Happy Easter!



*Wishing everyone the best this Easter Sunday.  Just a reminder that if you have some downtime, my interview with 60 Minutes guy Steve Kroft on We'll Do It Live! is available.  Below is a column I wrote last Easter about researching Killing Jesus, and the significance of Jesus the man.

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The Historical Significance of Jesus
*Originally published April 20, 2025

This Easter, a lot of people will be reading the Bible, going to services, and thinking about what happened to Jesus of Nazareth.  But the best source of HISTORY on this is my book, Killing Jesus.  

 

I wrote this book with Martin Dugard, and it was the most difficult book to research in the 'Killing' series because it happened more than 2,000 years ago.  There are two sources of information we used; we didn't take anything out of the gospel because we can't verify. That doesn't mean the gospel is not good, but we went at this from a historical perspective.

 

The first source was the Jewish Archives in Tel Aviv. They kept records of what happened during the Roman occupation of Palestine.  The primary historian was a man named Josephus.  So, Dugard went over, and we got permission from the Israeli government to go into the archives.  For example, we found out that the route that they have in Jerusalem of Jesus's walk to Golgotha isn't really the right route. That route is called the Villa De La Rosa, and it's primarily for tourists.  But it's not the one that he took.

He wasn't killed at three in the afternoon. He was killed at daybreak because the Romans didn't want the people of Jerusalem to see this. They felt that there might be a rebellion.  So, all of this stuff was gleaned from the archives in Israel. Then Italy has records provided by Pontius Pilate, who was the governor of Palestine at the time. Those records went back to Tiberius Caesar, the Roman emperor.  They are still around. Pilate was in trouble after the execution of Jesus because it caused so much turmoil that it got Augustus Caesar's attention. And nobody knows what happened to Pontius Pilate unless you read Killing Jesus.  

He was recalled to Rome.  And he was exiled to Switzerland, which wasn't Switzerland then. It was a cold place full of barbarians.  He's buried there. There's one more aspect. The reason that there was so much information in the Gospels about this was because of the spies. The Jewish Sanhedrin in Jerusalem knew about Jesus, and he threatened them.  Because so many people were following him.  So, they sent spies to follow him around, and the spies reported back to the Pharisees.  The Romans did the same thing, but not together with the Jews. It was big. They hated each other. The Roman Pilate, he sent his own spies.  

The reason they did was that this Nazarene, no money, nothing, was walking around the Holy Land and thousands of people were showing up.  Why? You couldn't hear him. There were no microphones.  You couldn't hear him.  He could stand on a mountain. You could see him. You could be out in a boat in Lake Galilee, Sea of Galilee.  You can see him.  Couldn't hear him.

 

So, why would people who are working for a living eat on a daily basis leave and follow him? The only reason they would do it is because of what the spies reported. That Jesus was healing people. Now, this doesn't come from a medical doctor.  It doesn't come from the apostles.  It comes from the spies. They reported back that Jesus cured the leper and other miracles they called "the works."  Enough people, apparently, according to the spies, saw these works, and word spread. That's why thousands of people showed up.  There's no other explanation because there were 250 messiahs running around the Holy Land at the time Jesus was preaching.  

 

To me, it's not hard to believe in the Nazarene. Not hard at all.  And my family has done that for hundreds and hundreds of years.  And we carry on the tradition.  Have a nice Happy Easter.