Jesus
We’re part of the Christian family – that is, the foundation of our life, belief and hope is in Jesus.
If you want to read more about the life of Jesus, you might like to download the gospel of Mark. It’s a short and action-packed account of Jesus life.
This page contains some information about Jesus, and the Jesus Way. For more information, contact us or a church near you.
Who did Jesus think he was?
Getting a straight answer from Jesus doesn’t seem to have been too easy. In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus asks his closest disciples what their answer to the question is.
“You are the Messiah,” says Peter.
“Don’t tell anyone about me,” is his only response. This kind of elusiveness seems to have been typical.
The same goes for “Son of God”. “Whenever the people who had evil spirits in them saw him they would fall down and scream, ‘You are the Son of God’. Jesus sternly ordered the evil spirits not to tell anyone who he was” (Mark 3:11-12).
The only time Jesus is explicit is at his trial. The High Priest asks, “Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed God?”
“I am.” And for this he is sentenced to death. (Mark 14:62-64)
So, according to Mark, Jesus kept his cards close to his chest. In John’s Gospel, the picture is very different. There Jesus speaks openly and at great length about who he is: the unique Son of God, the way to the Father, the Saviour of the world. “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” is one of his most striking claims. (John 14:9)
Did Jesus claim to be God?
As far as we know, Jesus never, in so many words, said: “I am God”. This is why some groups, such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who believe in every word of the Bible, don’t believe that he was.
So where did the mainstream church get the idea from in the first place?
They were trying to make sense of the extraordinary things Jesus said and did. He said that he forgave people’s sins – something which Jews believed could only be done by God. He claimed the right to rework God’s law. He explained his mission by telling stories about God visiting Israel.
There are implications here – which were bewildering to his followers and blasphemous to his opponents – that Jesus believed God to be present in him in a unique way.
How could Jesus really be God?
In a sense the church has never really answered the “how” question, because it never really tried to.
The Christian question has always been “What does it mean to talk about Jesus as God?” And the official answer is that he had two “natures”: divinity and humanity. He was fully divine and completely human at the same time.
As for the technicalities of how this works, the church has always considered this (correctly, I’m sure) beyond its competence to answer. Some things are just too big and mysterious for us to fully understand.
Before we decide how Jesus can be God, do we even have much of a clue what it means to say that God is “God”?
Was Jesus more important than other religious leaders?
Well, probably more important than the Archbishop of Canterbury! It all really comes down to who you think Jesus was. Here are two possible ways of looking at Jesus’ relationship to other world religious leaders:
He was a great teacher – he and other religious teachers such as Buddha and Muhammad pointed out a spiritual path, and millions have followed these paths, finding spiritual growth and a relationship with God through doing so. The differences in their teaching just make the different paths suitable for different people.
He was the only Son of God – this is the traditional Christian understanding, and it puts the life and teaching of Jesus into a completely different category to the life and teaching of other religious leaders. This has often been expressed by Christians by saying, “the teaching of Buddha and Muhammad contain important truths, but Jesus is the truth.”
If Jesus is the Son of God in a unique sense, then it means that knowing Jesus is the only God-given way to know God. As Jesus says in the Gospel of John: “I am the way, the truth and the life; no one goes to the Father except by me.”
Why has Jesus had such a big impact on the world?
Probably the best way to answer this is to have a look at the first few centuries of Christianity, when the church grew from an obscure Jewish sect to dominate the Roman empire.
One main reason for this must be that his followers stuck with their faith throughout many periods of intense persecution, often going to their deaths rather than abandon it. Their heroism and devotion had a tremendous influence on people’s opinions (and similar stories of faith under fire had the same effect later in history).
Why were Jesus’s followers so unrelenting? One reason must be that Jesus promised eternal life to his followers, so that martyrdom was the road to glory as well as a terrible ordeal. Another is that they were passionately devoted to Jesus himself, because of the difference his teachings had made to their lives, and because of their experience of his risen presence and personality.
And not least, there was the example of Jesus’s own suffering and death: he had already made the self-sacrifice that the faith demanded of them. This is how Christianity first won the hearts and minds of the Roman world, which covered three continents.
Another crucial point is that even in Jesus’ own lifetime he sent his followers out to spread his message, so from the very start Christianity was a missionary faith. His commands to spread the word, recorded in the Bible, have been taken up over and again throughout the centuries, as missionaries have taken the teachings of Jesus back into Asia and Africa, and to the Americas.
Was Jesus an alien?
Well… I suppose people who believe a first-century carpenter was the Son of God haven’t got any right to snigger.
All sorts of ideas have been offered to explain the events of Jesus’ birth and life, and since the 1950s alien activity has become an intriguing option. The conventional idea that God came and lived on earth as a human being is fairly remarkable, but some prefer an explanation that is perhaps even more remarkable. Christians reckon Jesus was exceptional and extraordinary, but not extraterrestrial.
Was Jesus a magician?
Even among those who are sceptical about the biblical stories and beliefs about Jesus, many accept that he seems to have been a successful healer and exorcist.
Whether you attribute this to his being God in human form, to – in Jesus’ own words – the finger of God, or simply to some kind of power beyond our knowledge and understanding, you’ve got to admit that his healing and miraculous powers are impressive.
People who think that Jesus was only a magician have to ask themselves: why has he had such a big impact on the world? There were plenty of “wonder-workers” in the ancient world, so what made Jesus so different?
What were Jesus’s basic teachings?
It’s hard to cram everything that the greatest religious teacher in history ever said into a few soundbites, but here goes…
The kingdom of God – the long-awaited rule of God is breaking into the world, through Jesus. He called people to become part of it by turning from their sins back to God, however holy or unholy they might have been. The kingdom of God would be a counter-culture where the poor are blessed and the first will be last.
God is your Father – God looks on us all as his children, and though he is angered by injustice and immorality, he calls sinners to return to him and promises forgiveness. He loves and provides for his children.
