Jesus of Nazareth; a biography

Front matter

GREAT LEADERS SERIES

Edited by E. Hershey Sneath, Ph.D., LL.D.

YALE UNIVERSITY

Preface

The life of Jesus Christ is the most important event in the religious history of mankind. The significance of it is eternal. Nowhere else has God so revealed his nature. How shall one approach the task of writing an account of it?

Most of our knowledge of this wonderful life is derived from the four Gospels, but in many points the Gospels do not agree. They often differ as to the order of events and the occasions which called forth some of the sublimest teaching of the Master. They differ also as to the length of time covered by his ministry. Under these circumstances those who undertake this delicate and sacred task to-day fall into five groups according to their methods of treating the sources.

i. There are those who regard all the Gospels as equally valuable sources of information, and seek as best they can to harmonize their statements. These writers base their chronology of Christ's ministry on the Gospel of John, the latest of the Gospels, which was written about seventy years after the Crucifixion. This method produces the type of devotional biography of Jesus which has within the last century become conventional.

2. Another group of writers on the life of Jesus may be called the historical school. They seek to use the knowledge of the composition and dates of the Gospels which has been gained by modern study in accordance with the methods of modern historical research. Where the Gospels differ, greater weight is given to the earlier document, unless there appears to be some good reason x Preface

for not doing it. As the Gospels imply that Christ had a real human development, and "grew in wisdom" as well as "in stature," writers of this school reverently seek to utilize such knowledge as can be obtained from modern psychology in the effort to understand something of his inner life and its bearing upon his earthly career.

3. Still another group of writers have been called the "skeptical school." These regard large portions of the earliest Gospel as unhistorical. They believe that Jesus never claimed to be the Messiah; he was only a great prophet. They admire him and praise his teaching and insight, but they think the Church through the centuries has been mistaken in regarding him as the Son of God.

4. A fourth group of writers go to the other extreme. They believe that Jesus claimed to be the Messiah, and that he meant by the term just what the Jews of his time meant by it. Such writers bury Jesus completely under the mistaken world-theories of the first century Jews. They make him less than the prophets of the Old Testament, for each one of them, while in some respects a child of his age, was far above his age in the sweep of his ethical and spiritual insight. Too many vital parts of the Gospels have to be explained away to make out that Jesus' conception of his Messiahship was the same as the Jewish.

5. There is, lastly, a group of writers who endeavor to prove that Jesus never lived — that the story of his life is made up by mingling myths of heathen gods, Babylonian, Egyptian, Persian, Greek, etc. No real scholar regards the work of these men seriously. They lack the most elementary knowledge of historical research. Some of them are eminent scholars in other subjects, such as Assyriology and mathematics, but their writings about the life of Jesus have no more claim to be regarded as

Preface xi

historical than Alice in Wonderland or the Adventures of Baron Munchausen. This book has been written in accordance with the methods of the second group mentioned above. Historical methods of study afford the present generation a clearer knowledge of the Son of Man as he was and as he lived than any other generation of Christians has had since that group of Twelve who walked and talked with him. The writer has thought it his duty in writing a book for students to try, however imperfectly, to give them the benefit of this more recent knowledge which makes the portrait of this wonderful life so real. Two reasons have impelled him to this most difficult undertaking. One is that these young people must live their lives in a period when scientific views of the world will be even more generally accepted than they are now, and when it will be increasingly difficult for educated people to keep their Christian faith vital, unless they feel assured that the Father of Jesus Christ is the God of astronomy and geology, and the God of religious faith is the God of the laboratory. The other reason is that he has learned, in more than thirty years' experience in teaching young people the Bible by historical methods, that such study creates an interest in the subject that no other method can produce, that it brushes aside what seem to be unrealities, and quickens faith.

