This essay about Jesus has shown that, from the beginning of his ministry in first-century Galilee, people have interpreted the significance of what he said and did in various ways. The four canonical Gospels are the primary sources for understanding who Jesus was, but they are not straightforward historical accounts. Rather, they are narrative interpretations that relate Jesus’ message and mission to new historical circumstances for followers. The Enlightenment gave rise to historical criticism and attempts to get behind the text of the Gospels to distinguish the Jesus of history from the faith perspectives of his followers. However, as Schweitzer saw at the turn of the twentieth century, interpretations of the Jesus tradition always reflect the social location of the person who is doing the interpreting. History and interpretation are so intertwined in the Gospels that there continues to be a robust conversation and a diversity of views about the historical reliability of the Gospels and how they are used to construct a portrait of the historical Jesus.
This essay has suggested that a thick and nuanced description of the sociohistorical context of Galilee and Jerusalem in the 30s of the Common Era is needed to provide a framework for deciphering the significance of what Jesus said and did in his own context, and for understanding how the Gospel writers adapted the traditions about Jesus to their contexts after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE. The canonical Gospels represent four similar yet different narrative performances of the story of Jesus. Each has its own rhetorical strategy, designed to shape the identity and practices of a particular community, or perhaps multiple communities. In his Galilean context, Jesus was leading a renewal movement that addressed issues of economic and political oppression, and social and religious marginalization. He went to the capital city of Jerusalem as a prophet to challenge the priestly aristocracy that collaborated with Rome, and was executed as an enemy of the imperial order. The four Gospels all attest that his followers experienced him as alive after the crucifixion and commissioned them to continue the movement, which then spread throughout the Roman Empire. The Gospels were all shaped by the conviction that God had raised Jesus from the dead and inaugurated a new messianic age. Each Gospel narrates what Jesus said and did, and the events of his life, as the basis for a distinctive vision of an inclusive and communal pattern of life that was countercultural and had the power to transform the lives of individuals and the world in which they lived.