Following is an overview of what is known about the life and death of Jesus taken from a Christian history textbook.* As you will see, this profile of Jesus does not portray him as a meek and passive man but, rather, as a radical who stood up for justice. Does this textbook account of Jesus’ life and death concur with your view?

Two thousand years ago in the land of Israel in western Asia, a man named Jesus of Nazareth began to gather around him a small group of followers. For a short time (perhaps only a year or two) he carried on an itinerant ministry of healing, exorcism, and preaching in the region around the Sea of Galilee and in the vicinity of the city of Jerusalem. His message was directed primarily to the outsiders of his society, including the poor and the disabled. They were to be first in the coming age when God would rule over all the earth, he said. At least some among those who heard him and became his disciples saw in him the fulfillment of their national hopes for Israel. They identified Jesus as the Messiah (Hebrew for ‘anointed one,’ later translated into Greek as ‘Christ) whom they expected to come and set the people free. A demonstration he staged against the Temple in Jerusalem during the season of Passover led to Jesus’ arrest by the authorities in the city. Like others around whom messianic expectations had swirled, Jesus was judged to be not only a religious deviant, but a political threat. He was crucified on the order of the Roman governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate, around the year 30 CE.38.

*Dale T. Irvin, Scott W. Sunquist, History of the World Christian Movement (New York: Orbis Books, 2001) 1