Religious teacher and central figure of Christianity; b. c. 6 BC (Judaea), d. c. 30 AD (Jerusalem).
Nearly all knowledge about the life of Jesus of Galilee has to be derived from the Gospels of St. Mark, St. Matthew and St. Luke, who wrote their reports between c. 70 and 100 (half a century after Jesus' death) and were more interested in the religious than the historical aspects of Jesus' life. The few non-Christian sources in which Jesus is mentioned leave no doubt that he existed but do not contain much further information.
Jesus was legally the son of Joseph, a carpenter of Nazareth, and his wife Mary. It is known that he had a brother. Jewish sources suggest that he was an illegitimate child. According to Christian belief he is the son of God and was conceived by his mother in a miracle. Only in later centuries did the church extend this belief into the miracle of a virgin birth.
Palestine at the time of Jesus' birth was a Roman colony. Judaea, the region to which the Jewish kingdom had been reduced, was under the rule of the Roman governor (procurator), who controlled military, taxation and judicial affairs, and the "king of the Jews", who was appointed by the Roman colonial power and exercised restricted administrative and juridical power.
Herod, the "king of the Jews", was a practicing Jew of Arab descent, who promoted the adoption of Hellenistic ideals and achievements through a large modernization programme of public roads and buildings. The Roman governor Pontius Pilate, on the other hand, was ruthless and cruel. (He was eventually dismissed in 36 AD for that reason.)
The Jewish population was split about the situation; its reaction was either submissive servitude to the colonial power (favoured by the well-to-do) or smouldering anger. Galilee, the land of Jesus' origins, was characterized by Hellenistic culture but settled by foreign colonists and in the process of being reclaimed by Herod for the Jews, who despised the Galileans.
When Jesus started his teaching activity, which followed the general themes for good moral standards in society and private life and condemned hypocrisy, greed and self-righteous behaviour, he found many followers among the common people, who saw in him the promised coming of God's son ("Messiah", or "Christ" in translation) come true. The Jewish collaborators immediately saw him as a threat and denounced him to the Romans as a revolutionary.
For a few years Jesus travelled around Galilee, accompanied by twelve disciples, preaching, healing the sick and according to his disciples' accounts performing many miracles. Eventually he went to Jerusalem, where he cleared the temple from money changers. The Jewish priestly class was now determined to rid itself from a dangerous preacher.
Jesus was betrayed by one of his disciples. He was arrested by the Roman military and handed over to the Jewish high priests and council, who declared him guilty of blasphemy. They delivered him to Pontius Pilate, who handed him over to Herod, who sent him back to the Roman authority. Pontius Pilate then had him crucified as a political rebel in accordance with Roman law.
The religion of Christianity is based on the record of the gospels, according to which after three days Jesus rose from the dead and walked amongst the living for several weeks before rising to heaven and joining God, his father, in his heavenly reign. Originally persecuted as a dangerous sect, Christianity became the state religion of the Roman empire under emperor Constantine around 300 AD and developed from there into one of the great religions of the world.