Killing Jesus: A History

by Bill O'Reilly

  When the Romans finally breached the city walls, the destruction was total. Those Jews who didn’t escape were put to the sword or enslaved. The Temple itself was burned to the ground, and much of the city was leveled. To this day, it has never been rebuilt.

  Recent excavations have dug down through the rubble to locate some of the actual streets and homes of Jesus’s time, allowing visitors to walk in his footsteps and examine what life was like in Jerusalem. Of note is that the Via Dolorosa4 wasn’t established until centuries later and was not in existence during Jesus’s lifetime.

  The real path that Jesus walked began at Herod’s palace, near what is now the Jaffa Gate. It ends at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which is thought to have been built atop the site of Golgotha and near Jesus’s tomb. Today visitors can not only tour these sites, but also touch the place where the cross of Jesus is said once to have rested.

  * * *

  In A.D. 132, with the city of Jerusalem still not completely rebuilt, there was a second uprising against the Romans known as Bar Kochba. The emperor Hadrian had originally been sympathetic to the Jews, allowing them to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple. But he soon changed his mind, preferring to reinvent the Temple as a splendid pagan complex dedicated to himself and the Roman god Jupiter. Hadrian not only banned the Jews from rebuilding but also began deporting them to Egypt and North Africa. The Jewish rebellion grew to such proportions that Judea became a main focus of the Roman army’s war efforts, with complete legions sent to suppress the revolt. Not only were almost six hundred thousand Jews slaughtered and almost a thousand villages leveled by its end, but worship practices such as reading the Torah, performing circumcisions, and observing Sabbath were outlawed.

  For the next several centuries, the Jews of Judea were routinely persecuted, even as the Roman Empire embraced Christianity starting in the fourth century. In A.D. 637, Muslim forces defeated the Byzantine and predominantly Christian army that occupied Jerusalem. The Muslims later built a mosque on the site of the former Jewish Temple. As long as it remains there, Jewish hopes of rebuilding the Temple on the original site will remain unrealized. The Al-Aqsa Mosque and the nearby shrine known as the Dome of the Rock have stood since 705 and 691, respectively.

  After its destruction by the Romans, Jerusalem became a rundown city. But over the centuries, the Jews have returned, despite several attempts to drive them out. As recently as 1948, the Jordanian army flushed every Jew from the old city, killing all those who would not leave. Finally, at the conclusion of the Six-Day War, on June 10, 1967, more than two thousand years after its destruction by the Romans, all of Jerusalem was once again in Jewish hands.

  It is interesting to note that in many parables, Jesus of Nazareth predicted harsh things for the city of Jerusalem. There is no question those things came true.

  POSTSCRIPT

  Both Martin Dugard and I learned a tremendous amount while researching and writing this book. But one intriguing question and a profound statement of fact stand out. First, the question: Why did thousands of common people seek out Jesus of Nazareth? Most couldn’t even hear him preach, as the vast crowds that surrounded Jesus were too thick for personal interaction. So why did they come? What was Jesus doing that prompted so many people to set aside their daily labor to be near him?

  Christians attribute Jesus’s popularity to his message of love, hope, and truth but also to his miraculous healings. But even nonbelievers must admit that something extraordinary was happening in Galilee.

  Second, there is no doubt that Jesus of Nazareth is the most famous human being the world has ever known. But Jesus had no infrastructure. He had no government behind him. He had no corporation. He and his disciples depended upon the charity of others for food and shelter, and they had no organization other than a dozen faithful followers. In the history of mankind, no one has achieved worldwide fame with no outside resources whatsoever.

  * * *

  Since his death, Jesus has played a continual role throughout history. The legalization of Christianity by the Roman Empire, in A.D. 313, soon led to its expansion into every part of the Western world. Not until the Prophet Muhammad began the Islamic religion in 610 did Christianity have any meaningful competition in terms of numbers of followers. Muhammad considered Jesus a prophet and is quoted in the Quran as saying, “When Jesus came with clear signs, he said: ‘Now I have come to you with wisdom, and in order to make clear to you some of the points on which you dispute. Therefore, fear God and obey me.’”

