Historical Jesus: Prophet or revolutionary?

PROVO — Even when he walked the dusty streets of ancient Israel, people couldn't agree on how to characterize Jesus of Nazareth.

To some he was a prophet, to others, a political revolutionary. His disciples revered him as the Son of God, yet others saw Christ's declarations of divinity as blasphemous, and called for his death.

More than 2,000 years later, scholars are still on a "quest" to define the "Historical Jesus," relying on historical, cultural and architectural information to form a more complete picture of the man from Galilee.

Their theories, which span the spectrum, continue to fill best-selling books, magazines and television broadcasts. Some scholars reaffirm Jesus as deity, the very Son of God, while others strip him of his divinity and question the veracity of the religious records that describe him.

Yet amid the debate, evangelical scholars say that the study of a historical Jesus doesn't have to threaten faith and can even strengthen a person's belief in a divine Messiah.

"The stakes are high here," said Thomas Wayment, a BYU religion professor and LDS historical Jesus scholar. "This affects millions and millions of people — far more than people we can individually talk to or speak to, and there's a lot of good intent in this whole process. By being part of it, we're part of a movement for good. By writing it off, we walk away from one of the most important conversations being had today about religion."

WHO WAS JESUS?

During the enlightenment of the 18th century, people began to ask more questions — especially about what they'd been taught regarding Jesus Christ.

"There was essentially the realization that Jesus as we knew him in the 19th and early 18th century…had only (been known) through faith," Wayment said. "Scholars wanted to unshackle him from the faith interpretation and then try to find out who he really was as a person. "

Rather than relying solely on the Bible, primarily the accounts of the four disciples, scholars began scouring other sources — non-Christian Roman and Jewish histories, letters from early non-mainstream Christians, archaeological records and a growing body of papyri.

Using these resources, historical Jesus scholars began approaching Jesus the same way they had Mark Antony or Caesar Augustus (yet unlike other historical figures, conclusions about Jesus have far greater ramifications).