WHO WAS JESUS?

Jesus was born and raised a Jew. He thought of himself as a Jewish teacher. All his direct disciples were Jews. He felt that his job was to teach Jews about God and about the right way to live (though his teachings truly are for all people, Jews and Gentiles alike). He remained a Jew throughout his short life. He didn't intend to begin a new religion. He wouldn’t even have known what the word Christian means. (Christian is a word that appeared after his death to describe people who believed some things that he himself never believed.)

Nor would he have recognized the name Jesus Christ. His name was Yeshua or Yeshu (rhymes with day shoe), which is Joshua in English and Jesus in Greek. He didn't have a last name. No one did in those days. Men were called So-and-so son of So-and-so, or So-and-so from Such-and-such a place. Anyway, Christ isn’t a name: it’s a title. It’s the Greek word for mashiakh, a Hebrew word that means “The Anointed One.” The Messiah is a figure in Jewish legend, a descendant of the great King David who supposedly will someday appear to make the world perfect. When the Messiah comes (the Jewish prophets imagined), there will be peace and justice everywhere on earth; the land of Israel will no longer be controlled by foreign tyrants; and even fierce animals will be harmless: “wolves and lambs shall feed together, and lions shall eat straw like cows.”