Love each other – we ought to love each other as God loves us. We must forgive those who let us down and repay hatred with love. We must do good not only to friends and family, not only to fellow believers, but to those who wrong and hurt us.
Why did Jesus tell stories?
Stories are good. That’s why we enjoy watching films and soaps, listening to stand-up comics and reading books, and aren’t so keen about listening to speeches and sermons.
In fact, Jesus does seem to have done some pretty straight sermons, too. That one about “turn the other cheek” and “go the extra mile”, for example. But some of his words that best stick in your mind are the stories. The Good Samaritan… the Prodigal Son… the Lost Sheep, and so on. Which is probably why Jesus liked to tell stories.
All of Jesus’s stories address spiritual issues in a way that (a) isn’t boring, (b) sticks in your mind, and (c) challenges you to think for yourself.
Take the Prodigal Son, for example. The religious leaders were getting deeply stressed with Jesus for hanging out with the “spiritually unclean” (such as prostitutes and tax collectors). Their attitude was: God doesn’t like them and neither do we.
Jesus explained why he spent time with them by telling a story: the son abandons his father, squanders his money, and ends up on the skids, cleaning out the pigs (and remember, pigs were themselves seen as unclean animals). The son eventually creeps back home when he’s broke and has nowhere else to go.
Does the father give him a good smack and send him packing? No, he is ecstatic and throws a huge party for him. Meanwhile the older brother who has stuck by dad religiously all these years has a big sulk, because his black-sheep brother doesn’t deserve this special treatment.
It’s a wonderful illustration of God’s attitude to sinners, but it also challenges listeners to decide what their own attitude should be, and whose side they’re on.
What is the kingdom of God?
The kingdom of God is an idea that is central to Jesus’s teaching and his life. He announced the coming of the kingdom and called upon his followers to work and pray towards that end.
So what does it mean?
“The kingdom of God” is not a phrase Jesus invented. Jewish revolutionaries at the time wanted to throw off imperial Roman rule and get rid of the monarchy, so that there would be no king but God. Many of Jesus’s followers seem to have assumed that he had the same manifesto.
But Jesus clearly had no interest in taking on the Roman army. He called for the people of Israel to become “one nation under God” even under its oppression by Rome, and for his followers to make a start by being a holy community.
For Jesus, the kingdom of God seems to have been more about God ruling in our lives than about who rules the country, and this is one reason why his teaching has made sense around the world – it applies equally to everyone everywhere. In practice, it was a mix of personal spiritual life – such as praying, forgiving, giving, holiness – and social change – such as a new attitude to the excluded, to women, to foreigners and to the poor.
“Now and not yet” is a phrase often used to describe Jesus’s attitude to the kingdom. In one sense he was proclaiming its arrival: the kingdom was coming now through his own life and work, and that of his followers. But there is also a strong sense that he saw the kingdom not only as something that we would always be working towards, but something that would only be fully realised in the world to come.
What were Jesus’ politics?
It’s probably a mistake to try to fit Jesus too snugly under any modern political labels – left-wing, right-wing, Euro-sceptic. The political world of his time was just too different.
But it’s equally wrong to say that he was of the “bishops should stay out of politics” persuasion, that he was only interested in “religion” and steered clear of the whole political vipers’ nest. For Jesus, like any first-century Jew, politics and religion were inextricably mixed.
So what were Jesus’ politics? Basically: the kingdom of God. Central to everything Jesus said is his announcement of the kingdom of God and his insistence that we should work and pray towards that end. That much is clear. What’s not so clear is what “the kingdom of God” actually means.
It’s not a phrase Jesus invented. Jewish revolutionaries at the time wanted to throw off imperial Roman rule, and even the monarchy, and have no king but God. This wasn’t an excuse for anarchy – like Cromwell in the English revolution, they wanted a regime of holiness and the law of the scriptures.
Many of Jesus’ followers seem to have assumed that he had the same manifesto.
But Jesus clearly had no interest in taking on the Roman army. He called for the people of Israel to become “one nation under God” even under its present oppression, and for his followers to make a start by being a holy community.
Which sounds exactly like rejecting politics for religion. Except that he also called for – and practised himself – some radical social changes: an end to the social exclusion of the “spiritually unclean” (such as prostitutes and people who collected taxes for the Romans), a more inclusive attitude to women and non-Jews, a rejection of violence, and social justice for the poor.
What would Jesus think of the church?
Delighted that his teaching has been faithfully kept alive for two millennia, and is embraced by 2 billion people across the world. Maybe.
Or horrified that his radical vision of what life can be has been distorted into a backward-looking institution, complete with its own bureaucracy.
How you answer the question says more about your own opinion of the church than Jesus’.
One thing we can safely say is that Jesus was unsparingly critical of the religious establishment of his time, and even had some harsh words for his own followers, so he’d be bound to pick a fight with some of those who are part of the church today. But whom, and over what issues? Who can say?
Was St Paul the real founder of Christianity?
This is seriously maintained by some people. Their argument is not that Jesus didn’t exist, or that Paul wrote the Gospels: the point is that Paul took over the reins of Christianity after Jesus, and – allegedly – his writings took it in a very different direction to what Jesus taught in the Gospels.
Here’s the evidence…
1. In all Paul’s writings (there are 13 of his letters in the New Testament, though some may not have been by him) there is virtually no information about Jesus’s life, apart from his death and resurrection. Wasn’t Paul interested in these stories?
2. Paul seems to repeat astonishingly little of Jesus’ teachings. There are a handful of direct quotes, but little else. No parables, no Lord’s Prayer, none of those pithy sayings.
3. The kingdom of God is the one central theme of Jesus’ preaching, but it gets much less of an airing in Paul.
4. Paul never followed Jesus while he was alive, but was converted by a vision of the risen Christ. Did he lack knowledge of – or interest in – the life of Jesus?
5. No longer having to follow the Jewish Law was a major theme of Paul’s letters, but not something Jesus said much about.
