15 Historically Accurate Facts About Jesus

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily match my own. - Dr. Bart D. Ehrman

In exploring the historical figure of Jesus of Nazareth, separating fact from fiction can be a daunting task. The life of Jesus as written in the four canonical Gospels has inspired countless interpretations, theological debates, and cultural narratives. These variations make it difficult to distinguish historically correct details from later embellishments.

In this article, I’ll give you fifteen well-supported facts about Jesus that align with historical research and scholarly consensus. To the extent that it is possible, this article will attempt to discover the historically accurate Jesus.

1. He Really Did Exist

While many Christian articles of faith — that he was the only-begotten Son of God, that he was raised from the dead, that he performed miracles — are unverifiable by historians, the majority of them agree that Jesus was a real person.

Ancient historian Tacitus, and perhaps also Josephus, demonstrated in their writings that they knew of Jesus’ existence. Josephus, in Book 20 Chapter 9 of Jewish Antiquities specifically writes about "the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James." Additionally, Paul writes that he met Jesus’ brothers — how could a non-existent person have siblings? As Bart Ehrman says, “Whether we like it or not (some of us do, some of us don’t) Jesus certainly existed.”

2. Jesus Was Jewish

While for many, this may seem too obvious to even mention, it’s important to note that virtually every scholar of Christianity and Judaism acknowledges that Jesus was a Jew. As Shaye I.D. Cohen writes, Jesus “regularly worshiped in Jewish communal worship, what we call synagogues. He preached from Jewish text, from the Bible. He celebrated the Jewish festivals. He went on pilgrimage to the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem where he was under the authority of priests.... He was born, lived, died, and taught as a Jew.”

3. He Was Probably Born in Nazareth in Galilee

While both the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke say that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, most scholars take this to be a theologically motivated invention. Matthew, for example, quotes a Hebrew Bible prophecy from Micah 5:2 to show why Jesus, as the Messiah, had to be born there:

But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah,
who are one of the little clans of Judah,
from you shall come forth for me
one who is to rule in Israel,
whose origin is from of old,
from ancient days.

However, in The Historical Jesus: A Guide for the Perplexed, Helen Bond says “Jesus was born in Nazareth, the small Galilean village where he grew up. Such a conclusion is generally held by most historical Jesus critics.” (Affiliate Disclaimer: We may earn commissions on products you purchase through this page at no additional cost to you. Thank you for supporting our site!)

4. He Had Siblings

While the Gospels mention that Jesus had siblings, our oldest Christian writings, the epistles of Paul, also attest to the siblings’ existence. In Galatians 1:19, Paul says that when he went to Jerusalem, he met with Peter (Cephas) but also with “James, the Lord’s brother.” This shows that he knew that Jesus had a brother who was an important leader in the church.

In 1 Corinthians 9, Paul writes that some missionaries travel with their wives, including Peter and “the brothers of the Lord.” Again, this indicates that not only did Jesus have siblings but also that they were an important part of the early church.

5. His Primary Language Was Aramaic

In Jesus' Last Week: Jerusalem Studies in the Synoptic Gospels, Shmuel Safrai writes that in 1st-century Palestine where Jesus lived, three primary languages were spoken. The first and most widely-used was Aramaic. The second was Greek, common in some communities in Palestine since the invasion of Alexander the Great and used as a lingua franca for international communication and trade. The third, used mostly for religious texts and ceremonies, was Hebrew.

John Poirier points out two important facts as evidence that Jesus probably spoke Aramaic as his first language. First, most of the non-religious texts from 1st-century Palestine, such as contracts or ownership claims, were written in Aramaic. Second, in Jesus’ time, the Hebrew Scriptures were being translated into Aramaic, likely indicating that many people could no longer understand Hebrew.

While Jesus probably knew enough Hebrew to participate in Jewish religious life and might have known some Greek, he undoubtedly conducted most of his life in Aramaic.

6. He Was Baptized by John the Baptist

In Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, John Dominic Crossan expresses the scholarly consensus about Jesus’ baptism: “That Jesus was baptized by John is as historically certain as anything about either of them can be.” Why? The Synoptic Gospels — Matthew, Mark, and Luke — all describe this baptism, while John at least hints at it. But, of course, the Gospels are not always historically reliable.

However, most scholars accept this event as historical because of the criterion of embarrassment. In A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, John Meier defines the criterion of embarrassment as the notion that any material in the Gospels that “would have embarrassed or created difficulty for the early Church” is likely authentic history. It’s not a perfect criterion, by any means, but it does make a certain logical sense.

John’s baptism of Jesus fits in this category. Since the Gospels clearly depict Jesus as superior to John, why wouldn’t they omit his baptism by John? The likely answer is that the fact of Jesus’ baptism was so widely known that the Gospel writers couldn’t omit it.

7. He Was an Apocalyptic Preacher

Most scholars agree that Jesus’ preaching centered around an apocalyptic world-view. In short, he and many others believed the world had long been controlled by evil and that God would soon intervene to punish the evil ones and reward the good, ushering in a new world. Jesus called this resulting world The Kingdom of God. He therefore encouraged people to be on the right side, God’s side, when the Kingdom came.

