The Existence of Jesus and Controversy

Even atheistic historians acknowledge that Jesus existed. They refer to such ancient sources as Jewish historian and military commander Josephus (38-98 AD), who tells us that Jesus was wise, virtuous, and a “doer of wonders.”

Josephus notes that Jesus had many Jewish and non-Jewish disciples and that he was crucified by Roman governor Pontius Pilate. He remarks on how Jesus’ followers claimed that after his crucifixion he appeared to them, and how they took him to be the promised Jewish Messiah. Josephus had no religious agenda to promote and was not especially sympathetic to Christianity. In the unlikely event that some or all of his writings someday turn out to be inauthentic, all the authors whose works appear in the New Testament leave no doubt about the existence of Jesus.

Jesus distressed the senior Jewish officials of his day who seemed to worry that he might incite the masses to rebel against their Roman overlords. If the Romans became sufficiently alarmed or annoyed, they could easily depose these officials. The region had its share of zealots, Jews fanatically committed to overthrowing Roman rule, and it would not have taken much to provoke the Romans into merciless oppression.

Pilate had already established a reputation for cruelty that further increased resentment among Jews, and at the time the population of Jerusalem was at least 500,000. With such a large and potentially rebellious populace that far outnumbered the Romans, Palestine was volatile. It may have been this more than anything that contributed to Pilate’s willingness to placate Jewish rulers by putting Jesus to death.

Neither the concerns of the Jewish officials nor the Romans was misplaced. Within a few decades, in 66 AD, Jews took over Jerusalem. In response, in 70 AD, the Romans reclaimed the city, executed large numbers, and reduced to ruins the large and magnificent Temple that had been the center of Jewish religious observance for centuries. The Roman client king of Judea, Herod the Great, had enlarged and renovated it a few decades earlier.

It is clear from the New Testament that Jesus had no political ambitions. Any concern Jewish political leaders may have had about his becoming a rival was therefore unfounded. So was whatever anxiety they had over Jesus inciting rebellion and provoking the Romans. It was Jesus, after all, who insisted on forgiving one’s enemies. Even if Jewish officials knew all this, they may have worried about his growing influence because it potentially decreased theirs.

Jesus ignited an alarming controversy regarding formalism in the name of religion—with rituals that drew people away from, rather than toward, God. Jesus had little patience with hypocrisy, exemplified by public displays of virtue that left less mental space for true religion (genuine connection with God). Over the centuries, a tight social structure had developed that, in the hands of religious leaders. gave them considerable power, and it was this that Jesus threatened.

There was another important Jewish concern, which was how Jesus appeared to claim equality with God. This they found blasphemous. Almost as annoying was the idea that Jesus was elected—chosen, appointed—by God. How could someone who acted as he did, flagrantly disregarding what the Jewish leaders now designated as orthodox Judaism, be the Messiah, the promised deliverer? Only a few realized that Jesus came to deliver them, not from oppression by agents of an empire that within half a century would disintegrate, but from egocentricity and those self-serving actions and habits of the heart to which it leads.

In the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), Jesus lays out the nature of proper spirituality, which is to peer beneath the surface of the Jewish law and see its essence. Looking at someone with lustful desire, to treat that person as an object to gratify your sexual desire, is already to been immoral. Disparaging and insulting someone is the spiritual equivalent of murder. If you abstain from eating as a reminder of your reliance on God, do this in private, without making a show of it. The same with donating money. Love your enemies and so get beyond repaying evil in kind; return good for evil and so show the same forgiveness God shows to you.

All of this undermined the authority of the Jewish priests and other religions leaders, who accused Jesus of associating with sinners, such as prostitutes and tax collectors (agents of the Romans). To this, Jesus replied that he came not for the healthy but for the sick. The irony was that it was these leaders who most needed healing.

When religionists criticized Jesus for allowing his hungry disciples to pluck and eat corn on the sabbath, he reminded them of inconsistencies between what they said and Jewish history. And, when they criticized him for healing on the sabbath, he questioned whether they cared more about human welfare or ritualistic observance. Christianity began within Judaism, and therefore included many of its rituals, but Jesus pointed out how many of them had been invented and were not an essential part of the original Jewish Law. It only became a separate entity when people refused to recognize and acknowledge Jesus for who he was, their savior and redeemer, in fact their Lord.

Until the time of the Jewish Rebellion in 66 AD, Romans treated Jews and their religion with forbearance, to the point that the Romans did little to force them to worship the Emperor, who decades earlier had been deemed divine. Christians, whom the Jews and therefore the Romans no longer regarded as Jews, enjoyed no such tolerance, and when they refused to participate in Emperor worship, they were persecuted and sometimes killed.

Perhaps the greatest controversy Jesus ignited had to do with his unexpected and counterintuitive response to his Jewish brethren wanting to install the “prophet from Galilee” as king, symbolized by the palm branches with which they greeted him on his way into Jerusalem. Instead of on the back of a horse, Jesus shows up on the back of a donkey. The disappointment and disillusion this caused may have contributed substantially to crowds turning against Jesus and joining in the chant to crucify him.

Western civilization sprang from roots planted firmly in Christian soil. But the question of who Jesus was—and in the minds and hearts of Christians, who he continues to be—remains. People who malign Christianity because of the participation of self-identified Christians in predatory violence sometimes have difficulty imagining what the world would look like without Christianity—to become a bit more clear-minded, they need only think of present-day Russia or China.

Jesus was not some ancient mythical figure who is no longer relevant. The controversies he kicked off lie at the center of the human struggle to make sense of the world and of who God is. Jesus provided us with a glimpse into the nature of the spiritual and the supernatural. It is with who he was, what he taught, and to whom we owe ultimate allegiance that all of us will eventually have to reckon.