People have tried various ways of explaining this:
1. Paul was a missionary and his writings are merely follow up letters to his converts. This means he has already told them all about Jesus, and he doesn’t need to repeat himself.
2. Not having first-hand knowledge of Jesus, he left all that stuff to people who did.
3. For a Jew, the crucifixion of God’s Messiah was one of the most offensive ideas imaginable, and “the age to come” one of the most glorious hopes. Once Paul accepted that the crucifixion and resurrection of the Messiah was God’s astounding way of bringing in that new age, here and now, this fact dwarfed everything else in the life of Jesus into relative insignificance.
4. He was a bit sensitive about not having been an original follower of Jesus, so he put all his stress on Jesus the risen Lord, than Jesus the Jewish teacher.
5. Jesus was a Jewish teacher, teaching and leading Jews in Palestine. Paul, though also Jewish, travelled the Roman world, preaching to and organising both Jews and Gentiles. This difference in situation meant that Paul had to interpret Jesus’s teachings considerably, even if he stayed true to the heart of them.
In balance, it’s hard to deny that Christianity took a significant change of direction under St Paul, but there’s no reason this was not a legitimate development of what Jesus himself began.
Was Jesus a Christian?
In a very important sense, no.
Jesus was Jewish, worshipped at the synagogue and the Temple, kept the Jewish religious law (on the whole), and there is no suggestion that he ever told his followers to split away from Judaism and join this new religion he’d just invented called Christianity.
Everything we know about his teaching was directed towards a renewal of the Jewish faith, not at establishing a new world religion.
But this is often how new churches start, because the old ones aren’t always too keen on being “renewed”. Protestantism was originally a movement to renew the Roman Catholic Church, and attempts to do the same to the Church of England have ended up as new churches too, such as the Methodists. The reformers either get kicked out, or they realize that the only way to have a renewed church is to leave the old church. This did not happen in Jesus’s lifetime, though, so he lived and died in the Jewish faith.
However, there is another angle to this question: did Jesus actually believe and teach all the things that became the beliefs of the Christian church?
Jesus certainly never said explicitly many of the things in the creeds of the church:
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven…
The church teaches these things both on the authority of the followers of Jesus who wrote the books of the New Testament, and as its own official interpretation of the surprising claims Jesus is reported to have made about himself. Such as: “The Father and I are one” (John 10:30) and “Before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58).
Is the church’s interpretation of Jesus correct? That’s the big question, and it’s open for each person to decide.
Did Jesus say he was coming back?
As usual, it depends on who you ask. According to traditional Christian understanding, yes. In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus predicts that the temple in Jerusalem will be destroyed and desecrated, amid terrible carnage (which happened in AD 70). He goes on to say this:
“At that time men will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. He will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens” (Mark 13:26-27).
On the other hand, liberal theologians in recent centuries have said that Jesus would never have talked like that, and that the early church put such words in his mouth when they wrote the Gospels, to reflect their own belief in his second coming.
However, such sceptics usually also say that Jesus cannot really have predicted the fall of Jerusalem, so the passage must have been written after it happened – which makes it somewhat bizarre for Mark to say that Jesus would come back at the same time. It would be like me predicting that Jesus would come back in the year 2000.
On yet another hand, there is a respectable scholarly opinion that the whole thing is simply a misunderstanding of what Jesus says in the Gospels. He talked, in picturesque language sometimes, about his coming, about God’s return to Israel, and about the future destruction of Jerusalem – and later readers have muddled or misinterpreted these teachings as predicting his own second coming.
St Paul was far more expansive about Jesus’s second coming. He proclaimed that Jesus would return to remake the heavens and earth, and judge the world, and he seems to have expected it imminently. Read what he said for yourself in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18.
What did Jesus say about God?
What did Jesus say about God? In 25 words or fewer. Well, here are one or two (i.e. four) pointers…
God loves people – Jesus constantly depicted God as the perfect father, full of unconditional love, wanting the best for us, helping us and providing for us.
God is just – God promises recompense for those who are hard done by, and retribution against those who oppress and mistreat people.
God forgives – God offers to wipe the slate clean for absolutely anyone who comes back to him and turns away from their wrongdoing.
God is at work in the world – Jesus saw his own mission as the power of God breaking into the world, and expected his followers to carry on the work.
What did Jesus say about Love?
Love was for Jesus probably the most vital ingredient in the way people should live. He said the two most important commands in the Hebrew scriptures were the one that said love God and the one that said love people.
This love, of course, is not to be confused with “lurve”. For Jesus, love was nothing much to do with feelings, but all to do with how you treat people. Neither was it a case of just being generally vaguely well-disposed to the human race. It meant actively doing for others what you would want if you were in their shoes. And more, it meant repaying evil with good.
Jesus made it clear that for himself love meant dying for the good of the world.
For Jesus love was not so much a nice feeling as a hard and often painful way of life…
“Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone hits you on the cheek, offer them the other cheek. If someone takes your cloak, don’t stop him taking your tunic. Give to everyone who begs, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you. After all, if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them” (Luke 6:27-32).
What did Jesus say about Sex?
Jesus was so far as we know single and celibate. He did not have the huge downer on sex that so many Christian thinkers throughout the centuries have had. On the other hand, he did not share our own age’s obsession with it. It’s a broad subject, of course, but here’s what Jesus said in some of the main areas of interest…
Marriage – he liked marriage, and saw it as a lifelong union between a man and woman (for more on this, see Divorce).
Adultery – Jesus took it for granted that adultery was wrong, a betrayal and a sin. But he went further, warning that if a husband merely lusted after another woman he was committing adultery in his heart. His followers were expected to strive for faithfulness of the mind and not just the body.
Sex before marriage – Jesus said nothing about this.
Celibacy – Jesus was presumably celibate himself, but he did not make a big thing about it. He never unambiguously held this up as a standard for all his followers.
Homosexuality – Jesus made no recorded comments about homosexuality at all.
