The Gospels — the Life of Jesus

After four silent centuries, heaven speaks again — and the entire Bible turns on what follows. The Gospel period covers the life of Jesus of Nazareth: his birth, his public ministry, and supremely his death and resurrection. Four accounts — Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John — tell this one story from complementary angles, presenting Jesus as the long-awaited Messiah, the Son of David, and the Son of God.

The story moves with purpose. Jesus is born in Bethlehem in the last years of Herod the Great; after a hidden early life he is baptized by John and begins a public ministry of perhaps three years, teaching the kingdom of God, working miracles, and gathering disciples in Galilee and Judea. He draws crowds and collides with the religious authorities, redefining what God's people and God's law are truly for. The Gospels then slow almost to a standstill over a single week in Jerusalem: the triumphal entry, the Last Supper, the betrayal, the trial, and the crucifixion — followed, on the third day, by the empty tomb and resurrection appearances that turn frightened followers into bold witnesses.

Dates here are approximate: Jesus was likely born around 6–4 BC (before Herod's death in 4 BC), and the crucifixion is placed at either AD 30 or AD 33, the two leading proposals. We show both rather than asserting one. Theologically this is the hinge of all history. Every promise from Genesis forward — the offspring who would crush the serpent, the seed of Abraham, the Son of David, the new covenant of the prophets — converges on this person. The cross and resurrection are presented not as a tragedy and a sequel but as the planned center of God's plan to rescue the world, the events the rest of the New Testament exists to explain.