Christianity - Jesus Down the Ages

In earlier Christian days the year-numbering was set up using the 'BC/AD' ('Before Christ / Anno Domini [= Year of our Lord]') system, but subsequent scholarship suggests that the original start-point was wrong. There is no specific evidence of the birth being in December (when sheep would be less likely to be out on the hills overnight, for instance); the Biblically-attested 'wise rulers' may not have been actual kings, nor necessarily three in number ~ even if they brought three distinct gifts.

We are not told in the Gospels that Joseph was 'an old man' (though at least one subsequent folk-carol suggests this in its opening line), but there is at least a supposition that Mary was a young woman, perhaps 'a bit young for him' as some might have been tempted to remark when she had the baby. By the standards of the day, and even though this was someone particularly special whose life they were describing, it seems conspicuously odd that Joseph is not mentioned in the main later phase of the Gospels, so the inference that he was no longer around seems reasonable.

Answer 1 is on dodgy ground, accusing an omnipotent god-figure of knowingly hurting people who loved Him. The Jewish God of the Old Testament certainly comes over vengeful sometimes, but usually on behalf of His people rather than against them (though He did not flinch from punishing His own either, where He knew they needed 'correcting', e.g. after they had been ungrateful to Him by dallying with other false gods); Answer 2 has a similarly inappropriate truculence to it.

Answer 4 was wrong because Jesus was not angry at Mary and Joseph, nor at Himself for putting them to any distress; He knew that above all else He should be making the most of His time in the Temple. (The mental picture of this boy in late childhood, with yet-unbroken voice, joining in on level terms or better with venerable, robed & bearded religious experts, is one to savour, and which some classical painters have sympathetically illustrated.) His later visit, including overturning the tables of the traders who had been taking advantage of pilgrims in an elaborate cartel of charges, was obviously a different occasion, not least since He was full-grown by then.

This tale is known as the Glastonbury Legend; and while it just about makes a plausible story, by the time we reach answer 4 it perhaps becomes overstretched and far-fetched. It isn't entirely impossible, but surely more than somewhat unlikely?

(Joseph's walking-stick was supposedly stuck into the ground at Glastonbury and became a hawthorn tree, surviving to this day.)

There are passing references in the Gospels to Jesus wearing a beard, as obedient Jews were then expected to do; and a vivid foremention (in Isaiah) of sadistic guards plucking at it ... but no hint at all of its colour, nor of Jesus' physical stature (tall/short; stocky/slender). Answer 3 may slightly suggest the Turin Shroud; Answer 4 may seem to be true, but the convention ~ perhaps just a form of visual shorthand for Him being 'bright' or 'clean', or at least in some way 'different, though still one of us' ~ has no proven factual foundation. Certainly those milky watercolours of the benign red-headed shepherd ('Gentle Jesus, meek and mild') are no more than a well-intentioned guess.

For a robust fundamentalist rebuttal of all supposed images of Christ, and detailed discussion and argument, see All of Grace

It would verge on the sacrilegious to refer to this object as a potentially holy analogue for the Loch Ness Monster, but, in purely logistical terms, the nature and origins of the image on it appear quite extraordinary, and science has yet to prove or disprove conclusively whether it genuinely is what it purports to be, or to offer any plausible alternative explanation. You could doubtless research this further yourself, and may well find it intriguing.

The crown of thorns was a temporary and biodegradable object which, even if split into short pieces, would surely hardly have survived in provable or even recognisable form; the Grail is almost certainly the stuff of legend (probably via Glastonbury again), while there seems to be no particular trace of the Supper table ~ that workaday piece of carpentry at the focus of so many (conjectural) Last Supper paintings.

Any or all of these seem tenable readings of what Jesus came to do, but answer 4 surely has the strongest ring to it

'Liberation' here means the freeing of people from everyday burdens of disadvantage, hunger and disease ~ so that they can better aspire to fulfil their potential as human beings made and beloved by God. One could certainly claim an echo of the 'suffering servant' image prophesied by Isaiah.

Such followers would always ask themselves this guiding question before taking a decision, be it something everyday ('Shall I chat online or start my homework?') or more far-reaching ('Is this the person I should be looking to spend the rest of my life, and raise any children, with?'). It may be hard to see how Jesus, as we know Him from the scriptural stories, would answer such modern questions in personal detail, but the point is to seek to discern and apply His values.

Apparently it was the serene yet penetrating gaze that created such an impression in the screen-tests.

On a somewhat more frivolous yet poignant note, the story is told of veteran Western actor John Wayne who was cast as the Centurion on duty at the Crucifixion, who had only one significant line: 'Truly this man was the Son of God'. Come the day, the cameras rolled and he delivered the line; the director cut the action and asked Wayne to try again but 'say it with awe'. Lights, camera, action once more ... and out came the line: 'Aw, truly this man ...' (!)