What did Jesus say about Violence?
Jesus urged his followers not to resort to violence and not to hit back at those who hurt them. Was he only talking about personal, one-to-one situations? Or was he saying that we must have nothing to do with war, etc.?
It’s hard to say. The majority of Christian interpreters throughout history have said that war (and capital punishment, etc.) are perfectly in line with Jesus’s teaching. But a minority have insisted that Jesus called us all to live by non-violence in every way.
It is true that Jesus rejected the idea of a violent rising against the Roman occupation, despite the fact that the Messiah was generally expected to lead one. But he never explicitly forbade his followers from fighting in a war.
What did Jesus say about Worry?
Jesus reassured his followers that as children of God they did not need to worry, and tried to help them get things in perspective. Here are his famous words on the subject…
“Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink. Or about your body and what you’ll wear. Isn’t life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds. They don’t sow or reap or store food, but your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you much more valuable than they? Who by worrying can add a single hour to their life?… But seek first God’s kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Do not worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own” (Matthew 6:25-34).
What did Jesus say about Revenge?
Jesus pretty much ruled out revenge for his followers. The reason goes like this:
We are all sinners, we have all let down God, others and ourselves, and we need God to forgive and forget everything we have done wrong if we are to return to a proper relationship with him. This was central to Jesus’s message.
But if we cry to God for mercy, have him wipe out the vast debt we owe him, what right have we then got to remember all that we are owed by others, and exact revenge for every petty grudge we bear them?
“If you do not forgive those who sin against you,” Jesus said, “your Father will not forgive your sins” (Matthew 6:15).
What did Jesus say about Wealth?
Jesus had lots to say about wealth. He seemed to think weath is a dangerous thing – and in a society where wealth was generally seen as God’s reward to his favourites, this was controversial. Some of Jesus’ teaching…
God has a special concern for the poor – “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the Kingdom of God” (Luke 6:20).
Too much money does untold damage to the spiritual life – “No one can serve two masters. He will love one and hate the other. You cannot serve both God and money” (Matthew 6:24).
Those who have money have a duty to give to people in need – “Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back” (Luke 6:30).
Following Jesus may sometimes require the deliberate renunciation of wealth – “You lack one thing. Sell what you have and distribute the money to the poor” (Mark 10:21).
What did Jesus say about Prayer?
What did Jesus say about prayer? Lots and lots. For a start he taught his followers “the Lord’s Prayer”…
Father, hallowed be your name.
May your kingdom come,
and your will be done on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
Do not put us to the test.
(Luke 11:2-4)
Jesus also gave his followers plenty of specific instructions. Here are a few examples.
Pray simply – “Do not go on and on, babbling like the pagans, who think they’ll be heard because they use so many words” (Matthew 6:7).
Pray generously – “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44).
Pray with confidence – “Everyone who asks receives; those who seek find; and to those who knock the door will be opened. Which of you fathers, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” (Matthew 7:8-11).
Pray with persistence – “Jesus told his disciples this parable to tell them to keep praying and not give up. ‘There was a judge who cared neither for God nor man. A widow in his town kept coming to him with the plea, “Grant me justice against my adversary.” For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, “OK, I care neither for God nor man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t wear me out with her visits.“‘ Jesus said, ‘Think about what that unjust judge said. Won’t God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly’” (Luke 18:1-8).
What did Jesus say about Life after death?
Like other Jews, Jesus did not talk so much about dying and going to heaven (or elsewhere), as about dying and then everyone being raised from the dead in the age to come.
He never went into the subject much, in the sense of: “If you’re curious about the afterlife, here’s the lowdown.” But he did talk about it a fair bit. There were Jewish people in his day who believed in “one life, one death, and that’s your lot.” Jesus thoroughly disagreed with them. “You don’t know your Bibles,” he said. “Or the power of God.”
Other Jews believed in the Day of Resurrection. We all die, and lie around for a bit. Then at the end of the world, the dead are raised to life and judged by God, and the good guys get to live in a newly-recreated world. This seems to be what Jesus went along with.
But what about this day of judgment? Jesus talked about it as a way of setting the world right. There was to be recompense for those who missed their fair share and whose goodness had gone unrewarded, and justice for those who had done wrong and got away with it.
If this sounds very familiar, though, be warned. The stereotyped Christian idea of heaven and hell – a choice between eternity with goatee-wearing demons sticking pitchforks in you or harp-playing on a cloud in a whiter-than-white nightie – is reading an awful lot between lines that Jesus left blank.
What he said on the subject was not so much to inform as to warn and encourage. To sum it up: “It’s good news for the good and bad news for the bad. So make sure you’re on the right side.”
What did Jesus say about The end of the world?
There are books around which claim that Jesus in the Gospels made astonishingly detailed predictions about “the end times” which are all being fulfilled in the present day, so the end of the world is well and truly, as they say, nigh.
They could be right… but they’re not. People have played this game with Jesus’s words for 2,000 years, and they’ve always been proved wrong.
The traditional Christian understanding of what Jesus said is that he would return to earth and this would signal the end of the world. The dead would be raised, he would judge every person, and he would recreate the earth. He said even he did not know when this would take place.
Was Jesus born in the year zero?
It’s unlikely. For a start there isn’t a year zero between the years 1 and -1, because when the date was set, there was no concept of the number zero. The BC/AD calendar was created in 531 by a monk called Dennis. He calculated that Jesus was born in the year 754 of the Roman calendar, so that became 1 BC. But he miscalculated.
The only information we have about when precisely Jesus was born is from the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. They both put his birth in the reign of Herod the Great of Judea, who died about the Roman year 751, i.e. 4 BC. This seems to give us the latest date Jesus could have been born.
However, Luke says: “In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria” (Luke 2:1-2). This only complicates matter further, because records show that Quirinius was made governor of Syria and Judea in the Roman year 757 (AD 6), and took a census the following year.