It is not to be supposed that the science of our time is infallible, or its knowledge complete. "We know in part and we prophesy in part." It is nevertheless our duty to

'Taint the thing as we see it For the God of things as they are,"

always keeping our picture so in accord with reality that the inspiring and transforming power of the great Subject of our portrait may exert its full influence upon us.

xii Preface

Our scientific knowledge has been built up by observing facts and forming theories in accordance with them. This is called inductive reasoning. Most of our religious ideas were reached by forming theories and supposing that facts correspond to them. This is called deductive reasoning. Science, once grounded on deductive inferences, has gained immensely by changing to the inductive method. Many of the intellectual difficulties of young people arise from this difference of method. The present writer regards it as the duty of religious teachers to produce a religious literature in which the grounds of faith are secured by the inductive method. In this book he has accordingly made an effort to follow the inductive rather than the dogmatic way, confident that for the thoughtful young people of the present and the future the goal of vital faith will be more easily and surely reached by this path.

Students of the life of Christ are well aware that, where the Gospels differ as to the order of events, it is impossible to reach certainty, and consequently opinions of scholars differ widely. In his conception of the order of events in some important parts of the ministry of Jesus the writer has found himself in agreement with some of the conclusions of the late Professor Charles A. Briggs set forth in his little book, New Light on the Life of Christ, a book which deserves wider recognition than it has yet received. One cannot, within the space allowed, give his reasons for many of the positions adopted, he can only beg the reader to believe that, if there were opportunity, reasons for them could be given that would be at least respectable in the court of scholarship. It is the writer's hope that he may at some time be able to treat some of these topics more fully elsewhere.

The writing of this book has been at once the most

Preface xiii

sacred, and the most difficult task that its author ever undertook. It is a pleasure gratefully to acknowledge the aid which he has received in every part of it from the helpful criticisms and suggestions of his wife.

It is not without a keen realization of its imperfections that this portrait is laid at the feet of the Master. May its faults be forgiven and over-ruled, and may He, Who through the centuries has employed many humble and imperfect instruments, make it of some use in the building up of the kingdom of God.

George A. Barton".

Book I. Things To Be Known Beforehand Chapter Page

I. The Land Where Jesus Lived 3

II. The Four Gospels 14

III. The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke . . 19

IV. The Gospel of John 24

V. What People Thought of the World When Jesus

Lived 28

VI. The Temple and the Synagogue 36

VII. The Education of Children 41

VIII. Jewish Sects and Ideals in the Time of Christ 47

IX. The Dates in the Life of Jesus 54

Book II. The Life Of Jesus Before His Ministry

X. The Birth of Jesus 67

XL The Early Childhood of Jesus 73

XII. Jesus at Play and at School 79

XIII. The Boy's Visit to the Temple 88

XIV. The Silent Years at Nazareth 98

XV. The Baptism of Jesus 109

XVI. The Temptation of Jesus 117

Book III. The Ministry Of Jesus In Galilee

XVII. The Beginning of Jesus' Ministry .

XVIII. A Day in Capernaum

XIX. A Tour Through Galilee ....

XX. By the Sea of Galilee Again .

XXL The First Passover of Jesus' Ministry XXII. Jesus Again at Capernaum

XXIII. Jesus Selects the Twelve Apostles

XXIV. Jesus' First Lesson to a Class of Twelve XXV. Another Lesson to a Class of Twelve .

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147 153 159 163 169 175

XVI

Contents

CHAPTER

XXVI. Jesus and a Roman Centurion .

XXVII. The Widow of Nain and Her Son XXVIII. The Messengers of John the Baptist . XXIX. Jesus at the Feast of Pentecost XXX. Jesus, a Pharisee, and a Sinful Woman XXXI. Jesus Misunderstood by His Brothers . XXXII. Jesus' Great Contribution to Literature