In Jesus’ time, this perspective was fairly common among Jews. It was held by the Pharisees, the Essenes, and others. However, Bart Ehrman says that because the Kingdom of God didn’t come as soon as expected after Jesus’ death, “in our later Gospel sources, Jesus’ teaching begins to sound different. Less apocalyptic. Eventually it became non-apocalyptic.”

Nevertheless, historians generally agree that Jesus was an apocalyptic preacher.

8. He Had Disciples

While the Gospels include stories about Jesus’ disciples, some of the most historically relevant sources about those disciples are the authentic letters of Paul. Paul, who apparently disagreed with at least some of the disciples (see Galatians 2:11-14), names several with whom he personally met.

These include Peter (Aramaic name: Cephas), James, and John, whom Paul refers to (rather sarcastically) as the “pillars” of the Jerusalem Church. He also mentions “the 12,” although some scholars have wondered whether this was merely a name for the group rather than an actual number. Either way, it’s almost certain that Jesus did have disciples during his lifetime.

9. He Taught Using Parables

Parables are simple narratives used to illustrate moral or spiritual teachings. In the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus teaches using a whopping 38 of them, including the Parable of the Sower, The Pearl of Great Price, and The Leaven. As Helen Bond writes “Jesus used parables first and foremost to describe some aspect of the Kingdom of God, comparing it to settings and actions familiar to his audience.”

10. Jesus Probably Wasn’t Wealthy

Mark 6:3 says the people of Nazareth called Jesus “the carpenter” (Greek: tekton). The Greek word could also mean “stonemason” or “builder.” If this is accurate, Jesus’ would have come from a family of tradesmen rather than wealthy landowners.

In addition, the fact that he came from Nazareth, a tiny, insignificant hamlet in Galilee, likely meant that he did not come from wealth. This might explain his concern for the poor (see for example, Luke 6:20-21, Matthew 25:34-36, Mark 10:21-22).

Furthermore, In Jesus’ time, the majority of wealth in Palestine was in the hands of a miniscule fraction of the population. Very few people had significant wealth. It’s not hard to believe, then, that Jesus was not rich.

11. Jesus Had a Reputation as a Healer

Many of the stories in the Gospels refer to Jesus healing the sick. He heals blind people (Mark 10:46–52), a deaf-mute (Mark 7:31–37), a paralyzed man (Luke 5:17–26), and lepers (Luke 5:12–16, 7:12–19). Historians cannot prove the historicity of such stories, but they can say that his reputation for healing was probably an important aspect of why Jesus’ followers believed he was special.

12. He Lived Under Roman Occupation

In Jesus’ time, the Roman Empire dominated the Mediterranean world. Roman power was great, and its scope was vast. Like India under the British or Latin America under Spain, Jews in Palestine lived under the thumb of Rome, especially in the capital city of Jerusalem.

This explains why Jesus was crucified rather than stoned to death.  As Kaufman Kohler and Emil Hirsch write, “The mode and manner of Jesus' death undoubtedly point to Roman customs and laws as the directive power.” They also write if Jews had killed Jesus, he would traditionally have been stoned to death instead.

13. Jesus’ Ministry Was Brief

The Synoptic Gospels only mention one Passover feast, suggesting that Jesus’ ministry lasted only one year. John, on the other hand, with an entirely different chronology (and message), mentions three Passovers, suggesting a ministry of three years.

Scholars largely agree that Jesus was born around 4 BCE and died around 30 CE. This means a relatively short life and, if, indeed, he started out as a tradesman in his adult life, his ministry could not have been very long.

14. He Was Crucified

Much like his baptism, Jesus’ crucifixion is widely accepted by historians as a fact. As Bart Ehrman writes, “The crucifixion of Jesus by the Romans is one of the most secure facts we have about his life.”  One reason is, again, the criterion of embarrassment. No follower of Jesus would have wanted him to die by crucifixion. This method of capital punishment was not just about disciplining the convicted criminal but also utterly humiliating him. Again, it seems unlikely that the Gospel authors would have invented such an ignoble death for their leader and savior.

Additionally, we have written evidence of Jesus’ crucifixion by non-biblical sources. It is detailed, albeit decades later, by non-Christian authors, including the Jewish historian Josephus and the Roman historian Tacitus.

15. Jesus May Never Have Been Buried

Historians have shown that the majority of victims of crucifixion were not given proper burials. This may explain why, of all the thousands of people crucified in Palestine by Rome, only one buried body has been found by archeologists. Where did the rest of these bodies go?

John Dominic Crossan notes that the most common practice was to leave the bodies rotting on the cross and allow birds and other animals to eat them, a further humiliation for the convicted criminal. In addition, while the Gospels contain stories of Jesus’ empty tomb, Paul, our earliest Christian writer, says nothing about this (although he does believe that Jesus was resurrected). All of this points to the fact that Jesus’ body may never have been buried at all.

Conclusion

A historically accurate Jesus is difficult to find.

Unfortunately, we don’t have a single text about Jesus written during his lifetime. There are reasons for this: His disciples, like most people in 1st-century Palestine, were probably illiterate, and Jesus may not have been as well-known during his lifetime as he would later become.

However, since they know the general era and location in which Jesus lived, historians are reasonably comfortable claiming a few facts about him. These include the language that he spoke, his likely place of birth, his baptism, and his crucifixion.

While there is still a great deal of speculation involved, a reasonably accurate historical picture of Jesus does emerge from the available information.