The real historical Jesus

**The Real Historical Jesus**

The real historical Jesus was not the divine figure later fashioned by Gentile Christianity but a man born of two human parents—Joseph and Mary. He entered the world in the ordinary way all humans do and was known simply as Jesus of Nazareth. It was only at the age of thirty, when he was baptized by John in the Jordan, that the Spirit descended upon him, marking the beginning of his public role as prophet. This event, not his birth, was the turning point in his life. As one early source put it, "It was only at his baptism, at thirty years of age, that the Spirit descended upon him and he became a prophet."

His teachings, remembered and treasured by his followers, were preserved orally. The earliest community of believers—known as the **Ebionites**—regarded these Sayings as a sacred deposit to be passed on with fidelity. To them, Jesus was not a pre-existent divine being but a man specially chosen and anointed by the Spirit of God. Indeed, the title *Christ* (Greek *Christos*, meaning "anointed") did not indicate a supernatural identity but a status similar to that of Old Testament figures such as Saul, David, and the prophets. "It is true that Jesus was 'Christ,'" they believed, "but so also would anyone who was anointed with the Holy Spirit like Saul, David and the prophets."

The Ebionites rejected any notion of Jesus being divine or pre-existent. Church historian Epiphanius of Salamis recorded that they saw Jesus as fully human and described him as "the biological son of Joseph and Mary, who, by virtue of his righteousness in perfectly following the letter and spirit of the Law of Moses, was adopted as the son of God to fulfill the Hebrew scriptures." Their Christology was strictly adoptionist, meaning that Jesus became the Son of God not by nature but by divine selection and moral excellence.

In fact, their view of Jesus was deeply rooted in Jewish tradition. They saw him as the prophet foretold in *Deuteronomy 18:15-19*, the one like Moses who would arise from among the people of Israel. In this sense, Jesus was not the fulfillment of a Greco-Roman mystery religion, but the next phase in Israel’s own prophetic heritage. As one scholar notes, "The Ebionites viewed Jesus as a Messiah in the mold of a new 'prophet like Moses'… They believed Jesus came to call all descendants of the Twelve Tribes of Israel who had strayed from the covenant with God… to repent and follow both the Law of Moses and Jesus' own expounding of the Law."

For the Ebionites, Jesus had a mission of national and spiritual reform. He was calling his people back to covenantal faithfulness, not establishing a new religion. His life was a model of obedience to the Torah, and he taught a stricter interpretation of it, emphasizing inner righteousness and ethical purity. There was no contradiction between Jesus and Moses—Jesus was Moses renewed.

Furthermore, according to *Epiphanius*, the Ebionites believed Jesus "proclaimed the abolishment of animal sacrifices," which placed him in direct opposition to the Temple priesthood. He sought to replace the elaborate and corrupt system of temple rituals with a simpler, more ethical religion rooted in mercy and justice. Consequently, he was seen not as a sin-bearing sacrifice but as a prophet-martyr. The Ebionites did not believe that "Jesus suffered and died for the atonement of the sins of Israelites or mankind." Instead, his death was the tragic result of his bold public challenge to the existing religious order and his messianic claim. Jesus was arrested and crucified not to fulfill divine wrath, but because he "was arrested and sentenced to death by crucifixion, both for his messianic claim and his failed attempt at ending the Temple sacrificial system."

The earliest believers did not believe in the pre-existence of Jesus. The idea that Jesus existed in heaven before his birth would have been foreign and blasphemous to the Ebionites, who held firmly to Jewish monotheism. As the Church Fathers repeatedly attest, "The Church Fathers agree that most or all of the Ebionites rejected many of the precepts central to proto-orthodox Christianity, such as Jesus' divinity and pre-existence."

Instead, they awaited a future revelation of the Messiah. Jesus had come once as a prophet, but his role as king and messianic ruler was still to come. As one account puts it: "He was a manifestation of the Messiah… but he had not yet appeared as the Messiah; that would only be at his second coming." The Ebionites believed in a literal future reign of the Messiah on earth, when all nations would be subject to Israel, and a thousand years of peace and justice would follow.

In this light, Paul was seen not as a true apostle, but as an apostate. He taught doctrines utterly alien to the Jesus they had known and revered. "They naturally repudiated Paul and his new doctrine entirely; for them Paul was a deceiver and an apostate from the Law, they even denied that he was a Jew." The Ebionites clung to the Law of Moses and the teachings of Jesus as inseparable. In their eyes, Paul's antinomian gospel—divorced from Torah observance and reliant on a dying-rising savior—was heresy.

In conclusion, the real historical Jesus, as preserved in the memory of the Ebionites, was not a divine being but a righteous man and prophet. He was the anointed one of God in the same sense that many before him had been anointed: by the Spirit, for a mission. He lived and died as a reformer within Israel, calling his people back to God through repentance, mercy, and obedience. His memory was cherished not as that of a god, but of a just man who was willing to die for truth.