Jesus

Jesus of Nazareth is the central figure of the New Testament, born in Bethlehem to Mary, a virgin engaged to Joseph, and raised in Nazareth in Galilee. He began a public ministry around age thirty, teaching in parables, gathering twelve core disciples, and performing miracles of healing and provision that the Gospels present as signs of God's kingdom breaking into the present. His growing following and his direct challenges to the religious establishment led to his arrest in Jerusalem during Passover, a rushed trial before the Jewish council and the Roman governor Pontius Pilate, and execution by crucifixion, a Roman method of execution independently confirmed by archaeology, including a first-century heel bone found in Jerusalem still pierced by an iron nail. Christian faith rests on the claim that Jesus rose bodily from the tomb three days later, an event his earliest followers testified to at the cost of their own lives, and the New Testament identifies him as the promised Messiah, God's own Son become human.