JESUS CHRIST

In a previous post, we have shown that the entire human race existed as spirit-beings in the primeval world, and that for the purpose of making possible to them the experiences of mortality this earth was created. They were endowed with the powers of agency or choice while yet but spirits; and the divine plan provided that they be free-born in the flesh, heirs to the inalienable birthright of liberty to choose and to act for themselves in mortality. It is undeniably essential to the eternal progression of God’s children that they be subjected to the influences of both good and evil, that they be tried and tested and proved withal, “to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them” (Job 38:7). Free agency is an indispensable element of such a test. (more…)

Yes! Jesus Christ had a high respect for women, often including them as positive role models of faith and dedication in his teaching and parables (see, for example, the widow of Zarephath who fed Elijah, Luke 4:25-26; and the woman who gave her two mites into the treasury, Mark 12:42-44). Although the New Testament accounts of the women who followed Jesus are limited in their number and scope, it is still clear that they played a role in Jesus Christ’s ministry. (more…)

Why is Jesus Christ associated with Nazareth?

Nazareth, a small village in Upper Galilee, was the boyhood home of Jesus. Joseph and Mary, according to the New Testament, returned there sometime after Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem, a small town in Judea in the south (Matthew 2:23). From Jesus’ youth until he was thirty years of age, Nazareth was his home.

During this period it was not uncommon for a person to be identified with the town where he or she was born or lived (see for example Luke 8:2 where Mary of Magdala is mentioned). As a result, Jesus Christ is identified with Nazareth some seventeen times in the New Testament as “Jesus of Nazareth.”

Even in his death, though he had left Nazareth nearly three years earlier, Jesus was identified with the small village off the main road in the hills of Galilee: “And Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross. And the writing was, Jesus of Nazareth the King of the Jews” (John 19:19).

A few years later, following the Resurrection, Peter began to reach out beyond his Jewish people when he visited the Roman centurion, Cornelius, in Caesarea Maritima to share the “good news.” In this momentous meeting, Peter began his famous sermon with the geographical identification of Jesus’ boyhood home: “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil, for God was with him” (Acts 10:38). As the missionary work of the disciples spread across the Mediterranean basin and the Near East, people well beyond the Holy Land learned about Jesus of Nazareth.

In addition to the traditional name connection to a place, Matthew believed that Jesus’ identification with Nazareth was already known by early Hebrew prophets, “He came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene.” (Matthew 2:23).

Nazareth as it may have appeared during the first century A.D. Used by permission, Balage Balogh.

Nazareth’s Place in the New Testament Story

The Return of the King, [Matthew] 2:19-23

This third passage in Matthew 2 begins with the same structure as we find in the previous one about the flight into Egypt-the angel of the Lord appears to Joseph in a dream and gives a command to get up and take the child and his mother and go back to the land of Israel, to which command Joseph arises and does exactly as he is told (noting the parallel language in vv. 14 and 21). Going to Judea again was truly a good idea, since Herod’s son Archelaeus was ruling there, and so having been warned of this in a dream, he withdrew to the “district” of Galilee, going to live in the small town of Nazareth. This, too, is seen as a fulfillment of Scripture, but notice that here prophets (plural) are referred to for the quotation “he shall be called a Nazarene.”

It has been difficult to find a Scripture or even a combination of Scriptures that match these words. One ingenious suggestion is that Isaiah 11:1 in the Hebrew lies in the background, which speaks of the NZR “branch” from the stump of Jesse, a reference to the messianic figure also referred to as Immanuel in Isaiah 7:14. In favor of this association is the fact that at Qumran, the “branch” in this passage was also interpreted messianically (1QH 6.15: 7.6-19). Though a different Hebrew word is used for branch, this same way of speaking of a messianic figure is found in Jeremiah 23:5; 33:15; Zechariah 3:8 and 6:12. What we are seeing here is indeed midrashic use of the Old Testament, and the combination of such Scriptural material with stories of Jesus, creatively woven together, has been called a midrashic haggadah, but it would be better called midrash and haggadah (narrative), for we have no reason to think the story itself is being embroidered except by the creative addition and handling of the Old Testament.

Another suggestion is that Matthew has in mind the notion of being a Nazarite, which is the term substituted for “one set apart” or a “holy one unto the Lord” in the LXX (cf. Isa 4:3; Judg 13:5-7; 16:17). Jesus Christ then is seen as one holy unto God, a conclusion that might find support in Matthew 19:10-12 if Jesus is referring to himself. However, the usual characterization of Jesus as one who ate and drank with sinners and at weddings (cf. John 2 to Mark 1-3) does not comport with the notion that he took a Nazaritic vow. This suggestion then seems less likely than the connection with the branch oracle.

On the surface of things, the impression left by this account is that Joseph and his family are moving to Nazareth for the first time. What is odd about this story is that of course, another son of Herod, Herod Antipas, was ruling in Galilee, so why would Galilee be better than Judea for the family? But then one must also ask why would Joseph move to such an out of the way town unless there were already family connections there. Or was it chosen precisely because in a town of 500-1,500 at the most, they would be able to disappear or become inconspicuous? It is a town nowhere mentioned in the Old Testament or in earlier Jewish sources, which may explain why the exegetical gymnastics were necessary to relate this move to Nazareth to the Old Testament. Though many scholars think it is difficult to reconcile this account with what Luke 2:39-40 says, which suggests that Jesus’ family was originally from Nazareth, both accounts agree on this key point-that Jesus grew up in Nazareth and came to be called Jesus of Nazareth. It is interesting that one of the castes of priests settled there after the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70, which suggests that it was seen as a ritually pure place.