There are various theories that try to tie up these two conflicting bits of information, but none of them puts Jesus’s birth in 1 BC (or in the year 0). The most commonly accepted date is 4 BC.
Was Jesus’s mother really a virgin when he was born?
This is a question that no amount of poking about in historical documents is going to answer. Your answer will depend on what you already believe about other questions: miracles, the authority of the church, the Bible…
Two of the Gospels, Matthew and Luke, tell the story of Jesus’s birth and they agree that Mary was a virgin, and her pregnancy was the miraculous work of God. And the creed spoken in churches every Sunday affirms: “He was born of the Virgin Mary”.
On the other hand, the letters of St Paul – which were written before the Gospels – say nothing at all about the virgin birth. This, some say, suggests that legendary stories about Jesus’s birth grew up later on, between the time of Paul and the writing of Matthew and Luke. It must be added, though, that Paul says astonishingly little about any aspect of Jesus’s life, so this on its own is a weak argument.
However, it was common practice in the ancient world to add miraculous births to the legends of great men, from prophets to emperors, so if you’re not predisposed to believe the biblical stories, you can see where they might have come from.
The answer is, then, that if you’re a fairly traditional Christian (or a Muslim), you would be likely to accept that Jesus’s mother was a virgin. If you don’t already believe in the traditional stories of Jesus for other reasons, then you probably won’t believe this either.
Was there a star or comet at the time of Jesus’s birth?
It’s safe to say there were plenty of stars. As for the star of the Christmas story, the gospel of Matthew says: “After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, ‘Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him’” (Matthew 2:1-2).
There are various astronomical events on record that have been associated with this:
> a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in 7 BC
> a conjunction of Venus and Jupiter in 3 BC
> a supernova in 4 or 5 BC
> Halley’s comet in 12 BC
However, the story in Matthew says that once the Magi were in Judea, “the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was” (Matthew 2:9). It seems that Matthew has in mind a supernatural phenomenon, rather than a well-timed astronomical event.
Why weren’t there any women disciples of Jesus?
There were. If a disciple was someone who followed Jesus, listened to his teaching and accompanied him in his mission, he had plenty of women disciples, and many appear by name in the Gospels, some quite prominently. This was unusual in Jesus’s culture, but he emphatically welcomed women as his followers.
Having said that, there was an inner group of followers known as “the Twelve”. They were a group of disciples whom Jesus called specially. None of the Gospels explain what they were set apart for, or on what basis Jesus chose them. Presumably they were expected to represent him, lead his other followers (especially after his death), and to preach an authoritative version of his message.
Why were they all men? Jesus never explained why. But then no one would have asked. They would only have asked why (or rather “what?!”) if he had appointed women.
The fact is that the society Jesus was living and working in was an extremely patriarchal society. His attitude to women was radically liberating and affirming, but it’s unreasonable to expect him to act exactly as if he was living in the 21st-century West.
Was Jesus ever married?
Well, none of the Gospels explicitly say that he wasn’t, though it’s hardly the kind of thing they would say: “And Jesus, who was a single man, said unto the crowds, ‘Verily verily…‘“
There’s a recurrent myth about Jesus and Mary Magdalene that shifts big shock-horror paperbacks every so often, but there’s no real evidence for it. The family members of other characters in the Gospel stories are mentioned (for example, Peter’s mother in law), but since there is no wife or family of Jesus mentioned in any of the Gospels or other early records, it seems best to assume Jesus was not married.
Was Mary Magdalene Jesus’s girlfriend?
Jesus and Mary Magdalene are often romantically linked in books, and also in Martin Scorsese’s film, The Last Temptation of Christ. What is the evidence for their involvement?
1. Jesus was (so far as we know) single.
2. Mary was one of Jesus’ disciples.
3. She may have been a former prostitute (some of Jesus’ followers certainly were).
4. Err…
5. That’s it.
Did Jesus really walk on water?
Apart from Jesus’s death and resurrection, the occasion when Jesus fed 5,000 people and then walked on the water of the Sea of Galilee is the most well attested event of his life (see John 6:1-21).
But of course all questions of miracles come down to your personal beliefs. If you believe that Jesus was someone who was capable of miracles (or that miracles can happen), then you’re pretty much bound to accept this story as authentic. If you don’t believe that Jesus was someone who was capable of miracles (or that miracles can never happen), then of course you won’t believe this.
It is, as they say, your call.
What miracles are said to have been done by Jesus?
A lot. Most commonly, according to the Gospels, he travelled around northern Palestine healing the sick and casting evil spirits out of people. He cured leprosy, paralysis, blindness, deafness and dumbness, among other conditions, and on three occasions raised the dead.
There are also a number of miracles reported that showed his command over nature as well as the human body, including walking on water, calming a storm, turning water into wine and multiplying a few loaves and fishes to feed 5,000 people. Probably the oddest miracle story of the biblical Gospels concerns a fig tree which Jesus cursed for having no figs (which was a bit hard, because it wasn’t the season for figs anyway). When Jesus and the disciples passed the tree on the day following the curse, the tree had “withered from the roots” (Mark11:20).
In the later “Gospels” which were never accepted into the canon of the New Testament, there is no end to the number – or the extravagance – of the miracles attributed to Jesus. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are a wonder of self-restraint in comparison.
Why did Jesus make so many enemies?
First there were the Roman occupying forces in Judea. They wanted the population to keep quiet and pay its taxes. Not only were new religious movements likely to cause political disturbances, but most were nationalistic and violently opposed to the rule of pagans. The coming Messiah was expected (by Jews) to cast out the Romans and make the nation great and glorious again. Naturally Rome would come down hard on any such goings on.
Then there was the Jewish royal government. They were puppets appointed by Rome, and so opposed anyone whom Rome opposed.
The Jewish religious establishment was in the hands of a group called the Sadducees, who had a great deal of power and wealth, and therefore their interest was in maintaining the status quo.
It is not surprising that all these interests opposed what they thought Jesus stood for – and it’s also not surprising that Jesus had little respect for or interest in them.
