Jesus Christ
The Story of Jesus
David Wood
At the heart of
Christianity stands
Jesus as servant and son
of God in his living and
dying as well as his
teaching. Christian
faith is not so much
belief in religious
propositions as trust in
a person, a person in
whom God is experienced
as specially near and
real.
So what exactly do we
know about this
historical life and
death? Jesus was born
2000 years ago in
Bethlehem, a small
Palestinian village in
what is now the State of
Israel, and died a few
miles away in Jerusalem
after a short life of
around thirty years.
Mostly, Jesus lived in
an ordinary home in the
north of the country,
Nazareth in cosmopolitan
Galilee. His family was
of the poor artisan
class and Jesus was
probably a carpenter,
making door frames,
yokes and ploughs. This
means he was even poorer
than peasant farmers,
for peasants at least
owned small plots
whereas a carpenter was
landless. By all
accounts Jesus was a
devout Jew, learning of
God primarily from his
mother Mary and in the
rich traditions and
rituals of his people.
Because Nazareth was not
far from the great city
of Sepphoris, he grew up
in a world of different
races, cultures, and
religions. It is likely
that Jesus spoke four
languages - Aramaic and
Hebrew, with a
smattering of Latin and
Greek. Remains of a
great open-air theatre
have been unearthed in
Sepphoris, so this
highly intelligent boy
certainly wasn’t living
in some crude
backwater... Click
here to read the full
story
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