  In the United States, George Washington used Christianity as a rallying point for his colonial army, saying in his First General Order to his troops, “Every officer and man will endeavor to live and act as becomes a Christian soldier defending the dearest rights and liberties of his country.”

  Abraham Lincoln also referred to Jesus in a wartime setting: “When I went to Gettysburg and looked upon the graves of our dead heroes who had fallen in defense of their country, I then and there consecrated myself to Christ.”

  Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. of course based his entire ministry and civil rights struggle on the teachings of Jesus. Also, his nonviolent philosophy was adapted in part from the ordeal Jesus experienced. About enemies, Dr. King said the following: “Just keep loving them. And by the power of your love they will break down under the load. That’s love, you see. It is redemptive and this is why Jesus says love. There’s something about love that builds up and is creative. There is something about hate that tears down and is destructive. So love your enemies.”1

  President Ronald Reagan picked up on that theme: “He promised there will never be a dark night that does not end. And by dying for us, Jesus showed how far our love should be ready to go—all the way.”2

  * * *

  In the wake of writing Killing Lincoln and Killing Kennedy, Martin Dugard and I were excited to take on this project. But putting together Killing Jesus was exceedingly difficult. We had to separate fact from myth based upon a variety of sources, some of which had their own agendas. But I believe we have brought you an accurate account of not only how Jesus died, but also the way he lived and how his message has affected the world.

  Thanks again for reading our book.

  NOTES

  CHAPTER ONE

  1There were actually two cities named Bethlehem, and both can make a claim for being the true site of the Nativity. The city of King David’s birth is located just a few miles from Jerusalem. Archaeological investigations have shown that it was either a very small village or relatively uninhabited at the time of Jesus’s birth. The second location is in Galilee, four miles from Nazareth. Supporters of that site believe that Mary’s full-term pregnancy would have made it very difficult for her to walk a hundred miles to the other location. Supporters of the traditional site point to the biblical prophecy that Jesus would be born in the City of David, which is the Bethlehem located near Jerusalem. The fact that Mary and Joseph brought Jesus to the temple in Jerusalem eight days after his birth, and then again on the fortieth day, would seem to tip the scales in favor of the traditional site.

  2Genocide was replete throughout the Classical world. “He slits the wombs of pregnant women; he blinds the infants,” goes an ancient Assyrian poem. Genocide often was considered ethically justifiable if the killing was done to inflict revenge or thwart an aggressor.

  3The Jewish homeland was first known as Israel, a “promised land” that God offered to his followers. The northern portion of this kingdom fell in 722 B.C. to the Philistines, while the Babylonians later conquered the southern half. The Roman conquest in 63 B.C. led to the area around Jerusalem being referred to as Judea. The whole region, including Galilee, was administratively part of the Roman province of Syria, and the terms Israel and Palestine were not used in Jesus’s time. Israel was once again put into use when the independent Jewish state was founded on May 14, 1948—almost four thousand years after the first Jews crossed into the Promised Land.

  4In order, the prophecies are Nu
mbers 24:17, Micah 5:2–5, Jeremiah 23:5 and Isaiah 9:7, Psalms 72:10–11, and Isaiah 7:13–14.

  5There are three dominant texts in the Jewish tradition: the Tanakh, the Torah, and the Talmud. The Tanakh constitutes the canonical collection of Jewish Scriptures and appears to have been compiled five hundred years before the birth of Christ. The Tanakh is also known as the Jewish Bible, while Christians refer to it as the Old Testament. The Torah is comprised of the first five books of the Tanakh: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The Talmud was written almost six hundred years later, after the fall of the Temple in A.D. 70. Rabbinical teachings, commentaries, and philosophies were compiled so that they might be passed on in written, rather than oral, form.

