Icons receive the external marks of veneration, such as kisses and prostration, and they are thought to be powerful channels of divine grace.

In Western Europe, the Renaissance brought forth artists who focused on depictions of Jesus; Fra Angelico and others followed Giotto in the systematic development of uncluttered images. Before the Protestant Reformation, the crucifix was common in Western Christianity. It is a model of the cross with Jesus crucified on it. The crucifix became the central ornament of the altar in the 13th century, a use that has been nearly universal in Roman Catholic churches since then.