More surprising is that Jesus clashed with the Pharisees, because, like them, Jesus was interested in the working people. The Pharisees led an extremely popular and influential movement among ordinary Jews, their focus being on strict observance of the religious law. Many of them were also inclined to military risings against Rome.
Where Jesus agreed with them was in their passion for living God’s way in everyday life, and their commitment to the masses. He disagreed with the political agenda of some of them, but much more profoundly with their approach to religious purity. Jesus brought a message of acceptance and forgiveness to those whom others considered untouchable, and he spend a lot of time with them. The Pharisees were appalled at this, as they were at his generally lax attitude to religious rules. He in turn repeatedly berated them in public for being legalistic and hypocritical, and for getting their priorities wrong.
Why did Judas betray Jesus?
We don’t know. The Gospels say that Judas went to the religious leaders and offered to hand Jesus over, and that they paid him 30 silver coins (about four months’ wages for a labourer).
Maybe it was purely the money. But then choosing to be a follower of Jesus involved great financial sacrifices. Why would someone so cynically materialistic ever have become one of his closest disciples?
One theory has it that Judas was frustrated by Jesus, and thought that by handing him over to the authorities he would force Jesus’ hand, and bring events to a crisis.
Another explanation is that Judas was disillusioned with Jesus. Jesus was generally expected to lead a glorious military and political campaign (as well as religious), liberating Palestine from Roman occupation. Many people were attracted to Jesus for this reason.
In fact, Jesus’s intention was to die at the hands of the Romans – a very different plan. You can imagine why some of his followers might feel bitterly betrayed when they realised this.
Why was Jesus executed?
It’s easiest to see this by looking at the story backwards. Jesus was executed by order of Pontius Pilate, the Roman prefect, who governed Judea as part of the Roman Empire. Judea was essentially an occupied country, and the Roman army was in charge.
Pilate’s first question to Jesus was, “Are you the king of the Jews?” and this was the charge for which Jesus was eventually crucified. In other words, Jesus was tried by Pilate for conspiracy to overthrow the puppet king set up by the Roman occupation.
But Jesus was originally arrested, the four Gospels tell us, by the Jewish religious authorities. They tried him themselves before they sent him to Pilate, and found him guilty of blasphemy. The religious authorities wanted to be rid of Jesus partly because his teachings undermined their power, and also because his popularity with the people threatened them.
But as their power depended on the Romans, they and the Romans had essentially the same problem with Jesus: he had been welcomed by the crowds into Jerusalem as the Messiah, a king from God. He looked like a revolutionary who would cause trouble, and they wanted him stopped.
Why didn’t Jesus avoid being crucified?
If Jesus was God, and he was meant to know everything, why didn’t he avoid being crucified?
According to the Gospels, Jesus predicted his arrest and crucifixion in Jerusalem. “The Son of Man will be handed over to his enemies and nailed to a cross,” he once said (Matthew 26:2). If anything, Jesus seems almost to have deliberately provoked his arrest by his riotous behaviour in the temple, rather than avoiding it.
Why? Jesus was evidently convinced that his death was an essential part of God’s plan. He talked about his “blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many” (Mark 14;24), and about coming “to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). He seems to have recognised that his death was a necessary part of what he had come to do, not something to be avoided.
What is crucifixion?
We may think of crucifixion as a Roman punishment today, but it was also practised by the ancient Persians, Indians, Assyrians, Carthaginians and Greeks.
Crucifixion usually involved flogging, carrying the cross-beam (the horizontal bar) to a public place of execution, and being tied or nailed to the cross. It was an exceptionally painful and shameful way to die, often lasting for days. It was normal for passersby to verbally abuse the person being crucified.
It was considered too bad a punishment for Roman citizens, but the Romans crucified many thousands of slaves and foreigners. It had special a stigma for Jewish people, because of a verse in the Bible which says: “Anyone who is hung on a tree is cursed by God”.
Did Jesus really die?
For Muslims, Jesus is a major prophet, and the Qu’ran says he was not crucified, because God would never let his messenger be treated in that way. “They did not kill him, or crucify him,” it says, “but that is how it was made to appear to them” (Qu’ran 4:157-59).
Some Muslim traditions say that Judas died in his place. Most Muslims accept this, because they accept the Qu’ran as the revelation of God.
However, from a historical point of view, the crucifixion is easily the most reliable piece of information we have about Jesus. Not only do all the first-century reports agree, but it is hard to imagine Jesus’ followers inventing such a humiliating end for him. So on historical grounds, it is a near certainty that Jesus was put to death as reported.
Who was responsible for the death of Jesus?
The decision to execute Jesus was made by Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea, although Jesus was arrested and handed over to him by the Jewish religious authorities, and he was betrayed to them in turn by Judas.
The Gospels depict Pilate as being very reluctant to kill Jesus, although some modern writers question this portrayal. From other sources, Pilate seems to have been a bloodthirsty man even for a Roman governor, and Rome was never slow to execute suspected insurgents. Some experts argue that the early church was keen to prove that it was not anti-Rome, and so the Gospels stressed the idea that Jesus was condemned by his own people, more than by the Romans.
Throughout Christian history, it has been very common to blame “the Jews” for killing Christ, and to treat Jewish people centuries after the event as scapegoats. Some verses in the Gospels of Matthew and John contributed to this anti-Semitism – for example, in Matthew chapter 27, the Jewish crowd says to Pilate, “Let his blood be on us and on our children!”
The facts of the matter seem to be that the Roman occupiers, the Jewish authorities and Judas all collaborated in having Jesus killed.
Looking at it another way, many of the New Testament writers imply that none of the above groups or people was ultimately responsible, because the death of Jesus was God’s plan from the start. One letter tells its readers that they have been redeemed “with the precious blood of Christ. He was chosen before the creation of the world…” (1 Peter 1:19-20).
Was Judas to blame?
