Who Was Jesus, The Man?

Dan Snow's History Hit

History Hit

History

4.7 • 12.9K Ratings

🗓️ 19 December 2022

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Followed by billions and worshipped across the planet, Jesus is the most famous person who ever lived. Jesus Christ is revered as a prophet and the Messiah by Christians but who was Jesus, the man, who was born in Judea in the 1st Century AD and preached around Galilee during the Roman Empire?

What we know of Jesus largely comes from the four gospels of the New Testament which are regarded as the most authoritative accounts of Jesus' life. As a poor labourer who only really appeared on the scene for a very short time, it's no surprise there's no archeological evidence of Jesus. Only kings and emperors leave a trace. This means historians have to find other ways to corroborate the details in the gospels.

In this Christmas episode Joan Taylor, Professor in Early Christianity at Kings College London, compares parallel details across all the gospels, looks at contemporary textiles, Roman historical accounts and evidence of Jesus' contemporaries to piece together a biography of the man who changed the world.

Produced by Mariana Des Forges, mixed by Joseph Knight.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit, we're approaching Christmas the time at which
0:04.6	Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus. With absolutely no evidence of him having been born on
0:09.6	the 25th of December, what he born at all. Did Jesus exist? Is he historic figure?
0:14.4	Joan Taylor, a professor of Christian origins at King's College London, is coming on the podcast
0:19.7	to tell me why she's written a book called What did Jesus look like? Spoiler, not a gigantic
0:24.4	blue-eyed Scandinavian Viking that you occasionally might see on churches he's scrolled into.
0:28.8	And she is the ideal person. Tell us what we think we know about Jesus and why this man
0:35.6	born in his What is Know? Israel Palestine. In an obscure village, the son of a peasant woman
0:42.1	who worked as a carpenter and then wandered about for a few years spreading the news and was then
0:48.6	brutally executed to become the most famous person on earth. A man worshipped by billions of our
0:56.6	fellow citizens. It's a wild story folks and now's the time of year to be talking about it.
1:01.6	So here's Joan Taylor, Merry Christmas to you all, enjoy.
1:04.5	The Thomas Bond, dropped off hero sheep, stargaze, the king, no black, white, unity,
1:13.3	till there is first and black unity. Never to go to war with one another in a game.
1:18.0	And look off and the subtle has cleared the tower.
1:25.3	Joan, thank you very much for coming on the podcast.
1:27.2	You're welcome. Thank you for inviting me.
1:29.6	I don't know any other way to ask this other than just to start by going,
1:32.8	how much do we know about Jesus as a historic figure? I know that's your whole of your life work
1:36.8	in one sentence. Where can we start? Should we start with it? Return is the archaeology. How can we
1:40.8	get it Jesus? Our resources are mainly in the New Testament and it's how we interpret the New
1:48.0	Testament, what we do, how we tease out the material in the New Testament, what we prioritize.
	...

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