Timeline of the Life of Jesus

Hi, this is Matt Baker. Today, I'm going to go through a timeline of the life of Jesus as described in the four canonical gospels. Now, since this is an academic channel and not a faith-based channel, I really want to emphasize that last part: as described in the four canonical gospels. In other words, in this video, I'm not going to be discussing the historicity of any of the events; I'm simply going to be going through the story as the Bible tells it. So, whether you view the gospels as being literal, or whether you view them as being primarily works of literature, either way, this video will help you better understand the overall narrative.

And once again, I'll be using a really old chart—one that was originally created by one of my all-time favorite chart makers, Clarence Larin. Lin was a Baptist Minister who lived from 1850 to 1924. Now, while I do not agree with Larin's religious views, I do greatly appreciate his abilities when it comes to making charts. You see, Larin also worked as a draftsman, and therefore his ability to lay out plans very neatly and succinctly clearly comes through in his creations.

The chart we're going to look at today was initially published by Lin in 1892. However, in 1894, some revisions were made by a Reverend Earl, and he, in turn, published it under the title *Bird's Eye View of the Life of Christ*. It initially came as a fold-out in a book format, and we can see from the cover page that it was supposedly just one book in a series that also included *Bird's Eye View of the Life of Paul* and *Bird's Eye View of Bible History*. However, I scoured the internet and could find no trace of these other titles ever being created. So, my assumption is that he was perhaps being overly optimistic, thinking that he would eventually create more titles, but but then he never did. If you can prove me wrong by finding the other charts, do let me know. But even if all we have from Reverend Earl is this one on the life of Jesus, then I'm still happy because, while I'm not even a Christian, I do really like this chart. In terms of nicely laying out the movements and events in a person's or character's life, I think it does a really good job. It kind of reminds me of this one by the web comic XKCD, showing the movements of the various characters in *Lord of the Rings*.

Now, the reason why I like charts so much is that they often give you an overview of a topic or book in a way that allows you to grasp the main ideas in a relatively short amount of time. Well, today's sponsor, Blinkist, does the exact same thing. Using the Blinkist app, you get access to the main ideas of over 6,500 non-fiction books in less than 30 minutes. You can either read or listen to a book's key ideas—books such as *The Lost Art of Scripture* by Karen Armstrong, which I listed as a source for my "Who Wrote The Bible" series, because it gives an excellent overview of how to better understand not only the Bible but other religious scriptures as well. Blinkist also has *Why Religion* by Elaine Pagels, one of America's leading scholars on early Christianity. I listened to her book while cooking dinner and learned a bit about her life and how she became interested in the Nag Hammadi manuscripts, which, among other things, includes the previously unknown Gospel of Thomas. Blinkist also has podcasts and a new feature called Blinkist Spaces, which allows you to share titles with others, even if they don't have a membership. So, to get 25% off Blinkist annual premium, you can start your 7-day free trial right now by using the QR code on screen or by clicking the link in the description or pin in comment.

Okay, so let me begin by showing you how this chart works. On the left is a map of Palestine as it existed during the first century. Note that the word Palestine here is used in the geographic sense, not a political one, as the Romans did not actually use the term Palestine until the 2nd century, during the time of Jesus. You can see that the area was divided into six sub-regions: Judea, Perea, Samaria, Galilee, Decapolis, and Phoenicia. The colors are important because they correspond with the rest of the chart, which shows Jesus traveling primarily between Judea and Galilee, but also occasionally visiting the other areas as well. So, basically, the vertical axis on the chart represents location, whereas the horizontal axis represents time. A good portion of the gospels focuses on Jesus's last week, which was spent in Jerusalem in Judea, so that that's why there's this large section here, which includes a map of the city of Jerusalem, showing places like The Garden of Gethsemane and Calvary.

Underneath the main chart is a section called Graphic Harmony of the Gospels. This part is quite important, so let me explain. As you probably know, the New Testament contains four gospels, each of which gives an account of the life of Jesus. The first three—Matthew, Mark, and Luke—are called the synoptic Gospels; synoptic meaning "same eye," because they all basically give the same version of events with some minor differences here and there. In contrast, the Gospel of John is very different. It includes lots of material that is not found in the other three and leaves out lots of other material that is. So, for every major event in the life of Jesus, the Graphic Harmony section shows which gospels talk about it. So, for example, the Temptation occurs here; it's mentioned in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, but not in John, which is why we get a purple, blue, and red square underneath it. In contrast, the miracle of turning water into wine shows up in John but not the other three gospels, so that's why there's only a yellow square below it, because yellow represents John. So, if you look across the entire Harmony section for patterns, you'll notice that the yellow (Jn) parts usually occur by themselves, whereas the other parts are usually a mix of purple, blue, and red; the exception being near the end of the story when all four gospels focus on the crucifixion. Now, take note that not everyone agrees on how exactly to harmonize the four gospels; in other words, there is still some room for debate. However, this chart provides one that is fairly well accepted.

So let's now jump into it. The first event is, of course, Jesus's birth; that occurs in Bethlehem, which is in Judea, just south of Jerusalem. So that's why the timeline starts in the orange section. However, after the wise men visit, the family escapes to Egypt, which is why the line dips down to this gray section. But then, at some point, Jesus and his parents move to Nazareth, which is located in Galilee. If we refer again to the map, you can see that Galilee is located to the north of Judea. So here's Bethlehem, here's Jerusalem, and here's Nazareth. Nazareth is where Jesus grows up, which is why he's often referred to as Jesus of Nazareth. Now, the gospels tell us virtually nothing about Jesus's childhood and young adult years. In fact, there's only one story in Luke in which Jesus visits the Jerusalem Temple at age 12. That's why we see the line dip back down to Judea at this point. Also, take note that there are only two colors in the harmony section for Jesus's entire life from birth to around the age of 30. This is because only Matthew (represented by purple) and Luke (represented by red) include anything from his first 30 years. It is only with the baptism of Jesus, around the age of 30, that the Gospel of Mark (represented by blue) begins. This is the first event to occur in Perea, which was the name for the territory on the east side of the Jordan River. The baptism is performed by John the Baptist at a place called Bethabara, which is located here.