The four Gospels agree that Jesus was betrayed to the Jewish authorities by Judas, one of the twelve disciples of Jesus, for thirty pieces of silver. Matthew’s Gospel reveals that after Jesus had been arrested, Judas committed suicide.
Throughout history, Judas has been roundly condemned for his actions. One of the earliest explanations of his actions was that “Satan entered into him” (John 13:27). In recent times, though, some experts have speculated that rather than simply betraying Jesus, Judas may have been trying to force his hand, to get him to raise an army against the authorities.
Was the Messiah expected to die?
No. The Messiah whom the Jewish people of Jesus’ time were expecting was to be a godly king and military hero who would drive the Romans out of the land, purify it and make it glorious again. He would certainly not be killed by the Romans, least of all by crucifixion, which would imply he was cursed by God. None of the heroes of the Hebrew scriptures had met an untimely death, with the exception of Samson.
Because of the political and military expectations that surrounded the word “Messiah”, Jesus was cautious about accepting the title. Instead, he often said that he would go to Jerusalem and suffer and die there. It seems that the disciples couldn’t grasp what he was saying, or found it so outrageous or unlikely that they blanked it out.
Quite a number of people claimed to be the Messiah around the time of Jesus. For example, some 15 years after the death of Jesus, a would-be Messiah called Theudas arose in Judea, preaching and prophesying, and 400 people followed him. He marched towards Jerusalem, promising that the River Jordan would part to let them through. In fact, he was ambushed by the Romans and beheaded. Those of his followers who survived dispersed.
Almost all the “Messiahs” around the time of Jesus met grisly ends, and in each case their followers then gave up, because an executed Messiah must surely be a false Messiah.
Why is the death of Jesus significant?
Christians believe that the death of Jesus changes everything – the whole state of humanity and our relationship with God. But if you ask exactly how it does this, there are many different ideas. Here are just some of them…
Sacrifice – the Jews up until the time of Jesus sacrificed animals, believing that the shedding of blood somehow dealt with their sins and put them right with God. The New Testament says that in the same way, Jesus’ death is the sacrifice for our sins that restores our relationship with God…
Christ has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. Hebrews 9:26
Substitute – the Bible portrays God as a perfect judge, who has to punish us for our sin. The only alternative was to allow Jesus to be punished in our place. Jesus never sinned and deserved no punishment. Because he took on himself the suffering he didn’t deserve, God no longer has give us what we do deserve…
God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 2 Corinthians 5:21
Act of love – Jesus wanted to show us an example of the kind of self-giving love we need to live by if we are to be his followers. The greatest act of love is to lay down your life, so he did this as the perfect example of love. Now we know what true love is, and gratitude to him fills our hearts with the same love. In the words of Jesus, just before his death…
My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. John 15:12-14
Act of power – Jesus was truly God, so when he let his immortal life be killed and his holy blood spilled, though it looked like weakness, there was a great mystical power in it. When Jesus died, and rose from the dead, he somehow overcame the power of death and broke it. This brings everlasting life to those who follow him.
He too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death – that is, the devil – and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. Hebrews 2:14-15
Did Jesus really rise from the dead?
Belief in the resurrection of Jesus is at the heart of the Christian faith, so this question is hugely important.
The Gospels contain four accounts, drawn from different sources, of Jesus’ various disciples meeting him after his resurrection. They all agree that the tomb of Jesus was found empty on the Sunday morning after his crucifixion, to the absolute consternation of the disciples. None of them had been prepared for Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion, and it seems that none of them were now prepared for his body to go missing from the tomb.
In fact, the Gospels tell us that the disciples were traumatised and fearful that they might “be next” and had gone into hiding. The likelihood that they had a any sort of plan to fake Jesus’ resurrection seems extremely remote.
The Gospels conclude with many different appearances by Jesus to his disciples, either individually or in groups. These reports have a genuine feel to them, with down-to-earth details and authentically raw human emotions. The encounters with Jesus initially produce shock, fear, surprise, terror and confusion. The group of disciples reject the first sighting of Jesus as “nonsense”, and one of the disciples – Thomas – pours scorn on the idea even when all the others tell him they have seen Christ for themselves. These negative first impressions immediately fall away, though, as the witnesses encounter Jesus for themselves. They are then filled with joy and amazement.
The book of Acts picks up the story from the end of the Gospel of Luke. It tells us that forty days after the crucifixion, the disciples were a transformed group. They had come out of hiding and were now preaching the resurrection publicly in Jerusalem – and were being beaten and imprisoned for doing so. What could explain this turnaround, so soon after the trauma of seeing Jesus crucified? Clearly, they had been through a powerful event which had transformed them as a group, and their own explanation for it was the resurrection of Jesus.
The earliest written reports of the resurrection in the New Testament are in the letters of Paul, who said he had met the risen Jesus for himself. Paul was a leading opponent and persecutor of Christians before meeting Jesus, so his conversion is hard to explain if this meeting never happened. Similarly, Jesus’ own brother James did not follow him when he was alive, but was converted when he encountered the risen Jesus later.
In the thinking of the time, the crucifixion of a supposed Messiah immediately discredited his cause and claims, and made it dangerous to be one of his followers. In every case other than that of Jesus, it was the end of the movement.
But in the case of Jesus, we know that many of his followers were put to death for preaching the resurrection (Stephen, James the disciple, James the brother of Jesus, Paul and Peter), and only one of those first followers is known to have lived to old age (John). If they knew the resurrection was a fake, this would show an incredible degree of commitment against the facts.
The report of a sermon of Peter, given 40 days after the first Easter, gives the flavour of the first Christians’ transformation by the resurrection. It was preached to a crowd in Jerusalem…
Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. This man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him. Acts 2:22-24
Who were the key witnesses?
According to the Gospels, the first person Jesus appeared to was Mary Magdalene – alone, according to John, or with other women. This seems an unlikely fabrication, incidentally, in a society where women’s testimony was inadmissible in court.