Ben Witherington III, Matthew, (Macon: Smyth & Helwys Publishing, 2006) . 71-2

Ben Witherington III is Professor of New Testament Interpretation at Ashbury Theological in Wilmore, Kentucky.

Cities, Towns and Village: Nazareth in Context

Cities, as the dwelling places of elites, dominated the social and geographical landscape of Greco-roman antiquity. Elites built, controlled, and inhabited the cities. Caesarea and Jerusalem, of course, were major urban centers in Judea. Herod the Great constructed Caesarea to provide a port on the coast of Palestine and a monumental statement of loyalty to Caesar August. Major cities in the Galilee of Jesus included Sepphoris [modern Zippori] and Tiberias. These cities were founded by Herod Antipas and were the headquarters of Herodian officials. Not surprisingly, in view of the interest of the Jesus movement, they are never mentioned in the Gospels. Capernaum, Tarichese (Magdala), and Cana were administrative towns for fishing and agriculture. Peasants of the Galilean countryside lived in small villages like Nazareth or Nain.

K.C. Hanson and Douglas E. Oakman, Palestine in the time of Jesus: Social Structures and social Conflicts (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998), 116-117

K.C. Hanson has taught biblical studies at Episcopal Theological School and the School of Theology at Claremont, Creighton University and St. Olaf College

Douglas E. Oakman is dean of Humanities and professor of Religion at Pacific Lutheran University, Tacoma, Washington

Among the four canonical Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke are sometimes referred to as the “Synoptic Gospels.” Literally, synoptic means “with the same eye” and refers to the fact that these Gospels share the same material and are closely related to each other.

The apocryphal letters that purportedly gave a physical description of Jesus Christ have long since been recognized as inauthentic. Post-New Testament authors often let their imaginations roam on issues that were either not clear or totally absent from the New Testament itself, providing for their readers information that the New Testament authors did not provide. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John most likely never imagined that readers in the twenty-first century would be interested in Jesus’ height, the length of his hair, the color of his eyes, or the color of his beard-if he had one.

Often a subtle tension exists between the idea of Jesus as a model of mental and physical perfection and the idea expressed in Isaiah that “when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him” (Isaiah 53:2). This passage raises some intriguing questions. What does Isaiah mean when he says that the mortal Messiah would have “no beauty”? And should we consider that the mortal Jesus may have had an appearance that was different from the physically perfected, resurrected Lord?

Throughout time, deity has been portrayed as the direct manifestation of a given culture’s view of physical and mental perfection. Western artists’ views of Jesus Christ are, therefore, generally based on their own culture and their own society and not on the culture and society of the first century in Jewish Palestine. A fixed or standard image of Jesus was created by the Western culture in the late middle ages, and although all societies modify the image slightly, the basic representation has remained quite constant ever since. Of course, these images are based on depictions by artist who did not know from personal experience what Jesus Christ looked like, nor did they have access to an authentic description written by someone who did meet him.

People in antiquity were generally susceptible to disease, lacked proper dental care, and lacked daily hygiene opportunities that most modern Westerners experience and expect (shampoo, for example). Because of dietary restrictions, people were generally smaller than those living today. After all, Jesus Christs was a Jew who lived in the Middle East more than two thousand years ago. He spoke a different language and lived in a culture that in many ways was alien to our modern cultures. He had limited culinary experiences-a lack not only of variety in diet but also of quality and quantity (like fresh meat). He most likely would not have met our modern standard of a daily change of clean clothes. And his bathing habits, based on his own culture, would certainly not have been like our current obsession for cleanliness. His access to medical and dental care was limited, by our standards, and like most of his countrymen in Nazareth and Capernaum, he rarely experienced the Roman sanitation advances that could be found in Jerusalem or in other large cities of the empire. Most likely he was relatively short, compared to many men today, and had an olive complexion, angular features, prominent brows, brown eyes, black or brown hair, and a black or brown beard, although there might have been some recessive blue-eye, red-hair genes among ancient Jews.

Mark, more than any other writer, preserves a view of Jesus Christ’s humanity in the Passion Narratives. His prayer in Gethsemane may be the best example: “Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee: take away this cup from me” (Mark 14:36). Throughout his narrative, Mark informs those hearing the story that Jesus needed to sleep, eat, be alone, and, of course, pray-to do these things is human.

If Mark’s telling of the story is based on Peter’s memoirs, we may be seeing a word-picture based on Peter’s own recollections. If so, we can appreciate the frank portrayal presented here, which is particularly critical of Peter himself. It should be remembered that Peter’s real name was Simon. Jesus Christ renamed him as Peter (from Greek or Latin) or Cephas (from Hebrew or Aramaic), which means “rock or stone.” In Mark, Peter is always referred to by this new name Jesus gave to him until this point, where Jesus says: “Simon, sleepest thou?” (Mark 14:37); emphasis added). Perhaps Jesus’ use of Simon instead of Peter is significant, revealing that Peter has not yet become the rock.

Mark portrays Jesus’ agony in Gethsemane in clear and moving language. Jesus Christ is God’s Son, yet he is endowed with the human desire to live, to avoid suffering and death. The name that Jesus uses in his cry to God, Abba (Father), heightens the pathos of this tragic scene. Another Bible translation gets to the point in a different way, which may help us not only to feel what the scripture says but also to understand it better; “He took with him Peter, James and John, and began to be horror-stricken and desperately depressed. ‘My heart is breaking with a death-like grief,’ he told them. ‘Stay here and keep watch.’ Then he walked forward a little way and flung himself on the ground, praying that, if it were possible, the hour might pass him by. ‘Dear Father,’ he said, ‘all things are possible to you. Let me not have to drink this cup! Yet it is not what I want but what you want’” (Mark 14:33-36; Phillips Translation).