Most Christian denominations believe Jesus to be the incarnation of God the Son and the awaited messiah, or Christ, a descendant from the Davidic line that is prophesied in the Old Testament.

In contrast, Judaism rejects the belief that Jesus was the awaited Messiah, arguing that he did not fulfill messianic prophecies, was not lawfully anointed and was neither divine nor resurrected.

[89] The Gospels do not provide enough details to satisfy the demands of modern historians regarding exact dates, but it is possible to draw from them a general picture of Jesus's life story.

[99][100][101] At the same time, there is evidence, at least in the Lukan Acts of the Apostles, that Jesus was thought to have had, like many figures in antiquity, a dual paternity, since there it is stated he descended from the seed or loins of David.

[112][113] His other family members, including his mother, Mary, his four brothers James, Joses (or Joseph), Judas, and Simon, and his unnamed sisters, are mentioned in the Gospels and other sources.

[128] When Jesus, at the age of twelve, goes missing on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem for Passover, his parents find him in the temple sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking questions, and the people are amazed at his understanding and answers.

[129] The synoptic gospels describe Jesus's baptism in the Jordan River and the temptations he suffered while spending forty days in the Judaean Desert, as a preparation for his public ministry.

[131][132][133] They show John preaching penance and repentance for the remission of sins and encouraging the giving of alms to the poor[134] as he baptizes people in the area of the Jordan River around Perea and foretells the arrival of someone "more powerful" than he.

[133][154] This period includes the Sermon on the Mount, one of Jesus's major discourses,[154][155] as well as the calming of the storm, the feeding of the 5,000, walking on water and a number of other miracles and parables.

He then prophesies about the coming destruction, including false prophets, wars, earthquakes, celestial disorders, persecution of the faithful, the appearance of an "abomination of desolation", and unendurable tribulations.

After his arrest, Jesus is taken late at night to the private residence of the high priest, Caiaphas, who had been installed by Pilate's predecessor, the Roman procurator Valerius Gratus.

Herod and his soldiers mock Jesus, put an expensive robe on him to make him look like a king, and return him to Pilate,[262] who then calls together the Jewish elders and announces that he has "not found this man guilty".

[272][278] On the same day, Joseph of Arimathea, with Pilate's permission and with Nicodemus's help, removes Jesus's body from the cross, wraps him in a clean cloth, and buries him in his new rock-hewn tomb.

[299] After Jesus's life, his followers, as described in the first chapters of the Acts of the Apostles, were all Jews either by birth or conversion, for which the biblical term "proselyte" is used,[300] and referred to by historians as Jewish Christians.

[28] Philip (d. 34 AD), half-brother of Herod Antipas, ruled as Tetrarch yet another Herodian client state to the north and east of the sea of Galilee that included Gaulanitis, Batanea, and Iturea though this was mostly non-Jewish.

Though non-Jewish lands surrounded the mostly Jewish territories of Judea and Galilee, Roman law and practice allowed Jews to remain separate legally and culturally.

[324] The Gospels are not biographies in the modern sense, and the authors explain Jesus's theological significance and recount his public ministry while omitting many details of his life.

[340] The general scholarly consensus is that Jesus was a contemporary of John the Baptist and was crucified as ordered by the Roman governor Pontius Pilate,[192] who held office from AD 26 to 36.

[342][345] By collating the gospel accounts with historical data and using various other methods, most scholars arrive at a date of birth for Jesus between 6 and 4 BC,[345][346] but some propose estimates that include a wider range.

Matthew's account is more plausible, but the story reads as though it was invented to identify Jesus as a new Moses, and the historian Josephus reports Herod the Great's brutality without ever mentioning that he massacred little boys.

[192] Jesus's Jewish critics considered his ministry to be scandalous because he feasted with sinners, fraternized with women, and allowed his followers to pluck grain on the Sabbath.

In contrast, certain prominent North American scholars, such as Burton Mack and John Dominic Crossan, advocate for a non-eschatological Jesus, one who is more of a Cynic sage than an apocalyptic preacher.

[437][438][439] Jesus probably looked like a typical Jewish man of his time and place; standing around 166 cm (5 ft 5 in) tall with a thin but fit build, olive-brown skin, brown eyes and short, dark hair.

[444][445][446][447][448][449][450] Jesus's teachings and the retelling of his life story have significantly influenced the course of human history, and have directly or indirectly affected the lives of billions of people, even non-Christians, worldwide.

These documents outline the key beliefs held by Christians about Jesus, including his divinity, humanity, and earthly life, and that he is the Christ and the Son of God.

[491] The Mishneh Torah, a late 12th-century work of Jewish law written by Moses Maimonides, states that Jesus is a "stumbling block" who makes "the majority of the world to err and serve a god other than the Lord".

[516] However, some medieval Muslims (among others, the ghulāt writing under the name of al-Mufaddal ibn Umar al-Ju'fi, the Brethren of Purity, various Isma'ili philosophers, and the Sunni mystic al-Ghazali) affirmed the historicity of Jesus's crucifixion.

These thinkers held the docetic view that, although Jesus's human form (his body) had died on the cross, his true divine nature (his spirit) had survived and ascended into heaven, so that his death was only an appearance.

[557] Thereafter, despite the lack of biblical references or historical records, a wide range of depictions of Jesus appeared during the last two millennia, often influenced by cultural settings, political circumstances and theological contexts.

[561] In Western Europe, the Renaissance brought forth a number of artists who focused on depictions of Jesus; Fra Angelico and others followed Giotto in the systematic development of uncluttered images.