XXXIII. Two Remarkable Incidents

XXXIV. Jairus and His Daughter ....

XXXV. The Twelve Sent Forth to Preach

BOOK IV. THE PERiEAN MINISTRY OF JESUS

XXXVI. Jesus at the Feast of Tabernacles .

XXXVII. Jesus Sends out Seventy Preachers .

XXXVIII. Jesus Begins His First Ministry in Per^a XXXIX. Jesus' First Ministry in Per^a

XL. The Feast of Dedication ....

XLI. Jesus' Second Ministry in Per^a .

XLII. The Seventy Return and Report to Jesus

233 238 243 248 253 258

Book V. Jesus Avoiding His Enemies

XLIII. The Illness of Lazarus at Bethany . . . 265

XLIV. Jesus Avoids His Enemies 270

XLV. The Return of the Twelve 276

XLVI. Jesus Once More in Capernaum .... 282 XLVII. Jesus Tells His Disciples That He Is the

Messiah 287

XLVIII. The Transfiguration 291

XLIX. Jesus' Last Visit at Capernaum .... 296

L. Jesus' Last Journey to Jerusalem .... 303

Book VI. The Passion And Resurrection

LI. The Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem

LII. The Events of the Following Monday

LIII. The Events of Tuesday

LIV. In the Temple on Wednesday .

LV. An Instructive Walk and a Supper .

LVI. Judas Iscariot and the Chief Priests

LVII. The Last Passover Supper .

Contents xvii

CHAPTER PAGE

LVIII. In Gethsemane 357

LIX. The Examination Before the Jewish Authorities 365

LX. The Trial Before Pilate 373

LXI. The Crucifixion 381

LXII. The Resurrection 390

LXIII. The Place of Jesus in History 393

Chapter I The Land Where Jesus Lived

WHEN we read the life of a person it is a great help toward making the story seem real to have a vivid conception of the land in which the person lived. If we can imagine how its hills and valleys looked, what kind of houses people lived in, how the hills and plains were decked with verdure or flowers, and whether the air was clear or murky with mist, it is much easier to make mental pictures of the man or woman whose life we are studying. Jesus of Nazareth is the most important person who ever lived in the world. Beside him the greatest kings, prophets, statesmen, poets, and scholars seem unimportant. His life above all other lives ought to become real to us. We must, therefore, before we begin to study it, read a little about his home and the land in which it was situated.

Had Jesus lived in any other land, he would have hallowed it and made it dear to mankind. Palestine, the land where he did live, is of deep interest to us because it was his home. It happens also to be a land deeply interesting in itself. Bounded on the east by the Arabian Desert, this little country, which is about as large as the combined states of Connecticut and Rhode Island, formed a highway between Babylonia and Egypt, the two oldest civilized countries in the world. For many centuries before Christ was born caravans of camels had toiled slowly across Palestine carrying back and forth the products of the fertile valleys of the Euphrates and the Nile.

Many centuries earlier still, the hand of God had wrought to make Palestine the most wonderful country of its size in the world. Late in geologic time there was tremendous volcanic action in Syria, Palestine, and far to the south of them. A great crack was made in the earth's crust extending from the neighborhood of Mount Hermon far down into the Indian Ocean to the south of Arabia, and the rock-strata on the west of this crack slipped down a mile or more toward the center of the earth. While the crack gradually filled up, it left a deep basin, which now forms the Red Sea, the Gulf of Akaba, the Araba and the Jordan valley. The Jordan valley is really a great trench in the earth's surface caused by this crack. At the Huleh in Galilee it is just about on a level with the ocean; at the Sea of Galilee it is 68 1 feet below the level of the ocean; at the Dead Sea it is almost 1,300 feet below the level of the ocean. Palestine is a sub-tropical country; it lies in the same latitude as the southern half of the state of Georgia. Its climate is everywhere mild. Into the long trench of the Jordan valley the sun pours with great power, making a really hot climate. In winter the temperature is about 70 degrees; in summer, often from no to 120 degrees Fahrenheit. In this heat tropical plants flourish ; oleanders bloom and mustard plants grow ten to fifteen feet high. In the language of Jesus "it becometh a tree, so that the birds of heaven come and lodge in the branches thereof."

On either side of this valley mountains rise. These mountains are higher at the south of the country than at the north. The range on the east has at the south a comparatively level summit, where the country of Moab lies; in the center rise the hills of Gilead; to the east of the Sea of Galilee it descends to the rolling country of the Hauran. In the time of Christ, Gilead and Moab constituted the region called Percea. The range of mountains on the west of the Jordan is at Hebron about 3,000 feet above the level of the Mediterranean Sea, and slopes gradually downward until, at the great plain of Esdrselon, it vanishes altogether. Just north of this plain, where the village of Nazareth stands, it begins gradually to rise again and in northern Galilee attains a height of about 3,000 feet. The volcanic upheavals of late geologic time twisted the surface of this region and much of that east of the Jordan into many tortuous shapes. It is accordingly diversified with hills and with valleys, which have been deepened by the rains of many centuries. The result is a greater variety of scenery than is to be found in any other country of the same size.

