The Gospel narratives, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, serve as both religious records, about what Jesus said and did, and historical records, telling us about the times in which Jesus lived. This would be especially so for Luke, who places Jesus in the midst of the times of other historical figures. According to most scholarship, Jesus was born about the year BC 4, but I believe he was born a year later, in BC 3. The calculations are a bit complicated and involve an eclipse mentioned by Josephus[1] that occurred near the death of Herod the Great, Caesar’s worldwide census, and what Luke’s mention of Quirnius (Cyrenius) as governor of Syria means.[2]
Through his mother, Mary, Jesus seems to be related in some way to the priestly family (Luke 1:36). Mary knows Elizabeth, where she lives and helps her for about three months during her pregnancy and shortly after the birth of John. Through Joseph, his foster father, Jesus is a son of David, which is interpreted in the text to be a technical right to David’s throne, although with the reign of Herod, that doesn’t seem to embrace any social status. Nevertheless, in conjunction with Caesar’s worldwide census in celebration of his silver jubilee, Herod required the sons of David to register in Jerusalem, because his ever-present suspicion of any possible threat to his throne, he kept an eye on those folks who had a technical claim to the traditional Davidic throne.
We know very little of Jesus early life, prior to his public ministry, but there is an account of his being in Jerusalem when he was 12 years old, perhaps celebrating his bar mitzvah. At that time in the text, it becomes clear to the reader that Jesus had a very good grasp of the scriptures and was able to question and debate to some degree with the rabbis of that time (Luke 2:41-52). None of the texts mention Jesus ever leaving the boundaries of Galilee and Judea, and there is no record of his ever marrying, which we should know, if he did, because the texts do mention and name Jesus close family members. The fact is, according to all the texts, Jesus came into the public forum suddenly and without prior notice, when he was about 30 years old, which I take to mean, he was in his 30th year, vis-à-vis 29 years old, and would be 30 on his next birthday. This means, with a birth in the fall of BC 3, Jesus public life would have begun during the fall festivals in the year AD 26.
Virtually, everything we know about Jesus, then, is packed into his public ministry, beginning in the autumn of AD 26 and ending in the spring of AD 30, according to my calculations.[3] At the end of his public ministry, Jesus was betrayed by Judas Iscariot, according to all the texts, and arrested by the Jewish authorities in a garden on Mount Olives to the east of Jerusalem, and this was during the Passover season. He was condemned by them for blasphemy, but the official charge against him, according to Rome was that he claimed to be the King of the Jews. Nevertheless, there is evidence within the texts, that Pilate probably did not record that Jesus was a threat to Caesar. Otherwise, Jesus’ disciples would not have been able to freely preach the Gospel in Jesus’ name, if Jesus was thought to be a threat to Caesar.
The object of N.T. Wright’s book, Simply Jesus, and, therefore, the object of this study of that book as it relates to the Gospel narratives, is discovering the Jesus we find there, which may or may not completely be the same as the Jesus of Christian tradition. Nevertheless, he is the same “yesterday, today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). While Dr. Wright’s book is mostly about yesterday, he claims he’ll dwell on tomorrow later in the book, and suggests the “combination of yesterday and tomorrow may condition us to think and believe differently about Jesus today.”
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[1] Josephus was a Jewish historian who lived in the first century AD.
[2] See my studies in the Gospel of Luke: Did Augustus Tax the World; Worldwide Census; Quirnius, Governor of Syria, When Did Herod Die? Josephus’ Eclipse and Herod’s Death; How Long Was Herod King? The Reigns of Herod’s Sons.
[3] Scholars are divided as to how long Jesus’ public ministry actually was—one, two or three years. I have concluded it lasted for 3 ½ years
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