Next, according to all three synoptics, Jesus goes into the Judean desert where he is tempted by Satan. This is traditionally said to have occurred near the town of Jericho, so close to where the baptism took place. Now, it's at this point that harmonizing the synoptics with John gets a bit tricky. You see, here John has Jesus recruiting his first first few disciples and then going to Galilee for a wedding where he famously turns water into wine, but then back down to Judea for a Passover, after which he and his disciples start baptizing people in Judea. Altogether, John mentions three separate Passovers and potentially a fourth one, whereas the three synoptics mention only one Passover. On top of this, Matthew, Mark, and Luke make no mention of a ministry in Judea early on; according to them, Jesus recruits his first few disciples and then goes straight into his Galilean ministry. This whole four-Passover versus one is the reason why there's some debate to this day over whether Jesus's ministry lasted 3 and a half years or just one. This chart assumes 3 and a half years, which is what most Christians tend to believe, so I'm just going to run with that, which means that the next major event to point out is the conversation that Jesus had with the Samaritan woman near a well. This is the only major event in Jesus's life that takes place in Samaria and is also sort of the last one before his main ministry really kicks off.

So let's now move up to where that main ministry takes place: in Galilee. This period in Jesus's life lasts approximately one year and is where we find things such as The Sermon on the Mount, Jesus's first parables such as the parable of the sower, and many of his miracles, including healings, the casting out of demons, and the feeding of the 5,000. You can see that most of the events are placed along this line, which represents Capernaum. Capernaum was a fishing village located on the Sea of Galilee, and it kind of served as Jesus's home base for his Galilean ministry. So, while Jesus's hometown was Nazareth, most of his ministry actually took place in Capernaum. Note that it is very close to Bethsaida, which was the hometown of the disciples Peter, Andrew, James, and John. You'll also notice that this part of the chart includes three little loops called circuits. These represent the three occasions when Jesus is said to have preached throughout Galilee and not just near Capernaum. Serving as bookends to this period are also two events concerning John the Baptist. If we move down a bit, we see that at the beginning of this period John the Baptist is imprisoned, and at the end he is put to death. In between, he is held at Machaerus, which was a fortress located in Perea. Also occurring near the end of Jesus's Galilean ministry is the famous story of Jesus walking on water. After that event, he spends some time to the north and east of Galilee. If we refer again to the map, you'll remember that the pinkish block represents Phoenicia and the red block represents the Decapolis. Deca means 10 in Greek, and basically this area consisted of 10 cities that had been founded during the Hellenistic period. The most important event to occur in the Decapolis region, probably on Mount Hermon, is the Transfiguration, which occurs right after Peter declares that Jesus is the Messiah. According to the three synoptics, Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up to the mountain where he then starts to glow white and Moses and Elijah appear standing next to him. Finally, a voice from Heaven says, "This is my son." After this, Jesus starts heading towards Jerusalem, where he will eventually be crucified.

Thus, Jesus's last phase in his ministry occurs in the regions of Perea (shown in purple) and Judea (shown in orange). While he's in Perea, he receives a message saying that his friend Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha from the town of Bethany, is very sick. However, by the time he reaches Bethany in Judea, Lazarus has already died. Here, Jesus performs his greatest miracle to this point: he resurrects Lazarus from the dead, which, from a literary perspective, foreshadows how the larger story about Jesus is going to end. After this, Jesus completes his final circuit around Judea, ending up back in Bethany, from where he then makes his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, riding on the back of a donkey. According to tradition, this event occurs on the Sunday of his final week, and thus today is celebrated as Palm Sunday. So we're now in the section labeled "The Last Week." You'll notice that Jesus basically goes back and forth several times between Jerusalem and Bethany over the next few days until Thursday evening, when he celebrates the Passover with his disciples—an event now known as the Last Supper.

Now, before I point out the crucifixion and resurrection, I do want to make it clear that there are actually several different hypotheses out there when it comes to the exact day on which Jesus died. If you're interested in diving deeper into that topic, I suggest you watch our video "When Did Jesus Die?", which I'll link to in the description. This chart has Jesus being arrested in the early hours of Friday morning, which it labels as April 7th, AD 30. The arrest takes place at the Garden of Gethsemane, located here at the foot of the Mount of Olives. Next, during the dark hours, Jesus is brought before the high priests, the Sanhedrin, Pilate, Herod, and then finally again Pilate, who sentences him to death. By approximately 9:00 a.m., he is crucified at a place called Golgotha, also known as Calvary, most likely located here. He is on the cross for about 6 hours and then dies around 3:00 p.m. After this, he's buried on Friday evening, but then, according to all four gospels, when some women visit his tomb on Sunday, they find it empty. John has Jesus appearing to the 11 remaining disciples in Judea before then having breakfast with them on a beach in Galilee, whereas Matthew has him appearing to them first in Galilee. Finally, Mark and Luke's Acts have him ascending into heaven from the Mount of Olives, back in Judea.

So, once again, whether you are a Christian or whether you are simply approaching the gospels as works of literature, this chart does an excellent job at mapping out the life of Jesus, both in terms of the geography as well as the sequence of events. And lucky for us, because this chart was made around 130 years ago, it's now in the public domain, which means that it can be downloaded for free. So if you want to get a closer look, I'll leave a link to the image in the description. Thanks for watching.