  6In 1991, The Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society (volume 32, pages 389–407) noted that Chinese astronomers had observed a long-tailed, slow-moving comet in their skies during March of 5 B.C. This sui-hsing, or “star,” hung in the Capricorn region for more than seventy days. This same comet would have been visible in the skies over Persia, home of the Magi, in the hours just before dawn. Due to the earth’s orbital motion, the comet’s light would have been directly in front of the Magi during their journey—hence, they would have truly followed the star.

  7The month of March coincides with Gospel descriptions of shepherds tending their flocks on the hillside, as this is also lambing season. December 25, which we now celebrate as the date of Jesus’s birth, was chosen and named Christmas—a shortening of Christ’s Mass, or the mass in honor of Jesus’s birth—by the Romans once their empire became Christian in the fourth century. For the Romans, that date was once the conclusion of an orgiastic pagan holiday known as Saturnalia. Once they set aside their more lascivious ways, it made sense to replace that celebration with a day commemorating the birth of their new savior.

  8Anna is referred to as a “prophetess” in the Gospel of Luke. This makes her the only female in the New Testament so honored. This designation meant she saw things that were hidden from ordinary people. This also means that she held a higher calling than Simeon, who is merely praised by the same author as being “righteous and devout.” Luke also mentions the name of Anna’s tribe, that of Asher, which makes her a rarity among New Testament characters.

  9The exact number of years that Jesus lived is widely debated, but the conclusion that he was born sometime in the spring of either 6 or 5 B.C. is based on clear historical evidence, as Herod the Great died in 4 B.C. The date of Jesus’s death was on the fourteenth day of Nisan. The annual start of Passover is dependent upon lunar charts, so his death can be pinpointed to have occurred on a Friday in the years A.D. 27–30. History shows that Jesus was executed when Pilate and Caiaphas both ruled in Judea, which occurred A.D. 26–37, making the date of A.D. 30, and his age at the time of death, logical—though still the subject of great discussion.

  10The most insightful facts, quotes, and stories about Jesus that we know come from the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Many today challenge these writings, but thanks to scholarship and archaeology, there is growing acceptance of their overall historicity and authenticity. Many scholars believe that Matthew was written in Greek by the disciple and former tax collector, sometime between A.D. 50 and 70. Mark was written by John Mark, a close friend of Peter’s who most likely learned of Jesus through the preaching of Peter. Matthew and Mark are incredibly similar, leading many to wonder if Matthew used Mark as a reference—or vice versa. Luke was a friend of Paul, the former Pharisee who became a convert to Christianity and preached even more zealously than the disciples. The Gospel of Luke was written for a Gentile audience, with a theme of salvation at its center. John was written by the disciple, and its focus is evangelism. John’s Gospel is written in Greek, and is long believed to have been the last Gospel written. The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are known as the Synoptic Gospels, due to the many ways in which they agree with one another. All four Gospels together are known as the Canonical Gospels, as they form the essential canon of the Christian faith. John wrote independently of the other Gospel writers, using his unique eyewitness testimony in the same manner as Matthew. If he did, indeed, write his Gospel last, then John would have had the final say on the life of Jesus—not just confirming what the others had written but adding the definitive chronology and sequence of events. The fact that John not only was there at every pivotal moment in Jesus’s ministry, and thus able to describe many scenes with vivid first-person imagery, but was also Jesus’s closest confidant among the disciples (“the disciple whom Jesus loved,” he boasts in John 20:02, in yet another example of the disciples grappling for prestige and power in the eyes of their leader) only adds to the power of his narrative.

  CHAPTER TWO

  1Upon defeating King Pharnaces of Pontus at Munda, Caesar famously stated, “Veni, vidi, vici”—“I came. I saw. I conquered.”

  2Modern-day northwest Turkey.

