See also: Resurrection of Jesus in Christian art and Ascension of Jesus in Christian art Appearance of Jesus Christ to Maria Magdalena by Alexander Andreyevich Ivanov, 1835

Jesus never claimed to be likeGod. Jesus claimed to beGod. More than a prophet, there is no disputing that his followers certainly believed he was God incarnate. He was not the only person who ever claimed to be the promised Messiah. Yet he was the only one whose followers truly believed it. They proclaimed boldly, in the face of ridicule and death, that he had risen from the dead and that he continued to live through his followers in the form of the Holy Spirit. Romans 1:4 clearly states that Jesus, “through the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.” Jesus is called a τέκτων ( tektōn) in Mark 6:3, a term traditionally understood as carpenter but could also refer to makers of objects in various materials, including builders. [123] [124] The Gospels indicate that Jesus could read, paraphrase, and debate scripture, but this does not necessarily mean that he received formal scribal training. [125] Main article: Ministry of Jesus Sermon on the Mount, by Carl Bloch, 1877, depicts Jesus' important discourse.Modern research on the historical Jesus has not led to a unified picture of the historical figure, partly because of the variety of academic traditions represented by the scholars. [404] Given the scarcity of historical sources, it is generally difficult for any scholar to construct a portrait of Jesus that can be considered historically valid beyond the basic elements of his life. [69] [70] The portraits of Jesus constructed in these quests often differ from each other, and from the image portrayed in the Gospels. [310] [405]

By the time the Enlightenment began in the 17th century, most religious scholars were more seriously questioning the idea of Moses’ authorship, as well as the idea that the Bible could possibly have been the work of any single author. Those first five books were filled with contradictory, repetitive material, and often seemed to tell different versions of the Israelites’ story even within a single section of text. The rest of the notes throughout the Bible are written by a team, and I find the notes to be simple but interesting, showing a connection between passages or thoughts. Main articles: Jesus in Christianity, Christ (title), and Christology The Trinity is the belief in Christianity that God is one God in three persons: God the Father, God the Son ( Jesus), and God the Holy Spirit. Jesus is depicted with the Alpha and Omega letters in the Catacombs of Rome from the 4thcenturyDespite the widely held view that the authors of the Synoptic Gospels drew upon each other (the so-called synoptic problem), other scholars take it as significant that the virgin birth is attested by two separate gospels, Matthew and Luke. [364] [365] [366] [367] [368] [369] Bruno Bauer (1809–1882) taught that the first Gospel was a work of literature that produced history rather than described it. [434] Main articles: Apostles in the New Testament and Commissioning of the Twelve Apostles The Exhortation to the Apostles, by James Tissot, portrays Jesus talking to his 12 disciples. Just as the Old Testament chronicles the story of the Israelites in the millennium or so leading up to the birth of Jesus Christ, the New Testament records Jesus’s life, from his birth and teachings to his death and later resurrection, a narrative that forms the fundamental basis of Christianity. Beginning around 70 A.D., about four decades after Jesus’s crucifixion (according to the Bible), four anonymously written chronicles of his life emerged that would become central documents in the Christian faith. Named for Jesus’s most devoted earthly disciples, or apostles—Matthew, Mark, Luke and John—the four canonical Gospels were traditionally thought to be eyewitness accounts of Jesus’s life, death and resurrection. When God’s people break their word, God keeps his promise. Not only is your story woven into God's larger story, but you are also part of the tribe whom God is calling to himself.