Historical Jesus ethnic group Jewish people
The term "historical Jesus" refers to the reconstruction of the life and teachings of Jesus by critical historical methods, in contrast to religious interpretations. It also considers the historical and cultural contexts in which Jesus lived.
Virtually all scholars of antiquity accept that Jesus was a historical figure, and attempts to deny his historicity have been consistently rejected by the scholarly consensus as a fringe theory.Reconstructions of the historical Jesus are based on the Pauline epistles and the gospels, while several non-biblical sources also support his historical existence. Since the 18th century, three separate scholarly quests for the historical Jesus have taken place, each with distinct characteristics and developing new and different research criteria. Scholars differ about the beliefs and teachings of Jesus as well as the accuracy of the biblical accounts, with two events being supported by nearly universal scholarly consensus: Jesus was baptized and crucified. Historical Jesus scholars typically contend that he was a Galilean Jew and living in a time of messianic and apocalyptic expectations. Some scholars credit the apocalyptic declarations of the gospels to him, while others portray his "Kingdom of God" as a moral one, and not apocalyptic in nature.The portraits of Jesus that have been constructed through history using these processes have often differed from each other, and from the image portrayed in the gospel accounts. Such portraits include that of Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet, charismatic healer, Cynic philosopher, Jewish messiah, prophet of social change, and rabbi. There is little scholarly agreement on a single portrait, nor the methods needed to construct it, but there are overlapping attributes among the various portraits, and scholars who differ on some attributes may agree on others.New Testament sources
Synoptic Gospels
The Synoptic Gospels are the primary sources of historical information about Jesus and of the religious movement he founded. These religious gospels – the Gospel of Matthew, the Gospel of Mark, and the Gospel of Luke – recount the life, ministry, crucifixion and resurrection of a Jew named Jesus who spoke Aramaic and wore tzitzit. There are different hypotheses regarding the origin of the texts because the gospels of the New Testament were written in Greek for Greek-speaking communities, and were later translated into Syriac, Latin, and Coptic.The fourth gospel, the Gospel of John, differs greatly from the Synoptic Gospels and scholars generally consider it to be less historical than the Synoptic Gospels. As James Crossley and Robert J. Myles explain, John "is of limited use for reconstructing the life of the historical Jesus." However, scholars usually agree that John is not entirely without historical value: certain sayings in John are as old as or older than their synoptic counterparts, his representation of the topography around Jerusalem is often superior to that of the synoptics, his testimony that Jesus was executed before, rather than on, Passover, might well be more accurate, and his presentation of Jesus in the garden and the prior meeting held by the Jewish authorities are more historically plausible than their synoptic parallels.Historians often study the historical reliability of the Acts of the Apostles when studying the reliability of the gospels, as the Book of Acts was seemingly written by the same author as the Gospel of Luke.
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