  CHAPTER THREE

  1Octavian (later known as Caesar Augustus) used the term divi filius as a propaganda tool for most of his lifetime. Tens of millions of coins were issued bearing his image and that title. One silver denarius issued in 38 B.C. even portrayed Julius Caesar in profile, facing the profile of Octavian. Next to Caesar is stamped the name DIVINE JULIUS and next to Octavian, DIVINE SON.

  2Another famous reminder not to be taken alive would come years later, when Rome’s legions lost a decisive battle to the Germanic tribes at the Battle of Teutoburg Forest. Some of the Roman soldiers were forced inside wicker baskets and burned alive, while others were placed on altars and sacrificed to the German gods. The sound of their screams led Roman general Publius Quinctilius Varus to commit suicide. The Germans later severed the head from his body and sent it to Rome for burial. Ironically, Varus’s father was aligned with the conspirators in the plot against Julius Caesar, and he killed himself on the battlefield at Philippi rather than be taken alive. Varus himself was infamous for crucifying two thousand Jews outside Jerusalem to quell the uprisings after the death of Herod the Great.

  3The typical home in Nazareth was a single-family structure of one or two stories, built into the side of a limestone hill. The floors were made of dirt tamped down with ash and clay, while the walls were stones stacked on top of one another. Mud was smeared in the joints to keep out the elements. The roof was flat and made of wood, straw, mud, and lime. A bottom floor was reserved for storage, nighttime animal lodging, and a cooking fire, while the upper floor was for sleeping on thin mattresses stuffed with wool. A ladder led from one floor to the other. There were no indoor bathing or restroom facilities.

  4Actium is located at the modern-day city of Preveza, in western Greece, on the Ionian Sea. There are some who believe that Marc Antony was persuaded to give up his claims to the Roman Empire after ten long years of fighting and to retire to Egypt to be with Cleopatra. His forces had been decimated by malaria, and morale was at rock bottom. This theory holds that the Battle of Actium was designed to conceal his retreat. If this is true, Antony was performing one of the greatest ruses in history, committing some 230 war galleys, several thousand archers, and twenty thousand soldiers to the scheme. The entire battle was conducted at sea, ending before Antony’s infantry could engage Octavian’s onshore. Cleopatra, still clinging to her hope of ruling Rome, was present, but on a separate ship from Marc Antony’s. Before the two lovers could escape, more than five thousand of Marc Antony’s men were killed and almost two hundred ships were captured or sunk.

  5The legend that Cleopatra killed herself by letting a poisonous asp (or, some say, an Egyptian cobra) bite her naked breast is just that, a legend. The blend of opium and hemlock was also the poison used by the great philosopher Socrates to end his life.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  1Deuteronomy 21:22–23: “If a man guilty of a capital offense is put to death and his body is hung on a tree, you must not leave his body on the tree overnight. Be sure to bury him that same day, because anyone who is hung on a tree is u
nder God’s curse.”

  2In Hebrew, “Jew” is Yehudi , which originally meant a resident of Yehuda (Judaea), which contained Jerusalem and the Temple. This later came to mean a member of the religion of Yehuda, as mentioned in some of the later prophets, and all through the scroll of Esther. The Jews came to be called Hebrews , or the Sons of Israel. In Greek and Latin they were Ioudaioi and Iudaei, respectively. In Hebrew they could be Israel or Sons of Israel or Yehudim.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  1Clearly no one understands the statement at the time, but this passage in Luke 2:49 is the beginning of Jesus unfolding the full meaning of “Son of God.” One important note, however, is that the passage includes a Greek literary device written as δεῖ, meaning “it is necessary.” Luke uses this linguistic phrase eight times in a strategic fashion with respect to Jesus. He alludes to a “necessary” relationship with the Father, though no reaction or explanation is given. As the Gospels unfold, the title becomes imbued with greater significance as Jesus’s personal claims of divinity and acts of divinity become pronounced—but even though references are made, the disciples and the people don’t comprehend the magnitude of what he is saying.