Then Jesus appeared to all the disciples together. John’s Gospel tells us that Thomas was not present on this occasion. and that he didn’t believe the others until Jesus came to them all a week later.
Luke’s Gospel also has a story of Jesus appearing to two disciples as they walked to a village outside Jerusalem called Emmaus. John’s Gospel adds another story of Jesus appearing to seven disciples as they were fishing on Lake Tiberias.
Paul’s encounter with Jesus, and his conversion, came a few years after the first Easter. Some twenty years after that, he wrote the following famous summary of resurrection appearances, which is important as being the oldest testimony we have to the resurrection.
He appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born. 1 Corinthians 15:5-8
Was the resurrection physical or spiritual?
The traditional Christian understanding is that Jesus came back to life in solid, recognisable human flesh. Today, Christians vary in their view of this question. Some prefer to see the resurrection as spiritual rather than physical. What the Bible itself says about it is not exactly clear-cut.
The earliest writer on the resurrection is Paul. He talks about Jesus being raised bodily. But he also insists that this is a very different kind of body. It is more perfect, more glorious, more powerful. He says…
It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. 1 Corinthians 15:44
The Gospels, each in their own way, present an equally two-sided picture. The resurrection is physical enough for Jesus to appear in specific locations, for Mary to mistake him for a gardener, for others to think him a fellow traveller on the road, and for him to cook breakfast and eat it with the disciples. In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus talks about this directly…
They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. Luke 24:37-40
On the other hand, the disciples repeatedly fail to recognise Jesus, and on two occasions, according to the Gospel of John, he appears among them despite the doors to the room being locked…
A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” John 20:26
This seems to suggest that the body of Jesus after the resurrection is very different to how it had been before.
Is the resurrection story of Jesus unique?
Yes. People often say that the first Christians took the idea of resurrection from other religions of the time. The problem with that idea is that these resurrections were something that happened to gods, not to religious teachers.
It happened to the gods Osiris (in Egypt) and Tammuz (in Babylon), but not to the philosopher Socrates in Athens. Before the first Easter, no mere human hero in Jewish or pagan legends had ever returned to their body after death. And certainly no recently killed teacher. In this, the resurrection of Jesus is unprecedented.
Many Jews believed that true believers would be raised from the dead at the coming of the Messiah at the end of time. But they had no idea that anyone might jump the gun and have an individual resurrection.
What is the significance of the resurrection?
For the first Christians, the greatest significance of the resurrection was that it turned the verdict about Jesus on its head. Without it, he was just another failed guru, strung up naked on a pagan gibbet, punished by God for his false teachings and claims about himself. But by raising him from the dead, God instead set his seal of approval on him, vindicating his teachings and claims.
As they reflected further, though, the early Christians saw more and more in it. In fact, it could be said that most of the New Testament is about unpacking the meaning of the resurrection.
Essentially, the realisation they came to was this: Because Christ rose from the dead, those who belong to him and are united with him will rise from the dead, too, and share in his power and glory…
In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you. 1 Peter 1:3-4
And not only is that a promise for beyond the grave, but that same resurrection power is at work in believers even now, transforming their lives and changing them to be more like Jesus…
Since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him… In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Romans 6:9 and 11
What do the different religions believe about Jesus?
Islam – Jesus was a prophet, he performed miracles and was born of a virgin. He is the Messiah, the Word of God, and he will come again at the end of the world, to wreak judgement and to rule in peace. He is not the Son of God (because God cannot have a son), and according to some Muslim teaching he was not crucified, because God would not let that happen to his prophet.
Hinduism – Hindus recognise Jesus as a holy man, as they do the leaders of other religions. He may even be an avatar, an embodiment of the supreme God. But he is not the one and only incarnation of God.
Buddhism – Buddhist thinkers generally respect Jesus as a holy teacher, but consider his teachings to be significantly at odds with Buddhism at some points.
Judaism – Jews have been persecuted for the worst part of 2,000 years by the Christian church, above all on the pretext that they killed the Son of God. It is hardly surprising then that Jesus has no great place of honour in the Jewish faith. He is traditionally seen as a heretic who broke away from the Jewish faith and law. However, there are Jewish teachers today who are generous enough to look past the centuries of abuse in Jesus’s name, and to give great respect to his ethical teachings.
If Jesus was so good, why have his followers been so bad?
Yes, sorry about that.
Many people and organisations throughout history have been inspired by Jesus to do wonderful things and change the world for the better. Many others have done all kinds of evil and stupid things in his name.
What’s going on here?
One answer is that the church has been around for 2,000 years and presently has 2 billion members. Any body that size and age is going have a mixed record.
Another is that it’s always hard for ordinary followers to live up to the standards of their extraordinary leaders. And every movement, however good, risks falling into the wrong hands at some point. What would Marx have thought of Stalin’s Russia, or Muhammad of Al-Qaeda, or Moses of the current state of Israel?
Basically, people are a problem.
Isn’t some of Jesus’s ethical teaching crazy?
For example: Jesus said you should turn the other cheek if you’re attacked. Isn’t that just crazy? Well, it certainly can’t be easy or fun. But if the alternative is tit for tat revenge, surely that can work out a lot worse – just think of Northern Ireland, or Israel and Palestine.
What Jesus said goes against our instincts to stick up for ourselves – but then there’s not much point having a religious teacher who simply tells you to do what you already instinctively do anyway. It shouldn’t be surprising that what Jesus said was sometimes hard to take, and goes against the grain.
Remember, though, that Jesus often used colourful language, exaggerated so that it sticks in the mind. (Who would remember if Jesus had said, “Faith is harder for the rich”, instead of “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God”?) So maybe he meant his “turning the other cheek” saying more as a general principle than an absolute rule.
On the other hand, among those who have taken his words most seriously are two of the great heroes of the 20th century, Gandhi and Martin Luther King. They were both inspired by Jesus to change their worlds through non-violent protest. Their achievement suggests that turning the other cheek may not be that crazy after all.