To the west of this range there lies the sea-coast plain which constituted ancient Philistia. The range of hills between the Jordan valley and Philistia was the scene of the most of Biblical history. One cannot travel far on either side of the Jordan, however, without reaching hilltops from which great vistas of this country can be seen. Such wonderfully beautiful views expand the thoughts of those who look upon them.

At the northern end of the Jordan valley, Mount Hermon, the highest peak of the region, rises to a height of 9,300 feet. The rains of the Palestinian winter fall as snow on Mount Hermon, where they lie unmelted till the following July. From many a hilltop in Palestine the hoary head of Hermon is visible. From many points in the Jordan valley it can be seen. One travels there in a tropical atmosphere, surrounded by pink oleanders and other tropical flowers, often in full view of this snow-capped mountain. To have traveled that valley with Jesus and amid such scenes to have listened to his words, was the privilege of the fishermen of Galilee !

Practically all the rain in Palestine falls between November and April. At times there may be a shower in October or in May, but these are rare. The season of verdure and of agricultural activity is accordingly in what we call winter. During the long dry summer, when never a drop of rain falls, nor a cloud flecks the sky, the hills become mere dusty surfaces which look like ash-heaps. Here and there a vineyard or an olive orchard relieves the barrenness, but otherwise it seems as though those dead hills could never sustain a living thing. When the rain comes, however, grass springs up. The peasants sow their wheat, oats, barley, and sesame, and these, too, soon become green. At the end of January wild flowers begin to bloom, and by April the whole land is a continuous flower garden of unimagined beauty. There are anemones, white, and all shades of purple, red, and pink. Some of them are as large as saucers. Bachelors' buttons of every hue grow in profusion, as do red, pink, and blue poppies, and countless flowers of which I do not know the names. Every landscape is a mass of color. I never saw anywhere else such a profusion of flowers. Much learning has been expended in trying to determine what flower Jesus had in mind when he said, "Consider the lilies. . . . Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." In the Aramaic which Jesus spoke the word which is often translated "lily" includes all beautiful flowers. Probably Jesus had before him one of these glorious Palestinian hillsides that were a perfect riot of color. Probably with a gesture of his hand toward them he said "Consider the flowers." God clothes them in exquisite beauty, though they are not anxious about clothing. Do not let anxiety about clothes eat the heart out of your life ! ( Matt. 6 : 28 ft. )

Palestine was ? little country, but, for all its beauty,

Things To Be Known Beforehand y

it was not a fertile country. The sea-coast plain, the plain of Esdrselon, and the plains of Moab were fertile, but the seacoast was, during much of Biblical history, in the hands of foreigners. The Jordan valley was fertile where irrigated, but these fertile portions were but a fraction of the land. Most of the Hebrew people lived on the hills, where the rocks were nowhere far from the surface and often filled much of the fields. They were compelled to wrest a livelihood from the meager soil between the rocks. It is, however, in difficult surroundings like these that God has brought to perfection the greatest men.

In the time of Christ, Palestine was divided into four parts, each of which bore a different name. The most southerly of these on the west of the Jordan was Judaea. It corresponded roughly with the limits of the old kingdom of Judah though, unlike that kingdom, it extended across Philistia to the Mediterranean. Jerusalem was its capital. When, in 444 B.C., Nehemiah returned from the East with authority to reestablish the Jewish state as a colony of Persia, that state consisted only of Jerusalem and a little section of country around it. The southern frontier was only about twenty miles south of Jerusalem. Hebron was in Idumaea at that time. Judah continued small until about 140 B.C., when Simon the Maecabee, carried its frontier to the sea and gained Joppa as a seaport. Later John Hyrcanus, Simon's son, conquered Idumaea, compelling the Idumaeans to become Jews, thus restoring to Judaea its old boundaries. Jerusalem contained the Temple. There Jehovah dwelt. To the Jew it was the most sacred spot on earth. At Jerusalem were the priests who performed the sacred ceremonies, the scribes who copied the law, and the great rabbis who explained the law and the oral rules which helped men to observe it. The people of Judah thought they were nearer to God than other people. They looked down on everybody else.

In the center of Palestine lay Samaria, the principal cities of which were Samaria and Shechem. Orthodox Jews regarded Samaria with aversion, because the Samaritans were, from their point of view, heretics. When in J 22 B.C. the Assyrian king, Sargon, destroyed Samaria, he deported a considerable number of its inhabitants. He replaced them with people from five different cities, three of which were in Babylonia. These newcomers were soon attacked by bears and other wild beasts of the region. They thought it was because they did not worship the God of the land and asked the natives, therefore, that a priest be sent them to teach them the worship of the God of the land. This was done. They intermarried afterward with the Israelites who had not been carried into captivity, and their descendants came to regard themselves as good Jews. The Jews of Judaea would have nothing to do with them, however, because they were in part of foreign descent, and in the time of Nehemiah the rupture between Jew and Samaritan became complete. The Samaritans took the Pentateuch as their Bible (that was all the Scripture that the Jewish Bible then contained) . Their numbers multiplied, so that at the end of the first century A.D., when the Jewish historian Josephus wrote his history, they occupied villages from the great plain of Esdraelon on the north to about seven miles south of Mount Gerizim. We do not know what the southern boundary of Samaria was in the time of Christ; it may have been farther south than this. The Philistine plain bounded Samaria on the west and the Jordan valley on the east.

Samaria was a richer country than Judaea. There are broad and fertile valleys between its hills. The struggle for food was not there so severe. So great was the aversion of Jews to Samaritans that a Jew would not go through Samaritan territory if he could help it. In traveling back and forth from Judaea to Galilee Jews usually went around by the Jordan valley to avoid Samaria.

North of Samaria lay Galilee. Its southern part consisted of the plain of Esdraelon, its rolling fields well watered and dotted with villages. On the north of the plain low hills rise, between which are wide valleys. As one goes farther north the hills merge into the mountains of Galilee, which, like the mountains of Judaea, form a continuous range about 3,000 feet high. The northern boundary of Galilee was the Lebanon Mountains. The name Galilee means, "circle," "district," or "region." In Isaiah 9:1 it is called "Galilee of the nations." It seems that the Israelites never succeeded in fully displacing the Canaanitish inhabitants from it. In 732 B.C., Tiglathpileser IV, king of Assyria, carried away the more prominent citizens of Galilee and settled in their place captives brought from elsewhere. No such movement toward the Hebrew religion occurred here as occurred in Samaria. It appears that Galilee was lost to the Hebrew faith until after its re-conquest by the kings of Judaea, John Hyrcanus I and Alexander Jannaeus between 109 and 79 B.C. After that a good many Jews settled in Galilee, but they lived far from Jerusalem and were looked down upon by the people of that city. The Jews of the capital thought them rude country folk.

Just to the north of the plain of Esdraelon, nestling in one of the little valleys lay the village of Nazareth, where Jesus passed his boyhood and early manhood. Surrounding hills shut in this hamlet made sacred by the Master, but from a hill on the north side of the village an ex-

V, io Jesus of Nazareth

tended view of the historic plain of Esdrselon may be had, and a glimpse of the distant Mediterranean. The Judseans despised Nazareth. "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" was a proverb. In consequence we have been accustomed to think of Jesus as brought up in a kind of backwoods town. Only three miles from Nazareth, however, to the northwest was the city of Sepphoris, which from 4 B.C. to 39 A.D. was the residence of Herod Antipas, the tetrarch of Galilee and Peraea. A boy who lives within three miles of the capital of his country cannot be said to be in the backwoods. He is fairly near to such civilization as his country possesses.

Two and a half hours' walk to the east of Nazareth rises Mount Tabor. It is 2,800 feet high, has a rounded top, and lifts its head like a huge haystack above the surrounding lands. From its top an extensive and beautiful view is visible — the distant Mediterranean, Mount Carmel, the great plain of Esdraelon dotted with its towns, the deep rift of the Jordan valley with the river winding through it as a tiny thread of silver, to the north the panorama of the hills of Galilee on which lay Cana and many other villages, while far to the northeast hoary Hermon raises its lofty head. At the foot of Tabor on the east lie the historic villages of Endor and Nain, one famed for Saul's visit to the witch,1 the other for Jesus' restoration of a son to a sorrowing mother.2 In the time of Christ a small town occupied the summit of Tabor. We do not know whether Jesus ever climbed to the top and saw the view or not. One would like to believe that he did !

On the east of Galilee the Jordan valley broadens out to contain the Sea of Galilee. This sea lies in a basin

Things To Be Known Beforehand n

created by volcanic action. On the east, west, and north of the sea are precipitous cliffs of granite or other igneous rock. From the northwest corner of the lake a plain or valley about three miles in width gradually rises into the hill country. This plain was called Chinnereth in Old Testament times, a name corrupted later to Gennesaret. From this plain the sea is sometimes called the sea of Gennesaret. The sea itself is about thirteen miles long. Its greatest width, about eight miles, is at the northern end. At the south end, which lies almost directly east from Nazareth, it tapers almost to a point. Into this lake, near its northeast corner, the Jordan River flows; it loses itself in the lake, but emerges from its southern apex, to rush along the downward way, which gave it its name, Jordan, i.e., "Descender."

In the time of Christ this lake which lies 68 1 feet below the level of the Mediterranean and possesses a tropical climate, was a busy place. Along its shores nine cities lay, each of which is said to have had 15,000 inhabitants ; some probably had more. One of the caravan routes from Egypt to Damascus lay along its western shore and around its northern end, crossing the Jordan on a bridge, ruins of which are still visible. Catching fish in the lake to feed this large population was a principal industry.

As we read the Gospels we gain the impression that the region on the east side of the Sea of Galilee was called the Decapolis. Decapolis is a Greek word, meaning "ten city" (region). It applied to a federation of ten cities, the population of which was chiefly Hellenic. The federation appears to have been formed by permission of the Roman General Pompey, when he took possession of Syria for Rome in 65-63 B.C. The most northerly of the cities was Damascus ; the most southerly, Philadelphia

(Rabba Ammon). The Decapolis included only a small section of territory about each of these cities, not the whole of the country between them. One of these cities, Hippos, lay a little way to the east of the Sea of Galilee. Its territory appears to have bordered on the lake. The Greek inhabitants kept pigs, which were forbidden to the Jews. It was here that Jesus found the herd of many swine feeding. Two of the cities of the Decapolis, Scythopolis (Bethshean) and Pella, lay in the Jordan valley far to the south of the Sea of Galilee. Christ must frequently have passed them on his way to and from Jerusalem, but, so far as we know, he never entered them. All the cities of the Decapolis were adorned with colonnaded streets, beautiful temples, and theaters. Architecturally they were much more attractive than the Jewish cities.

On the east of the Jordan, beginning probably at the great valley of the Yarmuk, some miles south of the Sea of Galilee, lay Persea. It extended southward to the valley of the Arnon about midway of the Dead Sea; it therefore embraced Gilead and the northern half of what had been Moab in the Old Testament time. Many Jews were, in the time of Christ, scattered through this region ; to it, as we shall see, Jesus went to minister.

Politically, the country we have described passed through several changes during the life of Christ. When Christ was born Herod the Great was still ruling. Under his sway all these lands, extending well up toward Damascus, had been united since 37 B.C. Herod died four years before the beginning of our era, and his lands were divided among his sons. Archelaus received Judaea and Samaria; Antipas, Galilee and Peraea, and Philip the regions toward Damascus (Ituraea and Trachonitis). Antipas and Philip held their territories during the lifetime of Jesus, but Archelaus proved such an impossible ruler that Augustus, the Roman emperor, banished him in 6 A.D. to Gaul and placed Judsea and Samaria under Roman procurators. This arrangement continued till 41 A.D. The fifth of these procurators was Pontius Pilate.